The academic performance of students at Eleanor Roosevelt High School continues to fall in the 2023-24 academic year according to the 2024 Maryland School Report Card compiled by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).
The Greenbelt magnet school met fewer annual targets, made no improvement in its statewide ranking and had one of its lowest “overall performance” scores in recent years, according to the MSDE. Statistics quoted apply to the school as a whole: the science and technology curriculum and the general student body.
Pandemic Effects Linger
Jonathan Briggs, District 2 Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) Board of Education member, whose district includes Greenbelt schools, said the recent scores concern him because challenges that already plagued teachers were exacerbated by the pandemic’s virtual learning.
“A lot of the results that we’re seeing now, out of 2022 to 2024, are going to be reflected from those instructional gaps that were in place because of the pandemic,” Briggs said.
Maryland Comparisons
Roosevelt remained in the 58th percentile among Maryland public high schools in the 2023-24 academic year. This is tied with the previous academic year for the school’s lowest percentile rank in the last five years, according to the MSDE.
In academic year 2021-22, the department reported Roosevelt was in the 72nd percentile, thus showing the significance of the later drops. Data for academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 – which overlap with the pandemic – were not available.
News Review requests for comment from Roosevelt Principal Portia Barnes and four representatives from PGCPS received no response.
Testing at Roosevelt
The Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP) assesses third through eighth grade and 10th-grade students in mathematics and English to track their progress toward proficiency.
The school’s 10th-grade students scored 49.6 percent in the MCAP mathematics proficiency tests and 70.3 percent in English language arts tests in the 2023-2024 academic year. Both were lower than scores during the prior five years.
Heather Seyler, who primarily teaches English at Roosevelt, said preparing students for the English exam is challenging. “There are very few [practice tests],” Seyler said. “When I seek support at the county level or at the state level for practice tests and ways to prepare students for [the exams], those resources have been lacking.”
For Patrick Gleason, also an English teacher at Roosevelt, keeping students’ attention is an issue.
“A big challenge right now is … navigating student attention spans,” Gleason said. He also pointed to the teacher staffing shortage, which has been an issue since before the pandemic started, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Seyler also remarked that replacing a teacher who leaves mid-year is really difficult. “We’ve had vacancies that have taken time to fill, and that impacts students as well,” she said.
Toward Improvement
PGCPS is taking a number of actions to address its issues. PGCPS made a significant investment in its communications with parents, Briggs noted. He listed the district’s social media posts, emails, listserv, newsletters and text messages as various methods the district uses to keep parents informed. “When we have families that are engaged in schools … that is something that helps to provide wraparound supports for students because teachers have strong relationships with parents,” Briggs said.
Fostering that strong teacher/parent relationship has been difficult coming out of the pandemic when everything was handled remotely. The Family Institute, designed to support parents of students in the county, aims to assist families in supporting their children’s academic success.
The institute acknowledges that working parents cannot meet during traditional school hours and provides alternatives, Briggs said, adding that many of the Family Institute opportunities that exist are after hours – and a lot of them are virtual.
PGCPS has taken a number of steps to recruit more teachers, including getting college students interested in teaching and incentives for teachers such as increased base pay, Briggs said.
Gleason also noted that the school itself provides a variety of options for students who need additional support. New after-school study sessions led by teachers and student/teacher one-on-one meetings are a part of those support systems, he added.
For Seyler, helping students who are at a disadvantage is what teachers do. “That’s part of our job to address that gap, so we’re mindful of it and attempting to reach students.”
Randy Chow is a University of Maryland student at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism writing for the News Review.