Mike Apfelberg

During a normal year studies show that children in grades 3-5 lose on average about 20% of the reading skills and 27% of the math skills they learned in the prior year. This phenomenon has been known and with us for many years and is called the summer slide. In normal years, we also have community learning programs, like summer school, to address this slide so that kids can enter the next school year ready to learn. As I said, deliberately twice in this paragraph, this is what happens in a normal year.

But this has not been a normal year. This has been a pandemic year. In this year we stopped normal schooling in March and went remote. And while teachers, students, and families worked hard to make remote learning a success, I think we can all agree that it was less than optimal. Then, as we came into summer, it became more and more apparent that there would be no summer school type programs to speak of. And that leaves us wondering just what things are going to look like for our kids as we enter the 2020/2021 school year.

For starters, we know that we are beginning the new school year remote, and then are transitioning into a hybrid model, which will still only have limited personal time for students and teachers to directly interact. If we are totally honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there will still be technology issues, communication issues, behavior issues, and language issues… all exacerbated by the new model of what it will mean to be “in school.” From what I can tell, we are heading toward the perfect storm of academic learning loss. A defective prior school year. A deficient summer session. And a less than optimal fall. All in all, I would say that this is a pretty serious situation which will need to be addressed.

About a month or so ago when it started to really sink in what this will mean for our community, we realized that to address these issues it will take a broad based response, and that’s when the new concept of LEARN UNITED came into being. Over the past month, we have pulled together a broad coalition of youth agencies which will be partnering to help bolster the academic needs of our kids. The basic concept is that we are looking to recruit a veritable army of United Way volunteer tutors (probably as many as 500 or so). These tutors, across a variety of academic disciplines and with different skills, will be placed under the direct supervision of one or more of our youth agencies, which include the Boys and Girls Club, Girls Incorporated, the Adult Learning Center, the Youth Council, Nashua PAL, and the YMCA. In these agencies, the volunteers will provide one to one, or one to small group tutoring sessions for young learners, which will be done in a combination of remote sessions as well as in person sessions. If there is not space available at the agency location, then the sessions might take place in other places such as a local church or other community space. The students themselves will come into the program mostly through referrals from their teachers, but of course sometimes from guidance counselors, or even their families. Based on the needs identified in the referral, the student will be matched up with the best possible tutor available. Finally, helping to coordinate the logistics, scheduling, background checking, and other important details of running the program will be a combination of folks from the 21st Century program, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the United Way. We anticipate starting this program in October and running it as long as it takes, but likely through the entire school year.

So far, we are still in the planning phases of this important initiative, but far enough along that I can start to really see how things will work. We also have support from the school district as well as the teachers union to run this program, and everybody seems to understand that at the end of the day our role will be to support the teachers and their students so that they can all succeed. I must say that for me it is exceptionally gratifying to see how much collaboration there is among all the agencies to get this program running. Of course, this program is in addition to all the great work they are already doing, but everybody seems to understand that extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions, and that no singe organization or agency can do it all.

As I see it, we have two choices, and they are stark contrasts. On the one hand, we could simply roll over and let our kids down, admitting defeat and falling victims to COVID. That is not anybody’s fault. Teachers are working very hard under truly difficult circumstances. Parents are doing what they can to support their kids, while still putting a roof above their heads and food on the table. And students are also trying to figure out how to succeed in this environment. It is, however, a very difficult situation, and I do not think anybody wants failure to be the option we choose. For me, and probably for you, it is an unacceptable non-starter. On the other hand, we can pull together and make sure that our children get the support they deserve and the education which is their right, and we as a community can play a big role in helping to make that happen. I am totally confident that we will choose this latter option. If you want to get involved in this effort, please contact me at United Way. We need many volunteers with a lot of different skills. We need lots of technology donations. And, yes, we could also use a little bit of money to pull this off. In the end, I am sure we are going to be NashuaStrong and come together, Because Great Things Happen When We LIVE UNITED.

Mike Apfelberg is president of United Way of Greater Nashua.

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