La Salle-Peru High School receives $2.2 million in COVID relief funding

La Salle-Peru High School enacted an effort to get students on track after the pandemic, utilizing a $2.2 million federal grant and an effort to collaborate across school districts.

There are multiple ways students are behind in school, according to administrative staff. Chris Gibson, associate principal for teaching and learning at L-P, said he’s seeing a lack of regular attendance and participation in classes. He said students appear to be out of practice when it comes to participating in class and being engaged.

Superintendent Steve Wrobleski said students’ grades, social skills and level of engagement are at lows. Wrobleski said he’s seen a decline in students’ coping skills, resiliency and completion of assigned tasks. One of the goals of the federal grant money is to close the gap of pandemic learning loss.

“We need to help rebuild our kids’ ability to deal with constructive criticism or when they have conflicts with friends,” Wrobleski said. “It’s about helping kids become more resilient in being able to cope with regular life challenges.”

The $2.2 million Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief grant La Salle-Peru High School received is tied in with the federal COVID relief money distributed to all public school districts based on size. The high school previously received two other ESSER grants, the first amounting to $232,480 and the second $940,772.

A requirement of the grant is a certain amount of dollars need to be focused on narrowing the gap because of learning loss and providing opportunities for after school programs and summer enrichment. The money will go towards programs and training for teachers, technology, social emotional support and summer enrichment programs for middle school kids. The money also will go toward a nurse’s office renovation and will allow the school to hire additional social workers and counselors.

“It’s allowing us to do some significant improvements that we’re not going to have to put the burden of paying for on the taxpayers in the community,” Wrobleski said.

In other efforts to help close the learning gap post-pandemic, Gibson organized an event called Articulation Day for staff to collaborate on solutions across all age groups and districts.

The goal of the Articulation Day is for teachers to share techniques that are working, not working and to communicate where students are at after the pandemic.

“We want to share stories about what’s working well among the different schools,” Gibson said. “It’s about the free exchange of information about what’s going well in our schools so we can leverage that info to help each other out.”

Articulation Day was Wednesday, Oct. 26, between La Salle-Peru High School, Dimmick, Waltham, Tonica and Ogelsby public schools. Gibson said he will have a report after the event with the results of the conversations and share it with all teachers at La Salle-Peru High School.

Gibson said all the information is valuable and has the potential to help students in the Illinois Valley get back on track, saying even something that’s working at the elementary level could be implemented at the high school level.

“These are our community students and as educators, we want them all to succeed,” Gibson said. “It’s about crossing those barriers and making sure we’re talking to each other and doing what’s best for all community members.”