By PATRICK ADRIAN
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CLAREMONT — As local school districts like Claremont continue to implement curriculum and instruction remotely to finish the school year, the New Hampshire Department of Education wants to study how remote learning might remain part of the educational model even after schools resume traditional classroom learning.
In an op-ed Monday, New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut announced the forming of a School Transition, Reopening and Redesign Taskforce (STRRT), whose team of educational stakeholders will collect public input to provide recommendations to the state and local school districts on “how to move education forward.” In addition to facilitating the state plan to eventually reopen schools, this task force will study “what this period of remote instruction has to teach us” in regard to opportunities to benefit students who prefer this mode of learning, according to Edelblut.
“As we all search for our equilibrium and new-normal resulting from this pandemic, it is important that we craft a way forward that captures the strengths of an education system that has served us for decades, but also captures the opportunities presented,” Edelblut said.
Yet while pointing to anecdotal examples of individual students who have transitioned positively to remote learning, Edelblut acknowledged that the remote model has posed new challenges for districts to deliver instruction and support to their most high-needs population: economically-disadvantaged students, minority and English language learners and students with individual education plans.
Educators in the Claremont School District recently spoke with the Eagle Times about the district’s successes and challenges to deliver those critical supports and services to students with high-needs.
‘A people business’
“The universal challenge [of remote learning] is that lack of connection and relationships” that students and teachers have when in the building together, said Courtney Porter, the social worker for the Claremont School District.
While students can feel some of those connections through email and video chat, nothing can replace the importance of the interpersonal relationships in education, Porter said. Even the building is, for many students, a “safe space” they otherwise lack.
Claremont Schools Superintendent Michael Tempesta expressed a similar view about the necessity of relationships to the learning process last week. At the district school board meeting on Wednesday, May 6, Tempesta told the board that while online meeting technology is functional for conducting essential school business, it is more limited and effective a vehicle than physical meetings.
“Education is a people business,” Tempesta said. “And that interaction with students and staff is what it’s all about.”
The digital divide
Like other New Hampshire districts, one of the first challenges Claremont tackled in the transition to remote learning was ensuring that all students could participate in online learning outside of school.
Since the transition to remote learning, Porter said she has delivered 85 Chromebooks to students in the district.
Most students needing a Chromebook picked one up from school at the start of remote learning, Porter said. But as the virus-spread intensified, Porter began personally delivering computers and accessories to the student homes — masked, gloved and hand sanitizer riding shotgun.
The computers Porter has been delivering are either replacements for ones not working properly or to families who have computers at home but not enough to serve the family’s needs.
Internet connectivity has been another focus of the Claremont district.
Ben Nestor, Claremont special education director, said that the district received about $3,000 in funds from the federal CARES act, which the district has put toward connecting families in need with the internet.
“Connectivity is a struggle for some of the families, so [Claremont Director of Technology] Jeff Small has been working diligently to help them access the internet.”
Porter also said that families who live near one of the district’s five schools can access the district’s wifi hotspot.
Student services and supports
“In the big picture perspective, [remote learning] has been a challenge for families [with special needs students],” Nestor said. “Every student is different and has a different learning profile, and each student presents a different set of learning challenges.”
Nestor told the Eagle Times last week that the district has utilized a variety of technological tools to meet the academic and therapeutic needs of its student population, individualized to each student. Some special needs students receive one-on-one direct instruction or paraprofessional support via video chat. Some students receive recorded instructional videos. Special educators or school therapists are available for consultation when a student is having emotional difficulty. Students continue to meet with their related services providers — psychologists, speech and language or occupational therapists, for example — by telephone or video chat.
“We try to mirror the student’s traditional setting remotely and stay as true to the model as we can,” Nestor said.
About three weeks ago, the district designated every Wednesday a “make up day,” in effort to help students who are struggling to keep pace with their academic workload.
Porter said that she and other support staff use those Wednesdays to check in with struggling students and hopefully create a student plan.
“We will ask how their first two days of the week went and how they can make their next two days successful,” Porter said. “And how we could help alleviate their concerns.”
Tempesta told the school board last week that he didn’t have data compiled yet regarding student engagement or academic progress, but based on his check-ins with school principals, most of the students are participating in the remote learning, including at Stevens High School and Claremont Middle School. However, most students who were already struggling before the transition to remote learning have continued to struggle.
Tempesta told the board that he would try to compile quantitative data for their discussion at the next scheduled board meeting.
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