As school districts across the country begin to return to normalcy, The Washington Post spent time at Lewis-Palmer School District 38 to examine one district’s response to COVID-19 and how it impacted student achievement.
The story, penned by Perry Stein, zooms in on student activities and student learning in the 2020-2021 school year, compared to other districts across the nation.
An excerpt from the story:
Debate continues over which approach was the right one, and the circumstances in homogenous suburban districts differ from those in big cities. But the experience of systems like Lewis-Palmer offers evidence for those who say schools could have avoided some of the prolonged closures — and the serious academic and social impacts that came from them.
“We didn’t just exist through the pandemic,” said Mark Belcher, director of communications for the school district. “We made progress through the pandemic.”
The school district supported many early decisions with a July 2020 academic study that found that children under 10 didn’t transmit the virus at high rates, according to Superintendent K.C. Somers. The superintendent also saw early evidence emerging from Europe that showed it was possible to reopen schools with relatively few outbreaks.