WICHITA, Kansas — One thing the world learned during the pandemic is that school kids lose pace when Zoom replaces the classroom.
“There has been some academic slide,” said Andi Giesen, assistant superintendent for learning services at the Wichita district. “On a previous trajectory, we would have expected students to be maybe a little farther along with their learning.”
Enter summer school.
In the past, a relatively small fraction of students needed to spend the dog days catching up with their classmates. Come fall 2021, a far larger number of students across Kansas will enter their next grade without the skills they should have picked up last year.
Consequently, a record number of Kansas kids plan to attend summer school.
But even more schoolchildren who need to catch up won’t go. Many students, families and teachers say they need a break after a crazy year of pandemic starts and stops, and they bowed out of summer school.
“It’s been a really incredibly hard year,” said Kari Ritter, a Topeka teacher and coordinator of the district’s summer programs. “I think parents are ready to give their children a break. We’re definitely seeing that.”
Learning loss
Not long after Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly sent kids home from school more than a year ago, educators and politicians started talking about learning loss.
Congress approved three COVID-19 relief packages that will send about $130 billion directly to K-12 schools — money districts can spend to reopen safely and help kids who have fallen behind. Kansas will get about $1.3 billion over three years.
Still, significant numbers of families weary from tending school-age children during a year-plus pandemic don’t appear eager to rush to school this summer. It’s been a really incredibly hard year. I think parents are ready to give their children a break. We’re definitely seeing that.Kari Ritter, Topeka teacher and coordinator of the district’s summer programs
“We’re really looking forward to just . . . having a good time this summer,” said Emily Millspaugh, a mother of two who also teaches pre-kindergarten in Maize. “All of our kids, their bodies are craving interaction and movement and exploration that maybe they haven’t gotten to do this school year.”
Millspaugh didn’t consider enrolling her daughters, Murphy and Wren, in any kind of structured school program this summer. Now that she and her husband are vaccinated, they’re taking a beach trip that got canceled last year. The family got a new labradoodle puppy, Ollie, and plans to just relax and play.
“We’re looking forward to kind of making up for lost time,” Millspaugh said. “And really having the opportunity to say, ‘Yes, let’s do these things,’ when we’ve had to say ‘no’ for so long.”
