Many D-205 Students Suffer 'Learning Loss': Report

ELMHURST, IL — Students in the early grades in Elmhurst School District 205 suffered a "clear COVID learning loss" in reading in the wake of the pandemic, according to a district report.

The district also said it found some evidence that middle school students grew less in reading and math between 2019 and 2020 than in earlier years.

For middle and high school students, a little more than 10 percent of students performed worse in 2020 than they did a year before, the district said.

At a school board meeting a couple of weeks ago, members said they feared students had suffered long-term learning loss as a result of remote instruction during the pandemic.

The superintendent responded board members would get a report on learning loss later that week. Elmhurst Patch obtained that report through a public records request.

In the document, the district said national policy organizations early in the pandemic predicted "dire learning losses with long-term consequences" as a result of less in-person learning.

Despite restrictions on in-person learning, the district said, most estimates suggest learning loss as a result of the pandemic was less than predicted — at least in reading the math, where data is available.

The biggest impact is with students in kindergarten through second grades, who had lower performance in reading and other English language arts, the district said.

At the same time, students in third through five grades showed generally similar or better performance in reading and English language arts in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the report.

Although the district saw little impact on grades among middle school students, average scores in "Measures of Academic Progress" tests show declines in math and reading in 2020, compared to a year earlier.

York High School students, meanwhile, appear largely unaffected by the changed environment, according to the district's report.

The report says nearly three-quarters of students who received grades in both fall 2019 and fall 2020 showed no change in the percentage of A, B and C grades. About 13 percent of high school students had a smaller percentage of grades from A to C.

School board members were also given a list of steps that the district could take to counter learning loss.