As the world moves away from the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, the impact a pandemic-fueled, virtual-learning education is becoming more of a reality not just on students in the Texas Panhandle, but the entire state.
“House Bill 4545 was a good law, with good intentions,” Pampa Independent School District Superintendent Hugh Piatt said. “It’s this idea that we’ve lost instruction time and our students are behind in areas because of Covid. That’s a reality.
“So the bill encourages and mandates providing accelerated instruction to students and catch them up to grade level. It’s a good thing, I don’t think anybody would argue those intentions. But the details, which includes 105-questioned FAQ, has some confusion.”
The bill requires that any student, third through eighth grade or in regards to all four of the end-of-course exams in high school, that fails any one of the exams has to complete 30 hours of accelerated instruction.
“If a student (i.e. at the eighth grade level) were to fail all four exams, that’s a 120 hours of accelerated instruction,” Piatt said. “And HB4545 says it has to be in a group of 3-1 ratio of students to teacher.”
While there are companies that offer tutoring to ease the ratio requirement (at an expensive rate), it creates a problem for school districts but the state encourages them to “be creative in their master scheduling.”
“The elementaries, junior high and high school all did modified schedules to include some form of accelerated time during the day,” Piatt said. “At the high school we created a 30-minute accelerated learning period, with all kids in it whether they needed or not. The kids that needed it then worked on a computer program in the class with the teacher working in small groups.
“There is a provision in the law that allows parents to opt out of the 3-1 ratio, to allow for it in larger groups.”
After school and weekend learning is not permitted under the Bill, but there is still after-school tutoring and Saturday school available for those students who need it.
“Anytime we get kids to come up after-school or to Saturday school, it’s a good thing,” Piatt said. “The more hours they can spend learning is a good thing.”
The fifth graders in 2021-22 school year were the ones that were third graders in 2020 when school didn’t go back in-person after spring break. Same goes for some of the high schoolers who were in junior high during the same period.
“It most definitely is (why the State passed this bill),” Piatt said. “These kids missed school and got behind. Covid was hard on America not just for the academic portion (of education) but for the socio-emotional portion.
“Our kids stayed home, got used to staying home and didn’t want to go back to school. Our ADA (Average Daily Attendance) is at around 89 percent when normally we are normally at 94-95 percent.”
The District hired more counselors and brought more resources in place as a result of the attendance issues.
Overall, Piatt said he doesn’t fault the law and the District is always looking for new ways to help the students be more successful
“I don’t fault the law, I really don’t. The hard part is the 3-1 ratio and changing the master schedule. Those are challenges. But I feel like we’ve done a lot of things to help kids be more successful,” Piatt said. “It (the Bill) has been one of those more challenging things.”
For more information on Pampa ISD, call 806-669-4700.
