Student Union
Saturday Classes? Schools Mull Ways to Make Up Lost Time
When students return to school after a lengthy pandemic-induced absence, the consensus is they will have lost significant academic ground. Still unresolved for governments and educators are the questions of how — or even whether — teachers should try to make up for lost learning.
Some have proposed holding evening or Saturday classes for students to catch up. A Maryland senator has proposed school year-round. In California, the governor has suggested the next school year could begin as soon as July.
But any remediation plans will be complicated by social distancing mandates that may require smaller class sizes and budget cuts that appear imminent because of falling local and state revenues. In surveys, many educators say the fall will be no time to pile on additional schoolwork.
"First and foremost, we need to recognize that we have young people in front of us who have gone through a traumatic experience," said Andres Perez, a Chula Vista, California, high school teacher who warns against moving too fast to get back on track. "And right now, I think students and teachers really want to make school something that feels meaningful, that students are excited to go back to."
Even students in schools that managed to issue devices for video lessons and assignments and transition to distance learning early on, using school-issued devices for video lessons and assignments, will have lost out from shortened sessions and limited interaction with teachers, experts say. The vast number of students still without technology in early May and those who have all but vanished from schools' radars will have fallen even further behind.
The effects of the lost learning could be felt for years.
"Even though we were closed for the last two-and-a-half months of school, it will take us literally — don't fall out of your seat — it'll take us a couple or three years to get through this," Alabama Education Superintendent Eric Mackey told the Alabama Association of School Boards.
The "summer slide" in which students typically lose some ground during their break is expected to be far worse next fall, with projections by the nonprofit Northwest Evaluation Association suggesting some students could be as much as a year behind in math.
"Students with worse educational opportunity will have worse outcomes and it occurs fairly rapidly," Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. "A month away can have a dramatic impact on outcomes, so six months will certainly show up in the classroom in the fall."
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said she hopes schools will test students in the fall to gauge where they are academically, particularly because this spring's standardized tests that might have provided a barometer were canceled.
To catch up, most teachers favor a business-as-usual approach, starting the next school year where they normally would, while giving targeted help to students who need it, according to an April survey of 5,500 teachers, administrators and advocates by the nonprofit Collaborative for Student Success. Administrators lean toward beginning the new year with April concepts, given where classroom instruction abruptly ended in the current one.
"Teachers always deal with this to some degree in their classrooms. There's always going to be a disparity between kids and their levels of ability and skills," said Jim Cowen, executive director of the Collaborative for Student Success. "There will obviously be an additional barrier but it's not new to them."
Still, Cowen said, it's important that schools are ready to respond to the disruption likely worsening the country's already troubling gaps in achievement affecting students from minority and low-income families.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said "that learning loss is very real," suggesting schoolchildren not wait for fall and instead proposing a return to classrooms as soon as late July. The California Federation of Teachers, while praising Newsom's overall response to the crisis, said in a statement the decision to reopen schools should be made at the local level through collective bargaining with unions, once the number of infections has declined and testing and safety measures are in place.
In Maryland, state Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat and chair of the state's Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, wants his state to consider year-round school comprising four quarters and seasonal breaks.
Adam Mendelson, a spokesman for the 74,000-member Maryland State Education Association teachers union, said the idea "clearly has major legislative, budgetary, and other legal angles that would all need to be considered, analyzed, and addressed as part of an inclusive policy conversation about what is best for our students."
Officials in Cleveland, Ohio, have said the "multi-year recovery" may include a shift toward a narrower but deeper curriculum focused on core skills. A spokeswoman for South Dakota's Department of Education, Mary Stadick Smith, says local school boards may be considering the Saturday class proposal.
Superintendent Shari Camhi of the Baldwin Union Free School District in New York's Nassau County said her focus is on retrofitting the gymnasium and renting party tents to allow for social distancing. She is awaiting guidance from state officials on whether her district can plan differently for older and younger students. That would allow for a blend of in-person and online classes for students old enough to be at home if their parents are working.
"For those students who saw a loss, we will meet them where they are and work with them and get them to where they need to be," she said.
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Pro-Palestinian protests in US could impact 2024 election
Despite the fact that many of their encampments at university campuses have been dismantled, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the United States are standing their ground. If the protests continue, some analysts say they could have an impact on the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
- By VOA News
Pro-Palestinian protest ends quietly at University of Southern California
Pro-Palestinian protesters at an encampment at the University of Southern California, one of the focal points of anti-Israel protests across U.S. college campuses, left the scene early Sunday after authorities warned them that they could be arrested.
Their departure came after university safety officers and Los Angeles police began clearing the center of campus, where police had arrested 93 people on April 24.
"If you are in the center of campus, please leave,” the university warned the protesters on the social media platform X, saying they could be arrested if they stayed.
Elsewhere, pro-Palestinian protests continued at several college graduation ceremonies on Saturday.
At the University of Virginia, 25 people were arrested for trespassing after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from the campus.
At the University of Michigan, demonstrators chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during graduation ceremonies. More protests occurred at Indiana University, Ohio State University, Princeton University in New Jersey and Northeastern University in Massachusetts.
