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City schools avoid in-person classes

DeWine: ‘Unacceptable’ not returning after vaccines

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown City School District is one of an increasingly smaller number of Ohio districts that remain fully remote for teaching and learning.

Youngstown has not announced a timetable for beginning either a hybrid or a five-day-per-week in-person school schedule.

According to an Ohio Department of Education website, 34 out of 609 public school districts are fully remote.

The state school board backs the importance of in-person learning, and Gov. Mike DeWine said not heading to classrooms after staff vaccinations for COVID-19 is “unacceptable.”

Ohio has 395 districts that have returned to five-day, in-person classes and 180 districts that are hybrid, according to ODE.

Some school districts, including Cleveland and Akron, are on the fully remote list of school districts that have now announced in-person reopening plans.

But Youngstown schools CEO Justin Jennings did not announce a reopening plan during his monthly CEO meeting last week. Jennings said the district is concentrating right no now getting COVID-19 vaccinations to those employees who want to receive them.

“We don’t know when it’s (returning to full-time classes) going to be, but we’re going to focus on just getting everybody vaccinated and continue to keep people healthy,” Jennings said.

More than 800 employees received their first shot. The second dose of the Moderna vaccine is scheduled to take place 28 days after their first shots.

DeWine ordered school districts to submit plans to the state by April 1 that will outline how their districts will begin bringing students to grade level. The plans are to outline whether the districts will increase instruction time during the school year, increase the school year, or establish a summer school program.

DeWine implied that he would cut off vaccinations if schools don’t return by March 1. However, some schools like Youngstown already have received the vaccine for their teachers and staff. “We’ll have to see what else we can do,” DeWine said.

Ohio is in the middle of vaccinating its 334,000 school teachers and staff as part of DeWine’s goa1.

The Ohio Board of Education has approved a resolution re-affirming the importance of an in-person, nonhybrid learning option for children of all families who desire it. The state board also urges local school boards to implement solutions to protect teachers and staff who are at high-risk and to provide for those families who continue to desire a remote learning option for their children.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Chad Aldis, a vice president of Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which focuses on education policies, argues a recent study by Vladimir Kogan and Stephanie Lavertu states overall results from the Third Grade English Language Arts Assessment show the ELA scores were lower by a third in the fall of 2020 when compared to the fall of 2019. The lower results were more significant for black students and low-income students, whose third-grade reading assessments were 50 percent lower in 2020 compared to 2019.

The report indicates that school closures were only part of the reason for the decline in reading comprehension on the third-grade assessment.

In addition to the challenge of adjusting to new and unfamiliar modes of instruction, some children also had loved ones fall seriously ill, and others had family members lose employment, according to the report.

Although the results only looked at third-grade assessments done in 2019 and 2020, Aldis said there has been a noticeable effect on some students because they have not been in school settings with face-to-face interactions with teachers.

“It is not the fault of the teachers,” Aldis said. “It is the situation. We cannot look backwards. It is what we do going forward … For some students, there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction with their teachers.”

Aldis described the institute being pleased that DeWine ordered school districts to submit plans to the state that will outline how districts will start bringing students to grade level.

“This is exactly the right move. We need to help students make up some of the time.”

The Fordham Institute has offices in Columbus, Dayton and in Washington ,D.C. It is a conservative-leaning think tank and advocacy group.

OPTIONS FOR STUDENTS

Aldis said he understands risks are being taken in returning to in-person school. The group, however, advocates in-person learning should be available to all students who want that option.

“We want what is best for students,” Aldis said. “Those students that do not feel comfortable should have the option to continue to be taught remotely. They should have options.”

Youngstown schools spokeswoman Denise Dick said district officials know the pandemic and all of the changes, adjustments and shifts it has required have affected its students, as well as students across the state and the country.

“We are developing a plan to address the needs of scholars that may have fallen behind,” she said. “We are working to determine the best avenues to help and support our scholars.”

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