Struggling students often find themselves falling further behind their peers in the summer, a phenomenon educators call the “summer slide.”

Now they’re worried it will be exacerbated by a “COVID slide,” after children were sent home from schools months early.

To keep students at Howard Bishop Middle School from falling further behind than they ordinarily might, educators are asking for community help.

Specific needs include headphones for virtual learning, gift cards for incentives, books appropriate for the 11-14 age group, and art and exercise equipment, said Andrea McNally, a spokeswoman for Children’s Home Society of Florida, which is accepting items on the school’s behalf shipped directly from online retailers to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Bishop is one of almost two dozen community partnership schools across Florida, and along with CHS, its partners are the School Board of Alachua County, the county health department, Santa Fe College and the University of Florida.

Some of Bishop’s students are behind their peers academically and summer is a time when students who struggle often fall further behind because of the “summer slide,” so the “COVID slide” is a great cause of alarm for school officials, said LaToya Jennings-Lopez, director of the Community Partnership School at Howard Bishop.

“We’re just concerned about students falling behind who were already struggling in the first place,” Jennings-Lopez said.

Things officials are asking the community to donate will hopefully encourage students to do their best to learn and succeed in school, Jennings-Lopez said.

“We want to let them know we are proud of their efforts,” she said.

Community Partnership Schools are Title 1 schools located in low-income communities whose students often struggle due to various factors, including poverty, lack of access to adequate health care, crime and violence, hunger and abuse or neglect.

To combat those issues, the CPS at Howard Bishop has on-site counseling, a food pantry, a clothes closet, after-school tutoring to help students improve their Florida Standards Assessment scores and other services for the entire family.

The mission of the CPS at Howard Bishop is for all students to be successful, Jennings-Lopez said.

“We don’t want any kids to fall behind,” she said.

Support is needed to sustain and grow the CPS at Howard Bishop in order to help its most needy students, said Mike Gamble, principal at Howard Bishop, which this school year will be temporarily located in a “swing school” comprising portable classrooms on the campus of Westwood Middle School, 3215 NW 15th Ave., because major renovations are being done to Howard Bishop’s campus at 1901 NE Ninth St.

“One of the easiest ways our families can support the CPS is to take advantage of the services offered, such as mental health and family counseling, as well as the after-school program,” Gamble said.

The closing of schools because of the pandemic exposed the need for expanded broadband internet access throughout Gainesville, especially in East Gainesville, Gamble said.

“The schools did an amazing job of getting laptops to students as quickly as possible, only to have to come up with the plan to use school buses to provide internet access in many of our neighborhoods,” Gamble said. “It’s one thing to get a connection on a phone, but another when you have multiple children trying to get internet access at the same time of the day.”

Donated items should be sent to the Children’s Home Society, 3027 San Diego Road, Jacksonville, FL 32207.

Originally posted by: The Gainesville Sun