The COVID 19 Pandemic has thrown the learning curve out of kilter for many school districts in Wisconsin and Manitowoc is no exception.
Manitowoc Public Schools Superintendent Mark Holzman admits that once the pandemic first hit last March everyone was adjusting on the fly, trying to adjust to the new normal of virtual learning.
As a result-the learning platform was changed to a Pass-Incomplete.
“We’ve limited the number of failures that we had,” Holzman told Seehafer News. “It didn’t mean that kids weren’t successful. Believe me, there were plenty of kids that weren’t successful in that model. They didn’t get “F’s” they got incompletes. Our teachers did a great job on identifying “essential learnings” that students needed to be able to have.”
They then focused and earmarked those essential learnings to what students needed to show or indicate in order to remove their incompletes as if they’ve been attending and not getting their work done.
”We continue to look for students who have incomplete,” Holzman said. “We’ve adjusted our schedule a bit at Lincoln to support one period per day who need to complete extra work. The support staff will be in the buildings between now and the end of the year.”
Holzman says springtime is always a concern for high school teachers and administrators addressing some students possibly not earning the 24 credits needed to graduate. Part of that comes from students disengaging at some time during the virtual learning cycle.
Holzman said that students are likely to attend all their classes and get into a routine when attending school in person whereas if I’m at home it’s easier to be distracted and get off course. “If I was a 15-year-old I probably would have had my share of distractions as well.”
With that said about 12 percent of students in the District remain in the virtual learning model since full-time in-person learning returned onMarch 8th.
The MPSD Superintendent emphasized that students cope differently and just are more productive in certain learning models adding “This issue is more exaggerated because of the number of students who’ve been in a different learning environment that they are used to and we’re doing everything we can to support them because we want kids to graduate from High School.”
