Students are taught how to sound out letters during a phonics lesson at Ferguson Elementary School in Klamath Falls on April 7, 2023. (Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
CORVALLIS – More than 700 teachers from across Oregon have spent the last two days in classrooms and lecture halls at Oregon State University in Corvallis to tackle post-pandemic learning gaps.
With $7 million in federal COVID relief money, the Oregon Department of Education launched in late 2023 the Equitable Accelerated Learning Project, which culminated in the two-day summit Tuesday and Wednesday. The project goal was to bring teachers from around the state together to address gaps and inequities exacerbated by the pandemic through better instruction.
Among the issues teachers are dealing with are chronic absenteeism; low reading and writing proficiency; middling math skills; and growing achievement gaps among students with disabilities, students from low-income families, rural students and English-language learners. The project aimed to get teachers to research instructional methods that can help close those gaps, said Angelica Cruz, director of literacy at the Oregon Department of Education.