Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March. I'm oscar A mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest debates of the pandemic was how
Speaker 1: to proceed with school as the virus disrupted everything. Everything
Speaker 1: from learning remotely or in person to wearing masks was
Speaker 1: a point of contention, but at the Louis Palmer School
Speaker 1: District in Colorado, they chose to keep kids in class
Speaker 1: and made masks optional. What resulted were students who flourished
Speaker 1: and boost some of their test scores, while other districts
Speaker 1: in the state lag behind. Perry Stein, education reporter at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, joins us for how this district tried
Speaker 1: to proceed as normal. Thanks for joining us, Perry. Thanks. Well,
Speaker 1: we all saw a lot of different effects going on
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic on schools. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just a huge disruptor closings and then openings, and then
Speaker 1: arguments about mask wearing. It really played out very loudly
Speaker 1: across the country. And you know, on on one hand,
Speaker 1: we had parents and teachers, teachers unions saying we need
Speaker 1: to have kids remote learning for fear of the virus. Spreading,
Speaker 1: we need masks if we're gonna do in person learning.
Speaker 1: And on the other side, we had a lot of
Speaker 1: parents say, you know, we need our kids in school
Speaker 1: because they're languishing at home, or you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want them to wear a mask because it's just kind
Speaker 1: of unnatural. They need they need to be free, and
Speaker 1: kids are spared some of the worst effects of the virus.
Speaker 1: So there was all these conversations going on. But you
Speaker 1: wrote an article looking at the Louis Palmer School District
Speaker 1: in Colorado, which kind of went the other way. I mean,
Speaker 1: they said we're gonna still do in person learning and
Speaker 1: not do the whole remote learning thing. They really didn't
Speaker 1: do too much to contain the actual virus, and their
Speaker 1: students did really well. We saw their h a lot
Speaker 1: of their their school rates go up when a lot
Speaker 1: of the other rates in the in Colorado were going down.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot to unpack here. So Perry, tell
Speaker 1: us what the Lewis Palmer district did. Definitely, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just as you said, I spent a lot of my
Speaker 1: pandemic covering school districts that really didn't reopen last year,
Speaker 1: so I out to find one that did reopen, and
Speaker 1: so I landed on Louis Palmer, which is right outside
Speaker 1: of Colorado Springs, and they opened in the hall of
Speaker 1: with all elementary school students in person full time, where
Speaker 1: I should say all elementary students who wanted to go.
Speaker 1: Families could still do virtual, but the overwhelming opted to
Speaker 1: go in person five days a week. They decided they
Speaker 1: based this off the study that showed at the time
Speaker 1: that kids tennant under didn't spread the virus as much,
Speaker 1: so they decided to go maskless UM to make masks
Speaker 1: optional at the elementary school level in classrooms. UM. And
Speaker 1: you know, it was at the time Louis Palmer or
Speaker 1: the county that was Palmer is located in they didn't
Speaker 1: have They were below national averages on um COVID rates.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty wealthy school district, so a lot of
Speaker 1: parents working from home, and it's pretty um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a sprawling nehe it's not like city. There's
Speaker 1: like if there's like one or two apartment buildings that
Speaker 1: I saw that, you know, and those were small buildings
Speaker 1: that served as school district. So you know, people were
Speaker 1: moving on top of each other. And they went to
Speaker 1: reopen school and parents and teachers felt comfortable with this
Speaker 1: and they did it. Yeah, and you know, we saw
Speaker 1: the negative effects that happened play out because of some
Speaker 1: of the closures. Obviously a lot of kids found it
Speaker 1: really difficult to learn at home. It just wasn't their
Speaker 1: regular thing. We saw a lot of them have mental
Speaker 1: health issues that emotional maturity just from not being around
Speaker 1: peers and kind of learning how things go. We've heard
Speaker 1: of a lot of fights breaking out as soon as
Speaker 1: kids started going back to school, you know. So we see,
Speaker 1: we've seen all these negative effects, but here in this
Speaker 1: school district, thankfully, a lot of that stuff didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Tell me about some of the test scores that we saw,
Speaker 1: because this is where I think in reading, a lot
Speaker 1: of the students had an uptake. Maybe in math not
Speaker 1: so much, but they were having great scores compared to
Speaker 1: the overall state numbers. Yeah, I think that's true. And
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. I mean hits here and
Speaker 1: the school leaders will still tell you that in Lois
Speaker 1: Palm where they did endure the pandemic, right, and that's
Speaker 1: really stressful, the uncertainty they had, Quarantines, routines were broken.
Speaker 1: I'm sure parents had anxiety some of their that you know,
Speaker 1: kids can feel and understand, so they do still, you know,
Speaker 1: they are still seeing some mental health concerns. They are
Speaker 1: still having what they're what I would refer to as
Speaker 1: pandemic induced challenges that they are needing to address. So
Speaker 1: they weren't spared the pandemic. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you see the results coming out of there are better.
