ESSER Narrative
Mapleton Public Schools (MPS) was closed to in-person learning in March of 2020 for approximately 12 weeks because of the COVID-19 pandemic. MPS made an immediate pivot to remote learning for the remainder of that school year, issuing either iPads or Chromebooks to each and every student. During the 2020-2021 school year, MPS was in-person for the full year, however, some families were still uncomfortable and unwilling to return to in-person instruction. Therefore, 29% of our students received remote/online instruction through Mapleton Online. With the rigid quarantine requirements, nearly 100% of MPS students “rolled to remote” at least one time during the school year and several students and classes were disrupted numerous times.
Mapleton Public Schools has analyzed all the available data for those who participated in the standardized assessments, including CMAS, MAPS, PSAT, SAT. Additionally, the district has studied the results of district interim assessments, unit assessments, grades, discipline, attendance, and engagement data, as well as staff and parent survey responses, to assess the impact that the lost instructional time has had on our students. All relevant data was disaggregated by subgroups, grade level, race, ethnicity, and gender.
Based on our data results, we have determined that all students were significantly academically impacted by disrupted and lost instructional time. Our data show a substantial need for every subgroup including the youngest learners, children living in poverty, students of color, English language learners, boys, and students with disabilities. Discipline, attendance, and engagement data present negative trends compared to prior years. Teacher and parent surveys have highlighted the need for mental health support and show an increase in disruptive classroom behaviors, at all levels and particularly in middle schools and at the primary levels, when we resumed in-person instruction.
MPS has a multi-layered approach for addressing the significant needs across the district including the reduction of the student-teacher ratio (specifically keeping schools that are significantly under enrolled – open), increased support for primary literacy instruction, embedded time for the weekly monitoring of student progress, and evidence-based interventions.
MPS has hired additional teaching staff to reduce class sizes and attend to the diverse needs of the students. This model is an essential intervention to provide differentiated instruction at all grade levels. Additionally, this strategy serves to create the best opportunity to develop a strong student/teacher relationship. This relationship assists to identify students in need of additional academic or social emotional support. This strategy maximizes the opportunity for teachers to effectively influence learning and identify students that are experiencing chronic absenteeism.
Beyond the requirements of the READ ACT, all K-3 teachers are in process of being trained on the comprehensive LETRS program units 1-8, and all schools have received decodable readers and daily phonemic awareness practice resources. This focused approach is in direct response to the high impact of COVID on our youngest learners. Primary teachers are receiving additional district-wide training through required summer literacy institutes which support teachers with the creation and use of sound walls, phonics lesson planning and the implementation of the new K-2 phonics scope and sequence. Our district Literacy Leads are walking classrooms, providing feedback, modeling best practices, supporting instructional planning, and meeting with school level literacy leads monthly. The literacy leads are collecting observational data of
common literacy look-fors and comparing those data to student progress on DIBELS monitoring data and on BOY, MOY, and EOY DIBELS data.
All of Mapleton’s schools have embedded time within the school week to engage in Instructional Design Teams. This time is used to pace curriculum toward quarterly benchmark assessments, collect and analyze student work on a weekly basis, identify existing learning gaps and adjusting instruction to meet the learning gaps. Mapleton has also provided quarterly Collaborative Days, which are non-student contact days and fall directly after each Quarterly Interim Assessment. Teachers use Collaborative Days to conduct a deep analysis of student progress toward mastery of grade level standards and plan interventions.
In conjunction with teacher provided interventions, additional support will be provided for higher impacted students by interventionists using evidence-based interventions. At the beginning of the 2021 school year, students and staff will be re-oriented to classroom and behavior management practices. MPS has hired mental health providers for each school who will provide support to students who need additional emotional support, additionally, MPS has hired a social worker specifically designated to support homeless students as they navigate the complexities of their living situations.
These practices have been added to the typical annual analysis of multiple data sources to ensure that the impact of lost in-person instructional time on students’ academic, social, and behavioral needs are being addressed in a timely fashion.
Each of the Mapleton schools will be conducting weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual progress monitoring. This will be done with daily attendance reporting, daily discipline reporting, interim classroom assessments, grading, state annual assessments, cohort advancement and graduation rates. The goals established are to achievement results on CMAS and PSAT/SAT proficiency to pre-COVID levels as we push to exceed these results in the coming years.