Where schools stand 5 years since COVID’s start
On the fifth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down schools, students can walk through halls with their friends, participate in hands-on learning activities and talk to their teachers in person — a far cry from 2020s learning experience.
The aftermath of the pandemic has impacted schools in a wide range of ways, but it may take time to understand the full effects.
Amid the pandemic’s lingering impact, multiple superintendents note how their students, especially younger ones, have been very resilient throughout the ordeal. They’ve had to rely on self-learning and less on direct instruction, due to remote classes, which may have contributed to learning gaps. They had to go to classes without being with their friends.
A kindergarten student during the COVID-19 outbreak would now be in fifth grade. Their school experience, in some instances, may still be affected by the decisions and policies of the pandemic.
“At the school entry age, when you think about your formative years, a 5-year-old coming into the school, generally is coming from a preschool environment. It might be a public preschool, it might be private, or run by a church, some don’t have that experience,” said Eric Ritzert, superintendent at Karns City Area School District. “But at 5, you’re coming into kindergarten during an important time in your development, not having that when the year COVID hit, operating somewhat virtually, I think was even harder on the younger students, because they missed that opportunity to see how to work together.”
Tony Babusci, principal at Ryan Gloyer Middle School, emphasized the reality we live in cannot be changed, and adjusting to current circumstances is important.
“This is where we are, whether it’s behavior or academics, whether it’s socially, this is where we are, so let’s build programming to support that,” Babusci said.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that during the height of the pandemic, there was a clear national drop-off in reading and math skills, the largest of such drops in decades.
But for local school districts, it may be hard to measure the exact impact. At Seneca Valley, superintendent Tracy Vitale said there are different ways the schools can analyze how they remain affected by the pandemic.
This includes measures she calls quantitative — numerical answers such as test scores — and qualitative — such as anecdotal factors, such as social and emotional issues students face. She emphasized that measuring something like learning loss is quite complex.
“Testing is all over the board. And so to make these large-scale, what I see some of the larger school districts, they’re taking quantitative data, and they’re just trying to analyze numbers and decide, where are they now. And I think that’s an important viewpoint,” Vitale said. “But I’ve also learned, and I have found, that it’s important to look at testing at all of these ways.”
Vitale said while there are many interesting pieces of data to look at, such as test scores pre- and post-pandemic, it is probably still too early to make certain comparisons.
When asked about the pandemic’s impact, some superintendents spoke less about the impact on “learning” and more about other areas of the student experience that have been shaped by the pandemic five years onward.
For instance, Knoch School District has put significant focus on aiding the emotional and mental well-being of its students post-pandemic. Superintendent David Foley said funding has gone toward hiring social workers that have made a positive impact working with students and upholding a positive environment.
Foley said when students were out, many faced feelings of isolation being at home without classmates. Students have clearly been excited to be back after the pandemic, and it may not have been only about sitting in front of the teacher and doing physical schoolwork. Social interaction with peers and things of that nature were missed, he said.
Specifically, a social worker on the district’s payroll works with students throughout the day, connecting parents with outside sources supporting students when they are dealing with anxiety, social issues or anything getting in the way of learning.
There’s also an additional mental health worker who Foley said has done a tremendous job working with students who may need a little extra support. This includes helping students who are coming back from alternative placement outside the school district; or trying to get them on the right track with educational, behavioral and mental health issues.
“They’ve done a great job collaborating with school counselors (and) creating a welcoming environment, connecting parents and families that need additional help,” Foley said.
On the other hand, Brian White, Butler Area School District’s superintendent, said he thinks chronic absenteeism is one of the big long-term impacts schools everywhere still are experiencing. White cited a study from the New York Times showing a large increase in student absences through 2023.
The study shows chronic absenteeism remained nearly double pre-pandemic levels, with 25% of students missing at least 10% of school days.
Previously, White has lauded Butler’s increasing graduation rate, a sign of continued recovery from the pandemic’s negative impacts. At the school board’s March 10 meeting, White said the 2024-25 graduation rate would increase by more than 4% to reach around 88%, a return to pre-pandemic levels.
By now, things such as team sports, club activities and academic competitions are back to their normal schedules. Superintendents have emphasized these types of teams and classes are vital to skills such as communication and deeper learning that doesn’t always happen in the classroom. Places like the band, the chorus and science labs are where students get hands-on experience, Vitale said.
What every superintendent has indicated is students being in-person, socializing with each other, is beneficial to the learning prospect, even though it may go overlooked. For superintendents like Ritzert, this is a main benefit of returning to pre-pandemic operations at schools.
“The socializing that occurs with adolescents being able to meet in-person, I do think that was clearly negatively impacted, and even probably, in my opinion, more so than the academics,” Ritzert said. “Learning is a social experience, not that you can’t learn in isolation, but it’s hard to apply what you’ve learned if you’re not working with other people.”
“As we did during the pandemic period, we continue to stress the importance of in-person learning,” said Alfonso Angelucci, superintendent of Slippery Rock Area School District. “Although we had to facilitate instruction remotely for stretches of time during the pandemic period, we still got students back in school as soon as state mandates were lifted.”
In the 2020-21 school year, the district had 145 days of in-person instruction, he recalled.
Angelucci noted that for Slippery Rock, the ability to have remote and online learning can continue to be a positive development. During the pandemic, online meetings for parents were a glimmer of positivity in an otherwise very grim time period. Many parents are able to attend teacher conferences and special education meetings more conveniently now, which oftentimes allows them to remain in their workplace without having to miss a day of work, he said.
There are numerous benefits to including virtual learning to a school’s operations. Ritzert said one of these is simply utilizing remote learning for days that normally would be canceled for weather.
However, the flexibility provides other unique opportunities. Ritzert said virtual learning has helped his district turn toward efforts to have “customized learning” for students. His district has dual-enrollment agreements with local colleges, allowing students to take college-level courses. Both the high school and the college having remote learning capabilities makes this easier, even if they can’t drive to somewhere like Butler County Community College.
“As a school system, we’ve become more in tune and embracing of virtual learning. And not that it replaces in-person … but using that as a tool, we’ve utilized that for days in which instead of canceling school for weather conditions, we’ve used remote learning to continue moving forward,” Ritzert said.
Babusci said he has wanted to move from a mindset where we are not constantly reflecting on the COVID era and how it has impacted us, but one where we go beyond accepting our current reality and building on that.
Finding students where they are, and identifying what the district needs to offer for them — whether its been a long-term need or something new following the pandemic — is a way of being proactive post-COVID, he said.
“We’re in it every day,” Babusci said.
Superintendents admit it is difficult to measure the long-term effects of the pandemic on students academically and socially. They are largely just glad students can learn in person, following a period of time that featured so many unknowns.
“I think people were making the best decisions they could based on information they had,” Ritzert said. “people need to understand that it takes a high degree of patience, because on a good day, it’s difficult in this capacity to please everyone, maybe impossible.
“So when you’re facing challenges that are hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime event, there are unknowns, and it does take time.”
