Miami-Dade schools log 92% attendance rate in online classes’ early days
The first challenge for South Florida school districts in the coronavirus pandemic was getting half a million students equipped for online remote learning — quickly and indefinitely.
The challenge now is making sure students are logging on to “flatten the curve” of lost learning ahead of the “summer slide” — the natural learning loss that occurs over the monthslong summer break.
Superintendents fear this semester’s shakeup will put already-struggling students at a greater disadvantage. So school districts are tracking down who isn’t logging on and why.
As a whole, attendance figures during the “new normal” are hopeful, even compared to last year. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Wednesday that the district’s average attendance rate of 92% “is the envy of the country.”
“We are way ahead of the curve, but we’re still not satisfied,” he told School Board
Miami-Dade and Broward school districts hustled to get kids connected to online learning. Now, they’re taking attendance to find students who aren’t logging on. It could worsen the summer slide.
members. “One child missing is still one child too many.”
Online learning had a rough start at first. Overwhelmed third-party online platforms kept crashing. But now both Miami-Dade and Broward school districts say 99% and 96% of their students, respectively, are connected, although pockets of students, mostly in poorer schools, aren’t logging on.
The Miami-Dade school district saw a daily attendance rate of about 91% for the four-day school week starting April 13, according to data provided by MiamiDade County Public Schools. For that same four-day week in April 2019, attendance averaged 94%.
The Broward County school district did not provide the Miami Herald with comparable attendance data from 2019 but uses a dashboard to monitor and track daily attendance. According to Superintendent Robert Runcie, the district saw 87% to 89% showing up in early April. As of Friday, that figure is 91%.
He cautioned that those figures don’t capture teachers communicating with students over email and phone.
“We feel we’re probably pretty close to what we would’ve had when we actually had our campuses open,” Runcie said. “There’s no reason at this point with the distribution of technology, the opportunity we’ve created for connectivity and the maturity of our online learning system ... that we [shouldn’t] be able to continue a good portion of our education.”
ECONOMIC DISPARITY CONTINUES
Schools with high concentrations of students in poverty are outliers in those figures. And high schools, with larger populations, seem to be bringing down that average as well. In Broward, only 84% of seniors are logging on — the lowest of any grade.
Also in Broward, schools serving students with special needs and behavioral issues are seeing attendance figures as low as
50%. Runcie said the school district is figuring out how to provide accommodations and support.
He said that before the pandemic, two-thirds of high school teachers used online learning compared to half of middle school teachers and 20% of elementary school teachers. Several elementary schools have struggled to get younger students to log in on their own.
“They need a lot more support from the actual parent, guardian or caregiver,” Runcie said. “Parents and guardians are under so much stress and uncertainty. We’re basically introducing another task for them, and they’re stress based. I think that’s the reality across the nation.”
That’s the case in Miami-Dade, too. Carvalho said that attendance data including Pre-K students skews the average. He explained that the district’s poorest schools have Pre-K on-site because federal dollars pay for the first three hours of Pre-K, and the state pays for the second three hours.
Carvalho saw comparisons in attendance data from last year.
“The students who had attendance problems in school are the students who are contributing to attendance problems during distance learning,” he told board members. In a previous interview, he also chalked up low attendance numbers among the youngest students to parental presence and caretaker supervision.
TRACKING ONLINE NO-SHOWS
When students are noshows online, Carvalho says the district follows up. He said that since April 6, principals have been reviewing attendance on a daily basis. They call every student by phone and make 600 to 700 daily appointments to give out devices like laptops and hotspots to connect to the Internet.
When that doesn’t work, the school’s community involvement specialist, paid with federal funding, will visit the student’s home. Carvalho said many parents have disconnected mobile phones or more transient families have moved.
Those specialists are often accompanied by school resource officers who drive them around. Sometimes it’s the school resource officer who is dropping off any devices needed at the door.
“Sometimes it’s sort of detective work,” Carvalho said.
In some cases, undocumented families fear their children logging on virtually. Carvalho says that’s the case at West Homestead K-8, home to a population of students who speak native Guatemalan languages. He said some families have resisted applying for free internet because of information requested by internet providers.
Last week, a quarter of West Homestead K-8’s enrollment didn’t log in. At this same time last year, attendance averaged 94%.
“They feel like that puts them at risk in a way they didn’t feel about going to a school campus,” Carvalho said.
The Miami-Dade and Broward school districts have taken a more flexible and compassionate approach during these unforeseen and challenging circumstances. Students receive one grade per class each week. They are encouraged to participate in no less than three hours with direct, guided instruction from teachers and spend an equal amount accessing digital resources or completing assignments.
With state accountability assessments canceled — and all hopes of returning to the schoolhouse before the summer break dashed — second-semester learning has, in the short-term, become more low-stakes. According to the Florida Department of Education, requirements for graduation and promotion, and final course grades will be evaluated as though those assessments that were canceled did not exist.
Yet the Miami-Dade school district is monitoring its lowest 25% of students based on academic performance. It is creating a summer school program for students who missed out on online learning or demonstrated a regression or a slowdown of their performance toward grade-level proficiency.
Carvalho said the revamped summer school program will deploy teachers who were successful in the digital learning environment. The program would include more video conferences, though it could have in-person schooling if conditions improve.
All online learning programs will remain open and available to every single student over the summer.
“We want to build a plan that strategically identifies the neediest kids to mitigate the expected academic regression which happens every year,” Carvalho said, “but this year could be worse.”