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How are students faring with remote learning and only a couple of days in school a week?

There’s good news and bad news on that front.

The good news is that Davie students are doing better than students in most other school systems. The bad news is that the number of students failing or near failing has doubled since the pandemic began.

“A lot of that is engagement, and it’s not the same routine,” Superintendent Jeff Wallace told school board members earlier this month. “The patterns we saw are kids who are not engaged in remote days. They need to be in school as much as possible.”

“We’re a lot better than many across the state,” said Jinda Haynes, assistant superintendent.

Wallace said the numbers brought some administrators to tears, but they quickly changed to the thought of what can be done to make the numbers better.

Board member Paul Drechsler thanked the staff for putting the numbes out for all to see. “I’m way pleased that the first thing you and your staff – the first thing you say – is here it is, what can we do about it, not woe is a woe is me mentality,” Drechsler said.

“It’s not been pretty, but we’re not hiding it,” Wallace said. “We have control over how we respond.”

The system has hired more tutors to help struggling students, and is looking for ways to have more students engaged in learning on remote days when they’re not in the classroom, Wallace said.

In grades 3-12, for the 2019-2020 school year, 5.97 percent of students had failing grades, for the 2020-2021 year, it’s 11.76 percent failing. D grades went from 8.59 percent to 9.35 percent, and C grades from 12.8 percent to 13.88 percent. Students making B’s went from 25.09 percent to 23.23 percent, and those making A’s went from 51.04 percent to 41.78 percent.