The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a lot of lives, but, according to Guilford County Schools Superintendent Sharon Contreras, there’s another giant tragedy that’s been wreaked by the pandemic – the massive learning loss for students in Guilford County.
Contreras said it will take a huge amount of work and a great deal of funding to make up for the loss of learning caused by the pandemic.
The superintendent made her comments at a Thursday, June 3 work session of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners held to help the commissioners determine the appropriate amount of county government spending on Guilford County Schools in the upcoming fiscal year.
As every county parent knows, the previous school year and the school year that just ended were absolutely decimated by the pandemic – which led to on-again-off-again classes, mass confusion regarding procedures and some highly dubious remote learning efforts for those who had the bandwidth and the equipment.
Contreras told the commissioners that the loss of learning that took place was staggering.
“I am starting to see the test scores coming in,” she said, “and I can tell you it is like nothing we have ever seen in this county, in this state, or in this country – the amount of learning loss we are experiencing. And we’re going to have to invest lots of resources on making sure students have academic supports and social and emotional supports.”
There’s plenty of other human fallout as well from the pandemic, Contreras said.
“I’m sure you’ve read that suicide rates are increasing all over the state and in the county, she said to the board, “and lots of students are suffering from mental health issues.”
She added that adults were also suffering from mental health issues. One study, she said, found a 27 percent increase in cases of depression.
Contreras said that attempting to fill the massive learning loss gap would be extremely expensive.
“We’re spending a tremendous amount of money on learning loss, and I expect we will be spending that for the next 20 years,” she said.
The superintendent added that school officials were trying to do everything they can to the best of their abilities given the financial constraints.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs says basic physical needs have to be met first, or learning won’t take place. Ivory tower elites like her purport to swear by it.
A basic physical need would include safety from physical harm. As evidenced by what happened at Southern Guilford, Contreras has failed miserably.
I agree she is the worst. Brought her NY attitude down here to “enlighten” us.
Amen Bryan. With the ability to spout the right words to appease the school board and an attitude to ignore the parents Contreras flies by the seat of her pants. Money Money Money, the ultimate panacea for the Administrative Education elite.
Contreras is the embodiment of Satan himself. The great orator, political pawn, and the great liberal indoctrinator.
What she’s saying is. . . . .give us more money. Note she says it will continue for 20 years, but she has no proof of that either. It’s all a political game for the $$$$.
If they had made any effort to do anything for online kids beyond allowing the teachers to just shove them off to six different websites with web activities and almost no live instruction perhaps there would have been no loss of learning. Instead we had totally unprepared staff that couldn’t even figure out how to turn their mics on half the time without parents providing tech support over the phone.
Joe, exactly! And she is asking for even greater authority to spend money without the oversight of the board of education. All future failures will be blamed on insufficient funding needed to compensate for the pandemic year. Frightening lack of transparency
And we have been informed that in the southern guilford school area that the (school board) is not allowing kids to be held back even if the parents request it. Makes sense huh?
Most education research indicates that enrichment (I.e. accelerating learning) rather than mediation (I.e. reviewing difficult topics) is more effective at combating learning deficits. From that perspective, we should only very rarely hold kids back. Besides, if kids aren’t happy with the public school decisions they all have other options – private, charter, homeschool.
Ridiculous statement-if families could all afford the options the public school population would shrink like a cheap T shirt.
Provide vouchers and watch what happens! Public education in this state is a failure and a disgrace.
End the government run youth indoctrination school monopoly! Spend the money on the children, not the system and salaries of the administrators.
The Guilford County School Board got rid of the best school leader that we have ever had and hired just what they wanted to lead the schools. Until there is a change our schools will never improve.
Maybe they can stop spending all the funds on left wing political groups that teach hate and divide our children by skin color?
I’d like to see a detailed listing of the additional expenditures she speaks about.
Joe, exactly! And she is asking for even greater authority to spend money without the oversight of the board of education. All future failures will be blamed on insufficient funding needed to compensate for the pandemic year. Frightening lack of transparency
It can all be saved with mo’ money. Just give it to her, she will wave a magic wand and abracadabra, the students minds will be expanded. Does Contreras think we are that stupid? She may have gotten away with this insanity in New York, but I expect our county commissioners to put a leash on this spend thrift.
Greensboro and Guilford County should be called The Guilford Syndrome and let other cities study it before they decide to allow Democrats to come in and plunder their cities .
More money wasted won’t do a thing to improve the education. Good teachers shoving an education into the masses’ pudding-idiot-box.heads as hard and fast as they can would go a long way. The kids may actually learn something. No electronic devices in class rooms. You can do square roots with a pencil & paper.
Oh Contreras-funding -money-spending -blah blah.
Same old stuff-kids cant read or spell or multiply.
Thank you for your great leadership and management.
Pitiful.
Stop constantly lowering the bar, producing poorer outcomes and then blaming it on money. Hire a business person as Superintendent who will cut waste in the bureaucracy of GCS, give Teachers raises and spend savings in the classroom. Then raise the bar and hold children accountable. Results will soar and over time poverty will decline. Then, maybe, we won’t have to blame everything on racism and we can have some semblance of unity and community. It all starts with Leadership.
Someone’s going unicorn hunting.
What do they expect. Keep kids out of school and learning suffers.
Congratulations progressives, mission accomplished. Now the kids have been dumbed down the focus will be getting them to hate each other…enter Critical Race Theory. This should be a call to arms for parents, enough of that BS…take your schools back.
we will be spending that for the next 20 years,” she said. … So let me see .. kids who were in K in 2020 will graduate in 12 years … So Contreras is claiming the pandemic is so bad that it will affect kids who have not even been born yet..? Not so sure I trust her with $$$$$$
Let me enlighten you about low scores!!!!!! Look at all Democratic run states ,they are all shut down and study had to go virtual.Look at our private schools in the county,they did not miss a beat they had in class schools since day one.if you look at their scores there will be no loss in numbers.Compared to NC as a whole where almost all year was virtual.maybe we need to follow their pattern.It seems that they have something that would be worth sharing with our Glorious and highly inefficient spendthrift Democrats that run NC.HELP us dear Lord!!!
Define “democratic run state”.
Define “our private schools”. Most private schools were not in person 5 days a week this academic year. Where are you getting this bad information? Rhino probably.