As in-person learning continues, teachers are seeing the toll the pandemic is taking on students.
Recent reporting in the Los Angeles Times shows a decline in the average grades for students receiving passing marks before the pandemic.
Experts are calling it "learning loss," the deep toll COVID-19 has taken on education.
Collectively, parents, educators, and schools are wondering how they can help students recover.
Experts say the remedial approach, such as holding kids back a grade or pulling them out of electives, is just not working.
Pedro Noguera, dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, offers a different approach to bringing grades up again.
"We need to make learning fun and stimulating and challenging," he told "Inside the Issues" host Alex Cohen.
Noguera compared it to gaining weight during the pandemic.
"A lot of people gained weight during the pandemic because they weren't exercising enough, right? So they got the COVID-19, in terms of pounds, so what do you do? So then you start working out again," he said.
The USC dean said that classrooms and teachers need to gradually make learning fun again for students to get back on track.
"Yeah, kids are behind, they weren't reading enough, they were discouraged, so now let's reconnect them to learning," Noguera said. "When kids become self motivated that's when everything changes."
Recent numbers show Los Angeles Unified School District students saw a decline in grades across all ethnicities due to the pandemic, but there were some racial disparities.
According to data compiled by the Los Angeles Times, the percentage of As, Bs and Cs earned by Latino students fell by more than 10% from the fall of 2019 to the spring of 2021.
Black students experienced a 6% drop in students earning As, Bs and Cs. White students experienced a 5% drop, and Asian students experienced a 4% drop.
Noguera said racial disparities existed before, and the pandemic exacerbated them, but these numbers should not be a deterrent.
"Learning happens in spurts and phases," Noguera told Cohen. "You can't measure learning by days or even by years."
Bringing grades up also goes beyond reading and enjoying a subject matter.
Noguera said parents need to support teachers so they can also help lift student morale.
"What we should focus on is building a sense of community, bringing some joy to learning," he said.
Another focus should be on prioritizing mental health. Many students lost loved ones to COVID-19, were isolated at home, and are now anxious about being back at school.
"If we don't prioritize on mental health as well as academics, we may lose lots of kids because they don't want to be in school," Noguera told Cohen.
He said some schools are using this "enriching approach" with students as they switch from screens to in-person learning.
"Private schools are doing it right, bringing them back and welcoming them, not testing them. We need a similar approach in our public schools," Noguera said.
If done right, the future can look even brighter for students and schools.
"I see the pandemic as an opportunity for change, it disrupted things that needed to be disrupted. Now the question is: now can we come out with schools that are better, more responsive with needs of kids than they were before?" Noguera said.
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