What will it take to help NC schools recover from pandemic? Here are some ideas.
North Carolina schools will now have to continue post-pandemic recovery efforts without the benefit of billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 aid.
Despite the loss of the one-time federal pandemic aid, education officials and researchers say there are still ways schools can continue the post-pandemic learning recovery. Here are some options schools can explore to help students catch up.
Push to reduce chronic student absenteeism
Absenteeism is the biggest issue North Carolina has in terms of recovery, according to Michael Maher, chief accountability officer at the state Department of Public Instruction.
The percentage of North Carolina students who are chronically absent, meaning they’ve missed 10% or more of school days, soared during the pandemic.
In 2019, 16% of North Carolina students were chronically absent. By 2023, 27% of North Carolina students were chronically absent.
“A doubling of chronic absenteeism in North Carolina is a huge, huge problem, and that will contribute more than anything else to what we see in student performance,” Maher said in an interview. “If kids aren’t in school, then they certainly can’t learn.”
Maher cited how Brunswick County improved attendance rates after changing how parents notify schools that their child will be absent. He also cited Granville County, which uses incentives like awards as well as threats like weekend detention to get more students in school.
“These are the kind of interventions you could do that are low cost or no cost that will help move the needle,” Maher said.
How employers, governments can help reduce absenteeism
What’s particularly concerning is that absenteeism is much higher in high-poverty school districts, according to Tom Kane, a Harvard University professor and one of the leaders of the Education Recovery Scorecard project. This trend has widened the achievement gap between high-income and low-income school districts.
“Parents just became more accustomed to having their children stay home,” Kane said in an interview. “I don’t think we know what all the drivers are, but that’s a common pattern around the country as absence rates remain high.”
Lowering absenteeism is “one of the highest bang-for-buck” things that can be done now to raise academic achievement, according to Kane.
“It has the advantage of it’s one of the few things that organizations outside of schools could be helping schools with right now,” Kane said. “Most mayors can’t teach Algebra I, but they could run a public information campaign to try to lower absences.
“Employers could be providing more flexibility around school pickup and drop-off times. There are just many different organizations that could be helping schools lower absenteeism.”
Request for more state funding
Maher said state lawmakers can help with recovery efforts by funding State Superintendent Mo Green’s budget priorities. Green has called for expanded support for tutoring programs and math and language arts instruction in middle schools.
DPI wants the phonics-based “science of reading” literacy instruction now required in elementary schools to be expanded into middle schools.
Five years after the start of the pandemic, Maher said the state has a better handle now on what strategies will help.
“We certainly know the interventions that work,” Maher said. “We just need them to be funded in order to do it.”
The state Senate budget includes items such as more tests to assess reading skills in fourth and fifth grades. But the Senate didn’t include any of the funding requested for tutoring and support for low-performing districts and only a small portion of what was requested to provide science of reading training for middle school teachers.
“The Senate budget was very, very modest,” Geoff Coltrane, DPI’s senior director of government affairs and strategy, told the State Board of Education on April 30.
House and Senate lawmakers will try to work out a compromise spending plan after the state House releases its budget proposal.
Getting students help this summer
With the school year winding down, Kane said teachers need to let parents know this spring if their children are performing below grade level in reading and math. Kane said that notification from a trusted source like a teacher could cause parents to get their child additional help this summer.
“One of the things that we’ve seen in many polls is that parents seem to believe that now that schools are back in session, everything’s fine,” Kane said. “But we know, just from these data that we’re looking at, that that’s not the case.
“Parents aren’t going to be asking, aren’t going to be signing up for summer learning. They may not ask for a tutor. They may not be as concerned about absences if they believe that everything’s fine.”
A 2023 national survey by Gallup and Learning Heroes found that nearly 90% of parents around the country thought their children were performing at or above grade level in reading and math. Yet the passing rate on most state end-of-reading and math exams last school year was less than 60%.
Historically, many families don’t sign up for summer school programs, even when it can benefit their children. Last year, nearly half of the students invited to Wake County’s Read to Achieve summer camp rejected the invitation.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
