While students across Illinois are showing signs of still struggling with the learning losses brought on during the COVID-19 pandemic, local schools appear to be in slightly better shape.
Article by Peter Hancock Capitol News Illinois The article, titled “Schools Face 'Fiscal Cliff' as Billions of Dollars in Federal Aid Ends,” provides an overview of the situation at the state level.
The article cites a survey conducted by the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative that identified a number of issues with learning recovery across the state.
Among the issues cited is the uneven recovery when comparing different schools, with elementary schools having an easier time returning to pre-pandemic performance than high schools, and school districts with high concentrations of Black, Latino and low-income students also struggling to recover.
Illinois school districts are also struggling with declining enrollment and chronic absenteeism, which were already trends before the pandemic given the state's declining birth rate.
School districts in Illinois and elsewhere also must brace for the end of federal emergency aid funding for elementary and middle schools this year.
Illinois received $7.8 billion in ESSER funds, $2.4 billion of which went to pay teachers and other staff.
That federal funding ends at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, meaning some school districts may struggle to pay for the extra staff and teachers, or summer classes and tutoring programs, that ESSER funds provided.
Locally, the learning recovery and end of ESSER funding appears to be going a little smoother than at the state level.
Waterloo Superintendent of Schools Brian Sharon said learning delays are less of a concern for the district than they have been in recent years, with a return to emphasis on regular assessments.
“We are no longer focusing resources as an allocation for learning loss due to the pandemic,” Sharon said. “We are currently operating as we did pre-pandemic, addressing teaching and learning needs through our normal assessments and reviews.”
Considering data from an annual report released by the Illinois State Board of Education covering schools and districts across the state, Waterloo appears to be recovering stronger than the rest of Illinois.
For English Language Arts on the Illinois Readiness Assessment, 35.4% of Illinois students met or exceeded expectations on the assessment in 2023, up from 30.2% in 2021. In 2019 data, pre-pandemic, 37.8% of students met or exceeded expectations.
In Waterloo, 58.4% of students will meet or exceed expectations in 2023, up from 46.9% in 2021. That figure is also close to 62.6% in 2019.
Regarding the mathematics portion of the IAR, the percentage of students who showed good results was 27.1 percent in 2023, 25.2 percent in 2021 and 31.8 percent in 2019.
In Waterloo, 49.6% of students met or exceeded expectations in 2023, 38.7% in 2021 and 57.1% in 2019.
While enrollment fluctuations within the district appear to have been largely unaffected by the pandemic, there has been a notable increase in chronic absenteeism in 2022 and 2023.
In terms of ESSER funding, the University of Waterloo has received a total of $1,509,497 from three ESSER grants, with just over $8,352 available to spend.
The majority of this funding goes to payroll, with other significant expenditures going to purchasing services, employee benefits, and equipment and materials.
Sharon said the district plans to use the remaining ESSER funds to pay for recent summer school expenses.
Academic performance has similarly rebounded well in Columbia, with Deputy Superintendent Amanda Gainey commenting on the district's recovery.
“Columbia has performed very well since the pandemic and is seeing continued improvement,” Gainey said.
In terms of IAR performance, 51.8% of students met or exceeded expectations on the 2023 ELA assessment. In 2021, 38% met expectations and in 2019, 53.2% performed outstanding.
Recovery in math saw less pronounced improvements with 46.1% of students earning good grades in 2023 and 42.1% earning good grades in 2021. Progress is still continuing as the district approaches the 2019 level of 61.2%.
Like the University of Waterloo, Columbia University's enrollment appears to have been largely unaffected by the pandemic, up slightly over the past year, but chronic absenteeism appears to have been similarly largely unaffected.
In terms of ESSER funds, Columbia has received a total of $841,685, but has yet to spend $5,691. Most of this funding goes to payroll, with other major expenditure items being supplies and materials, employee benefits and purchased services.
Columbia School District Superintendent Chris Glaude said the district is expected to handle the loss of ESSER funding well and shouldn't have any problems retaining staff.
“When we raised all of our ESSER funding and started using it for payroll, we were pretty clear ahead of time and were able to maintain the status quo as people left and others came in,” Glode said.
In fact, Valmeyer’s IAR performance has declined slightly due to learning loss caused by the pandemic.
The district's IAR ELA performance will see 11.9% of students meeting or exceeding expectations in 2023, down from 23.5% in 2021 and 37% in 2019.
The impact on mathematics is also notable but less significant, with 17.1% meeting or exceeding expectations in 2023, 21.7% in 2021, and 31.2% in 2019.
The district's enrollment is declining, but that's in line with the trend over the past few years, even before the pandemic.
Chronic absenteeism is on the rise at Valmeyer, with a clear upward trend visible from 2021.