Speaker 1: I mean, no one argued that virtual learning for the
Speaker 1: vast majority of kids is better than in personal and
Speaker 1: so they benefited from getting a whole lot more of
Speaker 1: in person learning. So at the elementary school early you
Speaker 1: did see big gains in reading UM that outpaced UM
Speaker 1: scores UM math everywhere in the country from what I
Speaker 1: have seen, that was really hard to the online UM.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd see uh some drops there, but not
Speaker 1: as big as UM the states drop. And something interesting
Speaker 1: that I saw the improvements among some of the special
Speaker 1: education kids that those were the kids that I think
Speaker 1: largely have been you know, vulnerable kids that have been
Speaker 1: UM set back the most from the pandemic because you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of their plans and services such as speech therapy,
Speaker 1: some kids occupational therapy. One on one, so it couldn't
Speaker 1: be delivered as effectively online. Um. Lewis Palmer did bring
Speaker 1: back UM even their high school special education, their most UM,
Speaker 1: the kids with the highest needs in high school. They
Speaker 1: brought them back five days a week by November or
Speaker 1: in November. So UM, so those were some of the
Speaker 1: hopeful things. They still had challenges. I mean, there is
Speaker 1: a big achievement gap in Lewis. There is an achievement
Speaker 1: gap in b was Palmer between UM between white students
Speaker 1: and students of color, and that did not UM improve
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. This figures right into the conversation as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, right that there was this kind of
Speaker 1: fight on both sides, you know, who would be right,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this when you look at Louis Palmer.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people say, well, they got
Speaker 1: lucky that there were no huge outbreaks. And I think
Speaker 1: you mentioned the article, like you know, overall like two
Speaker 1: people went to the hospital and and they none of
Speaker 1: them were students. You know, so a lot of people say, hey,
Speaker 1: they got really lucky. Others say, you know, they did
Speaker 1: it right. They followed health guidance, they kept the schools open,
Speaker 1: they listened to parents, and whatnot question I have is,
Speaker 1: you know, how did the teachers feel throughout all of this,
Speaker 1: because that was one of the big conversations going around
Speaker 1: where teachers, teachers unions are saying, well, kids could be
Speaker 1: spared the worst of the virus, but the adults, the
Speaker 1: instructors aren't. So that was a big conversation. How did
Speaker 1: teachers feel in this district? You know, it's interesting, Um,
Speaker 1: I came like I covered a lot of the teacher
Speaker 1: union sights like you know, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: teaching unions. I was say, we responding to what they
Speaker 1: felt their communities wanted, that parents wanted, and you see,
Speaker 1: cities like they see where I live. Parents didn't want
Speaker 1: to go back. So it wasn't that the unions referred
Speaker 1: so vastly from you know, every parent here, um, but here,
Speaker 1: you know, I was surprised. I tried to talk to
Speaker 1: as many teachers as they could to really, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I understood their viewpoints and most of the ones.
Speaker 1: Everyone I talked to and I didn't talk to all
Speaker 1: the teachers obviously felt comfortable going back. They felt that
Speaker 1: they they saw their kids fall behind that spring when
Speaker 1: it was virtual learning and they felt they needed to
Speaker 1: go back and they felt that it could be done safely.
Speaker 1: You know. Some there was some teachers, you know, as
Speaker 1: they the school district admitted that there were teachers that
Speaker 1: felt that this that they didn't want to go back
Speaker 1: and left. There were some teachers so that felt that
Speaker 1: the school took too many passions. Some teachers that didn't
Speaker 1: wanted to teach with masks. At least one so he
Speaker 1: left the school system. So they were in the GANNET.
Speaker 1: But the vast majority, I mean, they did a survey
Speaker 1: ang July, it was pretty early on in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and the majority of teachers felt that school could be
Speaker 1: reopened safely. Um, you know, teachers, the teachers that I
Speaker 1: talked to, most of them did wear masks throughout last
Speaker 1: year and wanted to wear masks if they had to
Speaker 1: for mostly but they wanted to wear masks and still
Speaker 1: wore masks overcomplishes. So I think the teachers were fairly
Speaker 1: on board, you know. In the end, obviously, every situation
Speaker 1: is different, and luckily for the school district it worked
Speaker 1: out well. Their students were thriving, but they did have
Speaker 1: a lot of disruptions. Obviously, there weren't times where they
Speaker 1: were just completely open. Because this happened in fall of
Speaker 1: so this is when all school districts were going crazy
Speaker 1: hybrid this full remote learning. They decided to get classes
Speaker 1: going very early on in the pandemic still when we
Speaker 1: were there, you know, so they did have disruptions when
Speaker 1: case accounts were really going up they had to close
Speaker 1: and do remote learning. But overall, even talking a lot
Speaker 1: of those students, you know, they felt like it was
Speaker 1: kind of a normal year and that you know, probably
Speaker 1: lends itself to the argument of why they were doing
Speaker 1: so good at least with their scores and whatnot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I tried to talk to him that the
Speaker 1: students as possible and like, you know, you were asking
Speaker 1: about something for a kid that was very normal for them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they felt that, at least the
Speaker 1: younger kids felt that it would felt pretty pretty well
Speaker 1: for them. That you know, some of them thought that
Speaker 1: the school because they were quarantined so much. And again
Speaker 1: their kids are not following what's happening in every other district,
Speaker 1: um right, they only know their own. Is that I
Speaker 1: felt that they took too really precautions because they got
Speaker 1: quarantine too much at the older grades. I mean, some
Speaker 1: kids didn't get quarantined all. Some kids got quarantined multiple times.
Speaker 1: Um that put them back into virtual learning. But yeah,
Speaker 1: by and large, and again this is just a look
Speaker 1: at one school district. They don't think that everything that
Speaker 1: they did could be replicated in every other school district
Speaker 1: or should have been. But I do think, you know,
Speaker 1: where we are in the pandemic, it's important to look
Speaker 1: at all different types of school districts and types of
Speaker 1: decisions they made and how they may it didn't totally
Speaker 1: and that's the interesting part. We're gonna be unpacking what
Speaker 1: happened throughout the pandemic for years and we're gonna look
Speaker 1: back to see what really worked, what didn't work, and
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully we can carry that into the future.
Speaker 1: But this massive disruption that we're going to have to
Speaker 1: study this for some time and see where what we
Speaker 1: did right and what we did wrong. Perry Stein, education
Speaker 1: reporter at the Washington Post, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Yeah, thanks so much for helping me. I'm
Speaker 1: Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget
Speaker 1: after today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: on the daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, so
Speaker 1: follow us and I Heart Radio or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast