In Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere across the country, more students are failing classes this fall. It’s a worrisome trend, as research has shown that even failing one core class can reduce a student’s chances of graduating high school.
Students whose grades are lowest, teachers say, are both the students who stopped coming to class entirely and those who have simply fallen very far behind. In either case, teachers are scrambling to figure out what to do about the many missing assignments.
This spring, when school was first interrupted by the pandemic, many school districts adopted pass/fail policies, or input grades only if they brought up a student’s average. But this fall, many districts returned to typical grading policies in an effort to project normalcy and encourage students to remain engaged.
In a virtual setting, teachers also don’t always have good information about why a student isn’t coming to class or normal ways to intervene.
“It is hard for students who need independent help,” said Heather Worley, a high school teacher in Chicago, where students are only allowed to meet remotely one-on-one with teachers with parent permission. “Everything I understand about how to stop a kid from failing involves being present with them. You can pull them out into the hallway. You can say: ‘Hey, come here, you’re staying with me for lunch, go get a sandwich, come back, we’re going to do this until we get it right.’
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