OKLAHOMA CITY — As national data shows the academic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, Oklahoma districts report stubborn challenges that worsened during the global crisis.

Leaders of local districts say students’ poor attendance and behavior have thrown up barriers to reaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels of academic achievement.

A national report shows the gap to pre-pandemic results widened during the 2023-24 school year, despite billions in public spending on recovery efforts.

Test scores from 7.7 million U.S. students in grades 3-8 show the average student would need the equivalent of 4.8 extra months of instruction to catch up in reading and 4.4 additional months in math, according to the report from NWEA, a testing company and research center.

NWEA administers standardized assessments called MAP to track students’ academic progress across the country, including in more than 100 Oklahoma school districts.

The fact that federal pandemic aid will soon end only exacerbates concerns, the NWEA report states. Oklahoma schools received more than $2 billion and must spend what’s left of it by Sept. 30.

“Instead of treating COVID recovery interventions as temporary crisis-mitigation tactics, we must make targeted academic supports, such as high-dosage tutoring and summer programming, a permanent part of our new normal,” the report’s authors, Karyn Lewis and Megan Kuhfeld, wrote.

The full results from Oklahoma state tests taken in the spring aren’t yet available. Last year, only 27% of Oklahoma students scored at a proficient level on state tests for reading, math and science.

In Lawton Public Schools, academic results haven’t recovered as quickly as the district wanted, Superintendent Kevin Hime said. The biggest barrier, he said, has been student absenteeism.

“We all know attendance is one of the things that’s lagged since the pandemic,” Hime said. “It’s been harder to get kids to come to school, believe it or not.”

Lawton has been working on “finding those hooks” that attract more students to school. 

“Makerspace” days when elementary children get to do hands-on activities in science, technology, engineering and math show strong attendance numbers, he said. Administrators even looked at the correlation between attendance rates and which meals are served in the cafeteria.

The district also saw increased interest in its summer programs this year, Hime said. Instead of calling the program “summer school,” Lawton rebranded it as a “summer camp” and added more enrichment activities.

Hime said he hopes better attendance, more parent engagement and “making sure we put in as many minutes of reading and math as we can” next school year will help close the gap to pre-pandemic achievement.

Bartlesville Public Schools is working to shrink that gap, too, but the district realized it would have to address student behavior issues to do it, Superintendent Chuck McCauley said.

Students are acting less mature than they did before the pandemic, especially among younger grades, he said. That’s why Bartlesville hired three more elementary school counselors — to address behavioral problems and child trauma.

The district plans to keep the extra counselors it hired, even after federal stimulus funds run out. McCauley said a 300-student increase in Bartlesville’s enrollment made it financially viable to retain the additional staff.

In Tulsa Public Schools, district leaders report decreases in student suspensions and improvements in attendance. The district introduced extra tutoring sessions this year and registered 6,500 students for its summer programs as it tries to propel academic performance upward.

Superintendent Ebony Johnson said attendance is a “difficult metric” to improve but a necessary one. About 45% of Tulsa students were chronically absent in 2023-24, meaning those students missed 10% or more of the school year, district leaders said at a June 27 meeting with the Oklahoma State Board of Education.

Johnson said that’s an improvement of 2.6% from the year before.

“We have seen a decrease in chronic absenteeism, but we’re not celebrating yet because that’s way too many students that are missing too much school,” Johnson said during the state board meeting.

The Tulsa district has leaned heavily on MAP tests from NWEA to help track student learning. Tulsa students took MAP assessments three times this school year, along with the spring state tests. 

The final spring MAP evaluation showed strong growth in reading among early elementary students, especially third graders, but results were more stagnant in upper elementary and middle school, district leaders have said.

However, students still improved throughout the school year, even if the upward trajectory wasn’t as steep in some grade levels as the district hoped, said Sean Berkstresser, Tulsa’s chief of strategy and innovation, during the state Board of Education meeting last month.

“Our students learned still, and we saw improvements,” Berkstresser said. “So, I want to make sure that’s known. You’ve seen what’s in front of us with a lot of these data points. There’s a lot more to do.”