Colorado Parents Hope For Better School Year After Numerous Disruptions

DENVER (CBS4) - Some Colorado parents are trying to help their kids get back on track before school starts again. They hope tutors make a difference.

"It was remote for a while at the beginning of last year. They tried going back," Steven Simpson said.

Simpson's daughter had a rather hectic preschool schedule last year. So, this year when he had the option of registering her for kindergarten, he opted to wait another year.

"She would have been the youngest, and they lost seven months of actual instruction time," he figured.

Learning loss because of the pandemic is a concern across the country. The data has yet to show the loss for 2020-21 school years. Studies are underway to figure it out.

However, looking at some stats CBS4 Investigates uncovered, it found that Denver Public Schools handed out nearly 42,000 incomplete grades, and just fewer than 8,000 F grades, making a total of nearly 50,000 students who didn't pass. That's just one district.

"If you don't have the basics in reading or math, then approaching those higher-level concepts you're not going to be able to grasp them and move forward," Brianna Ricotta said.

Ricotta runs Optimistic Tutoring Solutions helping students through middle school. More parents have been turning to her, and she sees another problem.

"With the COVID and the education problems, there is going to be such a gap, the haves and the have nots. Those people who are lucky enough and fortunate enough to hire a tutor like me, they're going to be able to keep advancing those students," she explained.

Some kids who need private one-on-one tutoring may not get it. Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill in May to help schools get technical support, books, and resources to aid with getting students back up to speed.

"Because the quality instruction time was lost she didn't backslide at all, but she didn't move forward as much as she should have," Simpson added.

Looking ahead, parents like Simpson are hoping at least for a better school year with fewer interruptions.