- By VOA News
Amid internship pressure, international students should focus on self-care
That’s the argument of Edhita Singhal, an international student from India studying at the University of Southern California.
Despite the fear of not finding a good internship, it’s important to relax and take care of yourself, she writes in her biweekly column for campus newspaper The Daily Trojan. (April 2024)
- By Tina Trinh
Columbia students on edge as police presence remains on campus after raid to clear protesters
Police remain on Columbia University’s campus, even after clearing out student protesters and their encampment. But questions remain about how the university and the students move forward. Tina Trinh reports from New York.
Columbia University student journalists had an up-close view for days of drama
Student journalists on the Columbia University campus knew what was coming long before police with riot shields arrived to begin arresting the pro-Palestinian protesters.
They had watched the situation spiral as the protesters stood their ground, refusing to abandon Hamilton Hall and using a pulley system to bring supplies into the building they had occupied.
The reporters, working for university and online U.S. and international publications, suspected negotiations with administrators were going nowhere when the protesters began donning COVID-era masks to hide their identities. Some began sleeping on the floor in journalism classrooms or offices out of fear of missing something.
But when a journalism professor began writing the phone number to call if they were arrested in permanent marker on their arms, that was the moment it became clear: They were capturing history.
The police operation Tuesday night that cleared out Hamilton Hall capped two weeks of drama over the protests at Columbia, which student journalists at the Ivy League school lived through as they were covering it.
Other media were being kept off campus, so these reporters were the only ones who could capture what was happening.
"I just woke up and I was like, I'm going to go and take some pictures," said Seyma Bayram, a Columbia journalism fellow focused on creating a longform investigative podcast unrelated to the protests.
The encampments were a visual feast. There were musical performances, students reading and helping each other write papers for their classes. She wanted to document it all.
By Monday, students were facing suspension if they didn't leave. Crowds marched around the encampment chanting. Students were given written notices from the administration, warning them to go. They ripped them up, dumped them in trash bins. Rumors were flying.
That night, Bayram was unwilling to go home, sleeping on her office floor.
"How," she wondered, "are they going to remove the students. They're not leaving."
By Tuesday, she was exhausted. The student reporters charged their cameras and other gear and waited.
Many protesters were starting to leave, recalled Shayeza Walid, a graduate journalism student at Columbia, who covered the arrests for the news website Al-Monitor.
The sun was setting as they held hands and chanted, knowing they faced academic repercussions by remaining. Many had given up covering their faces by now, Walid said.
To her, the chants sounded like a hymn and she saw the protesters, some clad in Palestinian keffiyehs, crying. She doubts she will ever forget it.
"It felt so both inspirational and devastating because these were the kids who were willing to get arrested," she recalled.
And then police started assembling outside, setting up barricades. Even on campus, Bayram could tell by the photos posted on social media that police action was imminent. And then the police were there.
"I don't know, it was just like all of a sudden there were just like police, ... riot gear everywhere," Bayram said.
The student journalists were walking backward, filming as they went, Bayram said.
She was pushed off campus. Police buses and officers were everywhere. Around her, people were being arrested.
"Those of us who are pushed out, like student reporters and faculty, I think we were just all horrified that no press was present outside of, or inside of, Hamilton Hall," Bayram said.
Walid recalled that the reporters paired up for safety. Her partner, an international student, had never seen so many police in one place. "And frankly, I hadn't either," Walid said.
She said the police also seemed shocked when they came into campus and saw how few students were left. "It was very evidently disproportionate from where we were standing," she said.
Before the arrests, protesters inside the campus used a megaphone to lead those protesting outside in chants, recalled Cecilia Blotto, a graduate journalism student, who has been publishing photos and video to Uptown Radio, a project of the university's journalism program.
"Columbia, you are a liar," she recalled them chanting, along with "Disclose, divest! We will not stop, we will not rest."
Then Blotto saw police buses pull up, officers exiting with shields and zip ties. Then they played a recording saying that if the protesters didn't disperse they would be arrested.
"People were like being dragged out on the street, with like four cops holding a leg and an arm each. I saw some really, like, striking images of people, like, yelling shame at the cops, while they were dragging out students," Blotto said. She tried to film it all.
Emily Byrski, a graduate student who had a phone number written on her arm in case she was arrested, said the students weren't totally unprepared. There had been a training session.
Still, she said, there had been so many false alerts.
"It's like the boy who cried wolf. Like, there were two or three nights here where we were told, there was a rumor going around that the NYPD was coming, please come to campus," she recalled.
Byrski had knee surgery earlier in the year, so was unable to run as police descended. She limped along with her buddy.
"So we're sort of seeing this all happen from inside and trying to document it as the NYPD is grabbing people, like shoving them to the ground. It was pretty horrifying to see, like, right a foot away from me," Byrski said.
She said she has seen professors cry over the last week. She is pondering it all, uncertain what to make of it.
"I'm just sort of in shock," Byrski said. "I think we all kind of were in shock."
