Tutoring could help reverse loss of learning in Hawaii public middle schools

The state Department of Education plans to offer special one-on-one tutoring and continue expanded summer school programs this year to help address student performance declines in public schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.

DOE officials shared the strategy Friday with members of a joint state House and Senate committee, along with recent metrics that show more middle school students were behind in learning after the first semester.

“One-to-one tutoring, when structured carefully, is one of the most effective strategies to increase student learning and mitigate learning loss,” DOE Deputy Superintendent Phyllis Unebasami told members of the House and Senate committees on education.

Unebasami said an intensive tutoring program is being looked at for students in grades 5 to 8 who are more than two years behind the grade-level curriculum they should be at for English language arts and math.

The intended tutoring would serve an estimated 25,000 students, she said.

Expanded summer school programs, which the DOE began last year, would be elevated to serve more students this year, including those who need to catch up, as well as students who want to take advantage of early college courses, paid internships and other programs, according to schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto.

DOE officials said universal screener assessments for the first quarter of school from Aug. 17 to Oct. 2 showed that more middle schoolers were falling severely behind in learning.

About 40% were more than two grade levels behind in English, and 35% were similarly behind in math. Unebasami said that was higher than a year earlier.

For elementary school students the statistics were fairly comparable over the two periods, according to Unebasami. There was no screener assessment data for high schoolers.

Last month DOE officials publicly shared first-quarter grade data, and that also was presented to the joint committee Friday.

For high school students statewide, 11% had failing marks in English and 12% in math. Among middle schoolers 9% failed at least one of those core courses.

For students in elementary school where an alternative to letter grades is used, about 10% were rated “well below” proficiency in English and 17% in math.

The Hawaii Charter School Commission presented to the joint committee its research on student learning during the pandemic. Among 20 charter schools statewide, four had over 51% of students in danger of failing while two schools had 31% to 50% of students in danger. Another seven schools were in the 11%-to-30% range, and seven schools were in the 10%-or-below range. Seventeen charter schools did not provide data to the commission.

Winston Sakurai, director of the Ka‘ohao elementary charter school in Kailua, shared a success story for his school, where 0.3% of the student population, or 1 child out of roughly 300, was in danger of failing in the first quarter.

Sakurai said Ka‘ohao leaders contacted school administrators on the mainland in late February to help proactively plan for remote learning, used spring break to provide videoconference training, had teachers create virtual lesson plans, distributed iPads to students and discussed plans with every parent.

“The preparation paid off,” he said.

Hawaii’s public school system does face severe proposed budget cuts that could affect student learning via staffing and operations. Kishimoto told the joint committee that proposed budget cuts would gut funding for about 1,300 employees, including 800 teachers.

The department previously absorbed a $100 million, or 6%, cut to its budget this fiscal year. A proposed new biennial budget would cut another $164 million in each of the next two fiscal years, or 10%, to help deal with a projected $1.4 billion state deficit in each of the next four years.