Belle High School Principal Garret Haslag told the Maries R-2 Board of Education on Jan. 25 that there is a concerning number of students who are failing that could be attributed to virtual learning and the pandemic in general.

“Course failure is high,” Haslag said. “I do think we had some miscommunications as far as contact with virtual kids and credit recovery kids that led to a little higher percentage.”

Haslag added that student numbers have increased, which inflates course failure numbers — more students equals more potential for course failure. He also discussed test scores.

“I told you all last month that I would talk a little bit about this,” Haslag said. “I just gave you the flat comparison as for us and the state of Missouri.”

Maries R-2 is close to the state average in the subjects of biology and language arts.

“If I was in language arts and I saw it to be right there at average, and I want us to get higher, so we are going to look at that going forward,” Haslag said. “Algebra one is a big, red flag. I think I mentioned that semi informally last year when we were going low.”

Haslag said it is hard to say why the numbers are dropping.

“Once we solve this need, because the numbers were so low — the first PD (professional development) days we meet with the whole math team (teachers),” he said. “We do have to take into account eighth grade because almost half of them are taught at the middle school and almost half are taught here (high school) for algebra one.”

The math team teachers met to discuss standards, what is taught where, in pre-algebra and algebra one.

“At some point, I think that it does come into factor a little bit, we all know and I think the state of Missouri agrees that virtual learning may not be the best,” Haslag said. “Last year we were close to 20 percent of our student body was virtual.”

Virtual learners were still required to take the accountability test. 

There are also differences in what Maries R-2 and other schools were able to offer in the virtual learning program. Other programs arranged for an in-person teacher to instruct.

“We haven’t done that at this time,” Haslag said. “Potentially that could account for some of it. Also, a lack of continuity, as we mentioned. We do now hash out what needs to be taught in pre-al versus algebra. That will help.”

The district has also signed up with Test Prep USA, a program that will allow the them to diagnose where students need assistance.

“We can test and now see here are the standards our students are lacking in, here is what we are not, and then re-teach and teach accordingly based on what the kids know already.”

Haslag said the program will cost a little bit of money, but he sees it being a huge asset as long as the teachers are using it.

“We are in the process, the teachers have been training on it and we are starting to implement that,” Haslag said. “We have been using that some this semester, but really the last two months prior to taking the test.”

Board Director Kenda Sanders asked about the middle school math teacher and high school math teacher both teaching pre-algebra/algebra one.

“They talk, right, and have comparable goals for advancement?” Sanders asked.

Haslag said they have content team meetings and have met, but there were no scores from the year before. There was also a new teacher. 

“Some of that, as far as this year, we have a new eighth-grade math teacher,” Haslag said. “When I saw that, it was the first thing we had done. Before we had contact teams, but there wasn’t any data to say ‘we have a big deficiency in algebra.’”

He said the teachers meet two or three times a year to discuss issues like this one.

“We look at what standards are taught in what class and that has always been a part of the conversation,” Haslag said. “But we didn’t know we hadn’t identified need at that time. So conversations have shifted to how can we fix versus how can we maintain where we are at and grow?”

Sanders asked Haslag if it is a residual effect from students being home?

“Because math is something you grow on, you learn the principal and then build on that?” Sanders asked.

Haslag said there was a decrease in scores across the state but the Maries R-2 decrease was larger than the state decrease.

“The state was down and we are not even to where the state had dropped off,” Haslag said. “There was a large discrepancy, by far, at the high school level in algebra one across the board. But ours was larger. But when you think about the standard achievement gap, why some students advance farther than others. They have good, middle-class families and people that work with them during that quarantine is different than a student who has no support, no device, no internet, etcetera. So theoretically if they were already disadvantaged, they are going to be way more disadvantaged after COVID.”

Haslag said he doesn’t have data to back it, but did say larger learning-loss is there.

“That is a possibility that there is a larger learning loss during not only the two months of COVID but then also the quarantine and things like that last semester and going into the tests,” Haslag said.

Board Director Aaron Vandegriffe asked what the numbers were before.

“You said there was a dip,” Butler said. “Right now we have 13 percent that are proficient or better.”

Haslag said he can get them and send them to the board. He said he had looked it up previously, and the district was already below average in science and math before COVID started. They have always been above state average in language arts or at least at state average.

“The people I talked to who had been here a while attributed that to a couple of quality teachers who had been here a long time,” Haslag said.

The update did not include what the school district planned to do about the learning loss.