Royal Live Oaks and Polaris Tech Charter Schools
May 1, 2021 – The school shutdowns implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic will have depressing effects on the educational achievement—and thus life success—of millions of students. Economists estimate that the average American child who lost access to in-person schooling during 2020 and 2021 will suffer a permanent reduction of 5-10 percent from what their lifetime earnings would otherwise have been. That is a harsh penalty for any child, and particularly damaging for low-income youngsters.
With the aim of mitigating some of these shutdown-related learning losses, the Jubilee Community Partnership recently made a special offer to all of the public schools in Jasper County, South Carolina: The partnership would donate a user license entitling every single school child (and his teachers and parents) access to one of the top-rated educational software programs in the country.
This software offers students online activities that often feel like games but are actually sophisticated instructional and testing exercises. Once assigned by teachers, the software adapts its exercises to each student, identifying problem areas and providing extra help on those topics. A sophisticated dashboard allows teachers, parents, and students to see where the user is succeeding and where he or she is getting stuck.
To provide every Jasper County public-school student with access to this powerful software, Jubilee Community Partnership offered six-figure grants to the Jasper County Public Schools, Polaris Tech Charter School, and Royal Live Oaks Charter School.
Royal Live Oaks and Polaris Tech accepted the offer. After polling her teachers on their experience with free versions of this software, RLO elementary-school principal Althea Wigfall found that RLO teachers were already using trial versions of the program, sometimes paying for it out of their own pockets, and reporting strong positive results with students. Polaris Tech teachers and administrators also enthusiastically accepted Jubilee’s gift.
Jubilee Community Partnership purchased 620 individual student licenses for use by local students, and encouraged teachers to provide summer assignments on the system and then throughout the full 2021-22 school year. Children who use the software will be able to claw back some of the learning losses induced by the COVID school shutdown.
