From FHI360:
"As schools across the U.S. struggle to recover learning loss due to COVID-19, one school we work with is using a data-driven approach that is helping students make up lost ground.
For the past seven years, we have partnered with GHR Foundation to help a network of high-needs K-8 Catholic schools in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area strengthen their capacity to track, store, and use math and reading assessment data to inform instruction and assess gaps. These schools face many of the same pandemic-related learning challenges as public schools have.
Recently, we have focused on analyzing annual assessment data to help measure COVID-19 learning loss. We maintain online data dashboards and provide annual reports for each school to summarize data on overall student proficiency and growth. We look for signs of learning recovery across student groups by disaggregating data by subject/content area, grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and by examining trends before and after the pandemic started.
We found that math proficiency at the network schools overall continued to decline since the pandemic began. However, at one school, St. Pascal Regional Catholic School, students demonstrated a remarkable recovery in math. While math scores at the school fell 12 percentage points between fall 2019 and fall 2020 – in line with the trends in math scores at other network schools – scores rose 15 percentage points in fall 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels.
St. Pascal Regional’s principal, Inna Collier Paske, cites the school’s implementation of individualized learning plans (ILPs) for the improvement. Having started implementing ILPs the year prior to the pandemic, St Pascal Regional is unique amongst their peers in both implementation and intensity of their ILPs. For the past four years they have continually reviewed and revised their approach to reflect their needs and priorities, expanded ILPs to include additional subjects, and incorporated social emotional learning goals alongside academic ones. At strategic points throughout each year ILPs provide a snapshot of each student’s gaps and strengths that teachers can use to plan instruction and support that will help their students thrive.
We visited the school in 2023 to learn more about its approach. We conducted nine interviews with school administrators (2), teachers (4), and caregivers (3); observed the kindergarten, second, and fourth grade classrooms during math and literacy instruction; and participated in a guided tour of the school. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and we reviewed transcripts and observational notes to identify generalizable themes from our visit. Collier Paske and GHR reviewed these themes for validation."
Read the full case study here.
"As schools across the U.S. struggle to recover learning loss due to COVID-19, one school we work with is using a data-driven approach that is helping students make up lost ground.
For the past seven years, we have partnered with GHR Foundation to help a network of high-needs K-8 Catholic schools in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area strengthen their capacity to track, store, and use math and reading assessment data to inform instruction and assess gaps. These schools face many of the same pandemic-related learning challenges as public schools have.
Recently, we have focused on analyzing annual assessment data to help measure COVID-19 learning loss. We maintain online data dashboards and provide annual reports for each school to summarize data on overall student proficiency and growth. We look for signs of learning recovery across student groups by disaggregating data by subject/content area, grade level, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and by examining trends before and after the pandemic started.
We found that math proficiency at the network schools overall continued to decline since the pandemic began. However, at one school, St. Pascal Regional Catholic School, students demonstrated a remarkable recovery in math. While math scores at the school fell 12 percentage points between fall 2019 and fall 2020 – in line with the trends in math scores at other network schools – scores rose 15 percentage points in fall 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels.
St. Pascal Regional’s principal, Inna Collier Paske, cites the school’s implementation of individualized learning plans (ILPs) for the improvement. Having started implementing ILPs the year prior to the pandemic, St Pascal Regional is unique amongst their peers in both implementation and intensity of their ILPs. For the past four years they have continually reviewed and revised their approach to reflect their needs and priorities, expanded ILPs to include additional subjects, and incorporated social emotional learning goals alongside academic ones. At strategic points throughout each year ILPs provide a snapshot of each student’s gaps and strengths that teachers can use to plan instruction and support that will help their students thrive.
We visited the school in 2023 to learn more about its approach. We conducted nine interviews with school administrators (2), teachers (4), and caregivers (3); observed the kindergarten, second, and fourth grade classrooms during math and literacy instruction; and participated in a guided tour of the school. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and we reviewed transcripts and observational notes to identify generalizable themes from our visit. Collier Paske and GHR reviewed these themes for validation."
Read the full case study here.