{"id":235119,"date":"2025-10-14T07:02:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T11:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=235119"},"modified":"2025-10-14T12:40:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T16:40:23","slug":"five-years-later-are-students-bouncing-back-from-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/10\/five-years-later-are-students-bouncing-back-from-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Years Later, Are Students Bouncing Back from the Pandemic?"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the COVID-19 pandemic, over 500,000 K-12 students in Connecticut had to rapidly pivot to remote and hybrid learning. Now, after five years, schools have reestablished their regular rhythms, and it\u2019s easy to imagine that the pandemic\u2019s effects on learning have subsided along with social-distancing and mask mandates.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But unfortunately, this isn\u2019t the case for many students, says Morgaen Donaldson, the Associate Dean for Research and Philip E. Austin Endowed Chair of the <\/span>UConn Neag School of Education<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Morgaen
Morgaen Donaldson is the associate dean for research at the UConn Neag School of Education. (Garrett Uhde \/ Defining Studios)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCOVID really drove a huge wedge [among students],\u201d Donaldson says. \u201cThere were big gaps in learning and achievement between different groups to begin with, but COVID just made them even worse. And if we have any hope of closing them, we have to start by meeting students where they are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For the past five years, Donaldson has worked to investigate and address the pandemic\u2019s effects on student performance and well-being. She is the co-director of the <\/span>Center for Connecticut Education Research Collaboration (CCERC)<\/span><\/a>, an innovative partnership between the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) and researchers from Connecticut\u2019s colleges and universities.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with her co-director, CSDE Chief Performance Officer <\/span>Ajit Gopalakrishnan, Donaldson works to identify the issues currently faced by K-12 schools, develop research studies to analyze them, and ultimately design solutions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Donaldson\u2019s own research career has focused on educational leadership, teachers\u2019 instructional practices, and district policy, drawing on her own background as a former high school teacher. Now, she is leveraging her expertise to understand the problems teachers are facing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing some of my own research, but also playing a facilitating and directing role,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re working to identify topics that are pressing needs in the state, finding researchers with relevant expertise within the state and creating research teams that will investigate these problems and produce solutions that are really practical.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Uniting Researchers and Educators<\/h3>\n

The CCERC\u2019s research has revealed that many pre-pandemic disparities were exacerbated by the pandemic and have been slow to improve.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Particularly worrisome is the rate of chronic absenteeism in the state, defined as a student missing 10% or more school days in a year. The state average chronic absenteeism rate was around 10% prior to the pandemic; in 2021-2022, when in-person schooling resumed, that rate jumped to nearly 24%. Data from the 2023-2024 school year shows that it decreased (to 18%) but is still nearly double pre-pandemic levels.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when students are physically showing up for class, the echoes of the pandemic can still be heard in school hallways. Performance gaps between white students and students of color, for instance, widened; so did the academic disparities affecting English language learners and students on free or reduced-price lunch.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While these disparities are decreasing, they still eclipse pre-pandemic levels. Not every student \u2013 and not every school — has been equally able to bounce back. Financial resources certainly help shore up this kind of resilience, and it is a truth universally acknowledged within public education that not all schools have equal access to these resources.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In an effort to support communities that were hardest hit, the Neag School of Education has partnered with Connecticut\u2019s Alliance Districts \u2013 36 school districts across the state which have identified the most challenges in funding, retaining educators, and student performance.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done rapid research briefs to answer problems in their districts,\u201d Donaldson says. Neag\u2019s connection with Alliance Districts has facilitated the work of CCERC. \u201cWe kind of have a beat on what they\u2019re struggling with, so we can say to the state department, \u2018People really want to know more about <\/span>high-dosage tutoring<\/span><\/a>,\u2019 or, \u2018Attendance is a real issue.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Creative problem-solving, in partnership with school districts, is a hallmark of the CCERC\u2019s approach. <\/span>One state intervention, the <\/span>Learner Engagement and Attendance Program (LEAP)<\/span><\/a>, employed a strategy of home visits to address attendance challenges. CCERC has supported an evaluation of LEAP\u2019s impact on student attendance and other key outcomes.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LEAP attracted national attention in publications like the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/a> for its staggering success \u2013 increasing school attendance by nearly 15% among targeted students, essentially closing the gap between chronic absenteeism and a typical student attendance record.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Colorful
Some of the sock puppets, books and kits that are part of the Feel Your Best Self program sit in Gentry Building on Sept. 29, 2023. (Sydney Herdle\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thinking Outside the Box<\/h3>\n

If there\u2019s a silver lining to how the pandemic upended education, Donaldson says, it\u2019s how educators seized the opportunity to support whole-student development.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on her team\u2019s surveys of over 1000 Connecticut teachers, \u201cTeachers reported that they were much more likely to use socio-emotional learning strategies in the classroom than they were prior to the pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd many, many teachers reported that they took a different stance towards students \u2013 they really approached them with the socio-emotional lens in mind first, before they focused on academics.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Research from the CCERC helped design and deploy <\/span>creative solutions<\/span><\/a> to support whole-student wellbeing \u2013 especially crucial at a time when so many students were experiencing profound loneliness, uncertainty, and grief. Elsewhere in UConn\u2019s Neag School, researchers also worked to develop socio-emotional supports, like the award-winning <\/span>Feel Your Best Self<\/span><\/a> toolkit.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With her work at the CCERC and as a leader and professor at the\u00a0renowned\u00a0Neag School, Donaldson is dedicating\u00a0her career to\u00a0this cause, helping public education weather\u00a0each and every\u00a0storm.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to keep investing in public education, and keep working\u00a0at\u00a0improving it,\u201d Donaldson says. \u201cI would really like to see Connecticut double down on its commitment to developing, recruiting, and retaining a top-notch teacher workforce, because that\u2019s what will really help us rebound.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2013Education Department partnership investigates and supports K-12 student recovery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":235120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2460,2650,2424,1855,2648,2076,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2413],"class_list":["post-235119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty","category-blue-impact","category-neag-community-engagement","category-neag","category-blue-research","category-research","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 13:32:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236509,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235119\/revisions\/236509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/235120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235119"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=235119"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=235119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}