It’s no secret that the coronavirus pandemic heavily affected schools and disrupted the learning process. Now, there is additional data that seems to highlight COVID-19’s effect on education.
According to a recent analysis by Chalkbeat, high school graduation rates dipped in at least 20 states for the 2021 graduation year — the first full school year after the pandemic began. Nebraska was not one of them.
NEBRASKA AND ITS NEIGHBORS
While many states saw a small decline from 2020 to 2021 — most under or around one percentage point — Nebraska saw the slightest of increases at 0.05 of a percentage point. Neighboring states of Colorado, Kansas and South Dakota all declined by 0.2, 0.2 and 1.3 percentage points, respectively, during this time period. Wyoming increased alongside Nebraska by 0.3.
However, upon closer examination of graduation rates in Nebraska, the state clearly did not go untouched by the havoc COVID wreaked upon education.
The state of Nebraska actually had graduation rates trending downward for the three years prior to the 2021 graduation year, during which time all other neighboring states had either the same or increasing rates. What’s more, the increase from 2020 to 2021 was so small that it’s still almost a full percentage point lower than the pre-pandemic rate of 88.4% in 2019.
A LOOK AT THE PANHANDLE
This pattern is quite similar among Panhandle school districts. Of the 12 Panhandle schools analyzed for this article, eight of them saw an increase in graduation rates from 2020 to 2021; however, only four increased from 2019 to 2020, meaning the other eight dipped during the beginning of the pandemic.
“We saw the graduation rate actually decline across the state. We were not impervious to that,” Scottsbluff High School Principal Justin Shaddick said. “…There’s a lot of attributing factors to that — the shutdown and the pandemic and then the remote learning year that followed for those that took that remote learning option. (That) made it very challenging to get students and families engaged in the educational process.”
Scottsbluff’s decline from 2019 to 2020 was joined by Gering, Sidney, Bridgeport, Bayard, Minatare, Morrill and Kimball. However, Scottsbluff was one of the few Panhandle school districts that continued to see a decline the following year. Scottsbluff’s graduation rates fell by 2.4 percentage points from 2019 to 2020 and 3.4 points from
2020 to 2021.
The only other schools to decline from 2020 to 2021 were Minatare, Chadron and Bridgeport. Still, two of the eight districts increased in that time, Gering and Sidney, did not reach or exceed their pre-pandemic rates. Sidney’s 2021 graduation rate was still 6.2 percentage points lower than its 2019 rate, and Gering’s 2021 rate was 3.1 percentage points lower than its 2019 rate.
COMPARING RATES TO EASTERN NEBRASKA
This data, along with analysis of graduation rates from some of the larger districts on the eastern side of the state, seem to suggest that generally the larger districts in the state felt the effects of the pandemic more strongly.
Of the eight eastern districts analyzed for this article, five of them had rates fall from 2019 to 2020. Six of them fell from 2020 to 2021. Millard dropped the farthest of the six, falling two whole percentage points, while Omaha fell the most the year prior, dropping by 3.2 percentage points from 2019 to 2020.
Omaha did manage to increase its rates the following year, but much like Gering, the 2021 graduation rate was still 2.5 percentage points behind the 2019 rate.
Despite the fallen rates, however, Gering Superintendent Nicole Regan remains positive about the past rates and optimistic for the future ones. Even though she wasn’t with the school district during the height of the pandemic — she was with Lincoln Public Schools before coming to Gering this fall — Regan said she was impressed by how the district managed in that time.
“(The graduation rate) does reflect the health of the district, and to me having 87% is a good (rate) for what we were going through,” she said. “I was really proud of that.”
ADDRESSING THE DECLINE
Still, it didn’t mean the district wasn’t going to keep pushing for improvement to close the learning gap and bump up that rate again.
“We started this conversation right away when I was here in July,” Regan said, “and we’ve been making marked improvements of addressing these needs. And, graduation rate was a top priority for the district office; that was important. We wanted to make sure that we were serving kids.”
For Scottsbluff, those improvements to address learning loss include tutoring after school, additional intervention classes and summer school, Shaddick said. He added that the pandemic taught the district just how important in person attendance is — and how it relates to graduation rates — which is why the district ran a campaign during the fall semester to stress the importance of attendance.
“That is one of our biggest challenges here at Scottsbluff High School is attendance, and we ran a campaign through our school district,” he said. “If students are here, (then) we just have that much better of a chance of getting them through and providing the education they need to graduate. … I just can’t emphasize enough how important attendance is in making sure students get to school when they can and they’re healthy.”
Gering community engagement director Jennifer Sibal agreed that attendance is a huge part in making sure students can graduate on time.
“We know in person learning is the strongest — you’re developing relationships; you’re experiencing and learning what some of the unique needs are that may be there for students from the entire student perspective, not just an academic perspective. Are there other things that are barriers to just having a good strong learning experience that day?” she said. “…So, being in person, having students in school more consistently this year, I think is also going to be a big part of this.”
Gering has also been addressing learning loss through after school and weekend tutoring, as well as new intervention programs targeting the students “with the greatest need to have those graduation requirements, so meeting them where they’re at, and getting them to that point,” Regan said.
MOVING FORWARD
Both Gering and Scottsbluff districts are optimistic about this year’s rates, but they acknowledge they, along with all school districts across the country, still have a lot to do to close that learning loss gap created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I do think we are going to feel the effects of the pandemic and the shutdown for a period of time,” Shaddick said, “and that’s what we’re trying to work through right now is (figuring) out those areas that we can improve upon and keep our students engaged.
“…I do think that we will work our way through this, and these rates will rise. But, this impacted freshmen through seniors, and it’s going to take some time as we work through those cohorts and we try to recoup some of those credits that were lost, as well as just learning loss in general. It’s just going to take time to work through, and we just have to stay optimistic and keep working as hard as we can.”
This story contains reporting by Chalkbeat and the Associated Press.
*Originally published in the Star-Herald on Jan. 29, 2022.
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