‘Reset year’: LPOSD’s work to address learning loss, student mental health

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After a year of pandemic-related challenges, Lake Pend Oreille School District staff are working to make up for lost time in the 2021-2022 school year.

Numerous changes including at-home learning, shortened school days and increased anxiety and depression among students have hampered growth over the past year, educators say. Although LPOSD students still exceeded the state average in academic growth, staff are still working to be prepared for a “reset” in the fall, said Superintendent Tom Albertson.

One of the biggest challenges educators face for the upcoming school year is that the enrollment for fall classes, and the achievement levels of students who did not attend in person, are still unknown.

Many students who spent the past year at home with varying degrees of academic engagement will be coming back to school. That could mean a major discrepancy in readiness between students in the same grade, Albertson said.

The schools are also facing learning loss even among students who were able to attend classes in-person.

One area where multiple schools reported higher rates of learning loss was in math. There are different hypotheses that have been suggested as the why that is — among them, parents’ struggle to teach the curriculum, and the specific structures the curriculums follow.

Regardless of the reason, the district is implementing a variety of tools including a math leadership team to focus on instructional strategies, and professional learning communities to bridge the gap, said Andra Murray, director of teaching and learning for LPOSD.

“We'll be scaling up that effort to really focus on what are those most essential standards that all kids need as far as tracking learning loss, and then creating some common grade level or team assessments so we can track progress in real time and monitor and adjust,” Murray said.

One tool that will help the district is a third round of pandemic-related federal funding, which earmarks at least 20% of the funds to address learning loss.

Exactly how much the district will receive is not yet determined, Albertson said, but they’re expecting upward of $1 million for the learning loss portion.

One of the ways those funds will be used will be to retain more certified staff and paraprofessionals than the district had pre-pandemic to keep class sizes small. The district also plans to add more maintenance staff and increase counseling staff, including a recently-added position at the middle school level, Albertson said.

In addition to the challenges of at-home learning, more students have been dealing with emotional disengagement and an increase in mental health problems, Albertson said.

Every year, the Idaho State Department of Education conducts a student engagement survey measuring behavioral, cognitive and emotional student engagement. In LPOSD, students remained on par with previous years for cognitive and behavioral engagement, he said. However, students reported lower levels of emotional engagement — particularly among secondary-level students.

“At the elementary level, grades three through five, it was about 11% [reporting disengagement],” Albertson said. “It climbed from there up toward 20% [at the secondary level].”

In many cases, remote learning contributed to that disengagement, said Tavi Brandenburg, Sandpoint High School counselor. This affected both students on hybrid schedules and those at home full-time through homeschooling or the Idaho Digital Learning Academy.

“I think it's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind type of scenario,” Brandenburg said. “You know, when students had to go remote last spring, students and teachers were really struggling with ‘how do we stay connected?’’

For many teenagers, Brandenburg said, finding intrinsic motivation to participate, especially when so much of the school day was remote over the past year, was a struggle.

“I think that it can be challenging for adults to be motivated when they're working at home. And I think that for an adolescent who doesn't have the skills and is not getting paid, it's [even more difficult] to engage,” she said.

Although students are back in school, and will attend classes full-time in the fall, not all have returned to their pre-pandemic state emotionally. As the schools prepare for their “reset,” a part of that plan includes a renewed effort to support student mental health.

The increase in anxiety and depression among students is reflective of schools across the country, and the Sandpoint community at large. In Bonner County, therapists have reported waiting lists at every local clinic.

LPOSD contracts with Kaniksu Health Services to have a therapist come into schools and see students who may not be able to go directly to appointments. However, those services are limited.

For the day-to-day mental health care, SHS and the LPOSD system as a whole focuses heavily on Sources of Strength, and similar programs that frame mental health care and suicide prevention through peer and mentor connections.

This year, SHS staff will also be learning about trauma-informed teaching practices. Counselors Shannon Kerrigan and Sara Gosling will be following up that training with a book study for teachers, funded by a Panhandle Alliance for Education grant.

Those efforts extend to younger students as well, said Kari Granier, incoming principal at Sandpoint Middle School.

“We definitely have seen a higher need for identifying different areas of emotional need, and we're all trying to work through that right now,” she said. “It comes out at different times in the year, too. [We’re trying to provide] them a place where they know that they can come and feel healthy, a place where they want to be.”

Teaching staff are looking for ways to incorporate conversations about mental health into relevant curriculum, Brandenburg said, in a way that feels authentic.

“[We don’t want it to] feel like kind of a canned curriculum, which we have learned in working with teenagers, it's not really that effective,” she said.

One other element schools are using to try and engage students is reintroducing, and adding, electives that students can get excited about, Granier said.

Programs like woodworking and steamworks, jazz band, competitive math club, book club and other unique classes and extracurricular activities serve to give students more ideas for their postsecondary plans, and get them excited for school.

Although the next year presents challenges on an academic and social-emotional level, many students are also excited to return to full-time school, said Jessica Lippi, Sandpoint Middle School counselor.

“They're bringing back those things like our pride assemblies that our students just love. They look forward to them, they get excited about them,” she said. “So it just makes my heart happy to know that we're going to be able to do those types of things again.”