By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
It has taken longer than expected to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in the classroom.
That likely is no better illustrated than during the news conference in which St. Joseph School Superintendent, Ashly McGinnis, disclosed the St. Joseph School District scored 74.7% on the state Annual Performance Report.
“We haven’t been above 70% since COVID,” McGinnis stated during the news conference at the St. Joseph School District offices.
McGinnis said recovery from the pandemic hasn’t come as soon as she would have liked or as soon as she anticipated.
“I think we didn’t anticipate the recovery time well,” McGinnis said in answer to a question about what impact the pandemic had on the district. “I was at Lafayette High School during that time and an assistant principal said it takes about four years to recover from a pandemic and I think he was right.”
McGinnis said only a few students thrived in the digital classroom created by the St. Joseph School District during the pandemic. She said most students must have a good classroom teacher in front of them to truly succeed in school.
McGinnis said the APR score indicates St. Joseph students are finally throwing off the bad habits that hurt their progress during as well as immediately after the pandemic.
“It has taken a very long time to get rid of some bad habits we created during COVID,” according to McGinnis. “Everything was shut down so we relied heavily on devices and education through different platforms, virtually. And that just wasn’t best for most of our kids.”
A key to recovery, according to McGinnis, was dealing with those bad habits bred by the pandemic.
“Breaking some of those bad habits has been a challenge for us as a district,” McGinnis said, quickly adding it was a problem experienced by other school districts as well. “Just getting back into that sense of coming to school every day, having that high-quality teacher in front of you.”
Perhaps, the school district and its students are finally emerging from the harmful impact of the pandemic.
“So, to me, this 74.7% is a sign that we are finally overcoming that barrier that we all had during COVID.” McGinnis added perhaps the biggest illustration of the lingering negative effect of the pandemic is the attendance rate. She said the St. Joseph School District still has work to do on student attendance.
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