The Bremen School Board members received an update Wednesday night concerning a Ball State study that focused on an analysis of remote learning.
Superintendent Dr. Jim White said the results were eye-opening.
“We had taken a look at our NWEA data from last year and compared students who were in-person full-time, students who had kind of blended in and out of school and remote learning, and students who were totally remote learning to see how they fared academically,” explained Dr. White. “Surprisingly, for the most part, they were pretty similar in scores.”
Dr. White commented that the assumption was much different.
“We really expected the remote learners to be far, far behind the others. Overall that wasn’t the case. It also shows kudos to the work that our teachers did and our technology staff and the preparation we had years before being a one-to-one district that really mitigated and limited the decline in learning through remote learning and kept students moving forward.”
He pointed out one deficiency.
“The remote and hybrid students really fell behind in their reading skills. They didn’t keep pace there so it kind of indicated that for a long-term solution, that may or may not be the best modality of instruction.”
Dr. White said he will travel to Florida at his own expense to help present this analysis alongside a Ball State representative during an upcoming higher education conference.
