How’s online learning going in Fresno Unified schools? Here’s what we know so far

Compared to the previous year, thousands of more Fresno Unified School District students missed class during the first week of distance learning.

“It absolutely has not been perfect,” Superintendent Bob Nelson said in a video posted to the district’s Facebook page. “Some of you know there’s some crazy stories to tell about connectivity and other issues, but you are crushing it.”

The official first day of school was last Monday, but instruction began Wednesday. Monday and Tuesday were orientation days. Out of the roughly 73,000 Fresno Unified students, about 85% of students logged in for class on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Friday, 90% of students showed up.

Last school year, 93% of students showed up for the first day of school in Fresno, 94% of students went to classes the second day and 97% on the third day, according to data from the district.

In Clovis, school attendance numbers were nearly identical to the first week of school in prior years — before the coronavirus forced classrooms online. Last week, about 98.3% of the district’s roughly 43,000 students showed up to classes online, according to spokesperson Kelly Avants.

During the first week of 2019, Clovis schools reported 98.8% attendance and 98.6% in 2018.

Fresno Unified has given out a total of 70,000 devices, according to Nelson, and 15,000 of those were distributed this month. The technology center has received an average of 5,000 to 8,000 calls a day, “so we recognize the wait times are longer than they should be,” he said.

“If you haven’t got devices yet, we’re still striving to give those out to you, and we will make that happen in short order,” Nelson said.

Nearly 18% of Fresno Unified students are chronically absent, according to 2017-18 data, an issue that the district has dealt with for years. It’s unclear if the rate of chronic absences will get better or worse in the era of distance learning, but so far more students did not make it to the first week of school than last year.

When distance learning began in March after schools closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19, teachers and administrators were scrambling to get in touch with families and figure out which students needed technology and WiFi access.

Fresno Unified, along with many other districts in the state, did not make distance learning mandatory because thousands of students didn’t have computers or WiFi. Nelson said making school work mandatory wouldn’t be fair to all students. The district did not have a way to measure how many students were engaged in distance learning until May.

The district only collected four weeks of data but showed engagement trailing off weekly among both students and teachers. In the first week that attendance was tracked in May, 99% of teachers reported reaching out to their students, and 43% of students engaged in some type of distance learning. About 76% of teachers tried to contact students in the second week, and 43% of students participated.

During the third week, 65% of teachers interacted with students and only 22% of students engaged in distance learning. In the fourth week, 56% of teachers reached out to students, and 19% of students participated.

Most of the teachers who spoke to The Bee earlier in the summer said, on average, only about half their students participated online as the coronavirus pandemic challenged working families in particular. And for some teachers, the numbers were even worse.

Nelson has said the fall semester would be better because Fresno Unified teachers and administrators worked around hard over the summer to prepare, something they couldn’t do before schools abruptly closed in March.

“Our goal is to find every child and reach every family,” Nelson said. “100% attendance, nothing less (than) that is our goal.”

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 5:00 AM.