Why the Pandemic Forces Administrators to Rethink Attendance — and Interoperability

When COVID-19 forced the mass closure of schools across the U.S. during the early months of 2020, we all wondered how—or if—students would continue to learn amid the turbulence. Seemingly overnight, educators, parents and edtech companies churned out crisis plans for remote instruction in hopes of carrying on, at the very least, until summer break.

Concerns over the long-term negative impacts of poor attendance are not new, but the pandemic casts a different light on the issue.
Unsurprisingly, concerns over the expected “COVID slide” began to take shape almost as quickly as the emergency response plans, with the learning loss projected to be especially dire for those students already at risk of failure. As the weeks wore on, it seemed that many students would, thankfully, finish the school year with much of their learning intact. In fact, some studies forecast that high performers would actually see improvement in certain areas, such as reading, during times of independent learning.

…..