In some Colorado schools, kids flourished

As school systems across the country were battening down for their first remote start-of-school in the fall of 2020, the Lewis-palmer district in Monument, Colorado, was embarking on another kind of experiment.

Elementary students would be in class full time, sitting maskless at communal tables. The band program would resume in-person classes, saxophonists and flutists playing a few feet apart. The high school football teams would practice and compete.

While most of the nation kept students at home, these schools in the suburbs of Colorado Springs opened with the overwhelming majority of students in their seats.

Masks were optional in elementary school. Although middle- and high-schoolers began with hybrid learning, in November, high schoolaged students with significant special education needs were back in-person five days a week.

Thousands of districts across the country — typically small ones in conservative-leaning counties — reacted to the pandemic in the same way.

At Lewis-palmer, officials in this largely white and affluent school district of 6,600 students near the U.S. Air Force Academy argue they took the right approach to reopening schools. No child was hospitalized with the virus; two school system employees were admitted, though contact tracers did not determine where they contracted the virus, school officials said.

Overall, results from standardized tests show that the average student in Lewis-palmer made gains in reading. While they lost ground in math, they performed better than the average Coloradan. SAT scores remained steady.

The experience of systems like Lewis-palmer offers evidence for those who say schools could have avoided some of the prolonged closures — and the serious academic and social impacts that came from them.

Like most of the nation’s school districts, Lewis-palmer 38 abruptly closed its school buildings and sent students home March 13, 2020. They learned online for the remainder of the academic year, and teachers quickly saw many students’ progress slow. Children struggled with the coursework and felt depressed and anxious, educators say.

School system officials surveyed parents in July and determined that more than 60 percent said they were “very likely” to return to in-person learning. And more than 60 percent of teachers, who are not unionized, felt confident the school system could reopen schools safely.

So, Lewis-palmer 38 decided to reopen.

To craft its plan, local officials used health guidance put forth by the local health department in El Paso County. Still, the district took liberties, requiring masks only in hallways for children 10 and younger and allowing them to go maskless in classrooms.

CHET STRANGE/WASHINGTON POST Students play during band practice at Lewis-palmer Middle School in Monument, Colorado.