Alliance City Schools has developed extensive plans to help students advance and make up for any learning that may have been lost or delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. We have designed plans to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways, including intervention during and after the school day for the remainder of this school year and into next year and summer school between the 2020-2021 school year, as well as between the 2021-2022 school year.  Our plan also includes significant investment into socio-emotional learning and student health and wellness.  

ACS plan for the safe return to in-person instruction and continuity of services

There will be no remote learning opportunities for ACS students in the 2021-22 school year. To ensure that these in-person students are safe and that the district can effectively deliver a continuity of services, ACS will:

• Follow to, the extent possible, CDC guidelines for the mitigation and prevention of COVID-19. T

  his includes:

  • Mask Wearing

  • Social Distancing

  • Hand washing and respiratory best practices

  • Contact tracing

  • Cleaning and maintaining facilities

• Provide information and opportunities for vaccinations

• Invest ESSER and ARP money in improvements and renovations that will prevent and/or mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Impacted Students: 

ACS will identify which students have been most impacted by the pandemic in terms of their learning progress (with a focus on the most vulnerable student populations) in the following ways:

Alliance Elementary Schools (PK-5) 

Elementary students have had the opportunity to be in-person 5 days/week all year. Approximately 70% of our students have attended in-person, while 30% attended virtually. With the majority of district students being in-person, we’ve had the opportunity to closely monitor students' academic success. Our digital K-5 students have had one dedicated teacher to monitor attendance, progress, SEL needs and daily interaction. Additionally, the district has dedicated a full time intervention specialist and para pro who both work with all of our students with IEPs/504’s.  This has allowed us to compile relevant data about progress. To address the needs of students for the summer and years to come, teams have analyze many facets of high quality district and nationally normed data to determine instructional needs of those students struggling or experiencing a gap as listed in the needs section.

Alliance City Secondary Schools (6-12): 

Approximately 25% of ACS students in grades 6-12 attended school virtually over the course of this school year.  In-person high school and middle school students only attended school every other day for the first quarter of this school year and thus lost about 25 days of instruction. Additionally, many Alliance High School students were impacted by multiple days of mandatory quarantining, adding additional lost instructional time.    Alliance Middle and High school has offered summer and school year support for identified students with the goal of closing the learning gap in Math and ELA. High school students who are credit deficient and/or have not met competency on their end of course Algebra I and English II assessments will receive additional support.  Middle school students have been identified based on iReady Diagnostic data, Ohio State Test (OST) data, and course grades earned in core content classes. 

Needs:

ACS will identify the specific needs of the above students in the following ways:

Elementary: 

• For those students scoring below proficiency level on the OST (ELA fall 3rd grade assessment) and/or 3-5 Readiness assessment in both reading and math, the district has conducted an item analysis to determine specific domains to target for instruction. 

• The district is currently analyzing the middle of the year iReady diagnostic data in both reading and math to identify domain deficits and plan a course for instruction. (K-5)

• Students earning below 65% in a their reading and/or math course have been identified as Response to  Intervention students with 2 identified reading/math standards of deficit.(K-5)

• Students whose reading fluency is below the benchmark rate will be given further assessment to determine the reason for lack of fluency, phonological awareness, phonics skills, etc. 

• The district will use the Reading Roots Formal Assessments (K-1) to identify oral reading, oral comprehension and sight word mastery aligned to benchmark levels.

• The district will analyze multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) data such as attendance rates, behavioral referrals, data on PBIS goals to identify students who demonstrate deficiencies. 

Secondary:

• High school students who are not on track with their graduation credits in math and ELA will receive math and English support in the deficient area(s). 

• High school students who scored below a 684 on their Algebra I and/or English II end of course exams will receive math and English support in the deficient area(s). 

• Middle school students who have scored below a 700 on their OST or EOC will receive math and English support in the deficient area(s).

• Middle school students will have their beginning-of-the-year (BOY), middle-of-the-year (MOY), and end-of-the-year (EOY) diagnostic data reviewed in both reading and math to identify domain deficits and plan a course for instruction/intervention

• Middle school students earning below 65% in a reading and/or math course have been identified as Response to Intervention students. 

• District MTSS Data - Attendance rates, behavioral referrals, data on PBIS goals

Partnerships:

ACS will utilize partnerships with the following community entities to assist in meeting the needs of our students:

Elementary:

• Our elementary schools have partnered with The University of Mount Union in an effort to close the literacy gap. Students in their junior and senior year of the education program at UMU tutor our at-risk students in literacy twice a week for the rest of the 2020-2021 school year and all of the 2021-2022 school year.  

