Putnam Schools Sees Participation Improve after Check-ins

Putnam County School Director Corby King said two weeks of work among school administrators to engage problem remote learners has worked.

The school system started reaching out two weeks ago for students not logging in on time and not completing assignments on time. King said the participation problems have been across the board, but it is more prevalent in middle and high school students.

“It surprised a few parents, because what we’re finding as our principals, administrators, counselors and SRO’s are making home visits at this point, students have been logging in on the online and they’ve been checking and the parents are like, ‘they’ve been on the computer, they’ve been logging in,’ and they’ve just not been logging in and completing school work,” King said.

King said parent engagement is the reason the system is seeing fewer problems with its youngest learners.

“In elementary you tend to have parents more involved in making sure their children are logging on and completing assignments,” King said

Following the check-ins, King said some families are making the decision to return to in-person learning. In order to make sure the school year is successful for their child.

“Lots of students have actually returned to in-person learning as a result of the check ins, just because they’re not being successful and they’re not able to manage and keep up with the workload in a remote environment,” King said.

King said, in a majority of cases, students were simply telling their parents work was completed, that was not. The check-ins with families have made progress on this issue though, King said.