• ACS has formed strong partnerships with the Salvation Army, YMCA, Focus3 Consulting Group, State-Support Team 9, Girls on the Run, and the Stark County ESC, to provide consistent and effective supports to help meet the Social emotional needs for our students.

• ACS partners with the Success for All Foundation to provide curriculum and instruction support to meet students on their academic level

• ACS partners with the Early Childhood Education Alliance to focus on providing quality early childhood experiences for our children and families.  The partnership’s goal is to connect families with resources and programs that ensure children enter kindergarten ready to succeed.  

• ACS partners with the local YWCA to provide after-school and summer remediation opportunities.  

• ACS has partnered with the Ennis Britton Consulting Group to provide administrators coaching on how to lead their staff and students through the pandemic and overcome barriers and deficiencies.  

• ACS partners with the National Inventors Hall of Fame to bring Camp Invention to enhance students’ STEM capacity, critical thinking, and collaboration skills.  Camp Invention provides valuable tools for reinforcing school-year learning and empowering students to feel comfortable with STEM concepts.

Secondary: 

• ACS has partnered with the Ennis Britton Consulting Group to provide administrators coaching on how to lead their staff and students through the pandemic and overcome barriers and deficiencies. 

• ACS has formed strong partnerships with the Salvation Army, Focus3 Consulting Group, State-Support Team 9, and the Stark County ESC, to provide consistent and effective support to help meet the social emotional needs for our students.

• ACS has partnered with Stark Educational Partnership to give support to high school students by providing a College Connector to assist with college applications, scholarships, etc.   

• ACS has partnered with the YWCA for the middle school Summer Explorers program, which provides mentoring, intervention, enrichment, and experiential activities for students. 

• ACS has partnered with the YMCA for the middle school Navigators program, which provides tutoring, study table, and experiential activities for students. 

• ACS has partnered with area leaders to provide our students with mentors in the Lunch with a Leader program. 

• ACS has partnered with the University of Mount Union our students with mentors in the Sister Circle program. 

• ACS has partnered with Child & Adolescence and CommQuest to provide our students with additional social and emotional support. 

• ACS has partnered with the University of Mount Union and their pre-service teachers to provide our students with one-on-one tutoring

Alignment: 

How this plan reinforces and aligns to other district or school plans

Elementary/Secondary: 

• ACS uses the CARE TEAM model to facilitate collaboration and alignment amongst teachers, administrators, law enforcement, mental health and other community social service agencies in order to address obstacles facing at-risk students and their families. The CARE TEAM meetings occur monthly in each school building.Qualitative and quantitative data is collected and interventions are set based on individual need.

• We will embed SEL lessons during summer school. Summer School staff members will have counselors, administration and certified teachers who are familiar with our CARE TEAM resources to support the whole child during their academic learning journey.

• Our staff will continue our R Factor/SEL training throughout the summer and prepare activities/lessons to be implemented during the 2021-2022 school year.

• Our building PBIS teams will finalize our PBIS playbook to be implemented during the 2021-2022 school year. This playbook is being created in an effort to promote positive relationships, effective behavior reinforcements and instill confidence in our students.  

• Our k-3 model of performance grouping students according to their reading level will assist us in providing more targeted work with students who have experienced varying levels of learning loss and to design unique plans to address that learning loss as quickly as possible. 

• The system and structure of our current after-school programming as it already stands aligns well with our need to provide opportunities for more intervention than students might get within the school day.  Our after school programming removes barriers such as no adult assistance and no internet access at  home to provide the support needed to practice and refine content-related skills.  

• Each of our buildings currently has a literacy plan.  We will adjust the plan as necessary to account for deficit areas in student growth and achievement. 

• Our comprehensive literacy curriculum aligns with our efforts to mitigate learning loss.

• We are currently in the first year of a four year Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant.  Our use of these grant funds for instructional coaching and professional development aligns with our work to address learning gaps. 

• ACS will continue to utilize the RTI process to identify and address students who have fallen beyond, especially in Math and Reading, due to COVID-related issues.

As the impact of COVID-19 on our district and community continues to grow and evolve, so too will our response to it.  Until the global pandemic and its repercussions are far beyond us, we will not be fully informed of exactly how far our students may have fallen behind and how much work we have to do to address learning loss and gaps.  This plan has been developed based on what we know at this time.  However, we will continue to refine and adjust our methods of identifying the needs of our students, the best ways to address those needs, the resources needed and partnerships we can form to assist us in ensuring our students, even in the midst of a global pandemic, we successful prepare our students for life, college, and careers.

updated on June 23, 2021