Credit recovery is a tool that enables students to retake academic credits so that they can reach their academic goals. It involves taking classes that were unsuccessfully completed during a regular school year, whether after school, during the summer, or on weekends, to earn the course credit that is needed to be promoted to the next academic level or to graduate. The most familiar form of credit recovery is perhaps summer-school programs that allow students to recover credit from courses they have failed during the regular school year. In some places, credit recovery is used as a dropout-prevention strategy. Although some universities and community colleges offer credit recovery programs, such programs have historically been most common at the high school level. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, credit recovery programs have seen a surge in enrollment as students attempt to stay on track or bounce back after an extended period of academic upheaval.
As failing grades increased in schools across the country during the pandemic, school administrators, parents, and students themselves started to worry more and more about the academic struggle. On top of the policy adjustments made to assist students as they have experienced education interruptions (e.g., pass/fail policies), many school districts have leaned on teachers to provide extra remote learning sessions framed as open study halls, personal check-ins with individual students by phone/email, creation of extra course materials for students to complete to “practice” academic skills on their own, etc. As schools and teachers return to using pre-pandemic grading policies, they are facing the challenge of helping many students who are still attempting to recover academically in the wake of pandemic disruptions to learning.
For many school districts, the focus is on credit recovery programs; they are leaning on these programs more than ever to provide students the opportunity to take “make-up” courses, usually in self-paced programs. This is one of many districts’ top means of dealing with the difficult situation so many students are facing, even though there could be some drawbacks like students often not having direct access to a teacher or other learning guide, overpopulated classes, and undesirable academic collusion. This is why tutoring programs can be beneficial when used in combination with credit recovery courses–tutors provide the supervision and learning assistance that can be missing and can limit the numbers of students learning together to some extent. As school districts continue to modify their approaches to shift to a new normal that is balanced and advantageous for learning, hopefully, many will build credit recovery programs that include tutoring.
If your student would benefit from tutoring, consider securing assistance from a private tutoring company like Tots ‘N Tutors. Tots ‘N Tutors is a professional mobile and remote tutoring company that offers support to students in pre-kindergarten through college. For structured tutoring sessions that are tailored to each student, caring and competent learning guides work with students individually or in small groups, in person or virtually. The company is based in Austin, Texas, but offers virtual services nationwide! Contact Tots ‘N Tutors today to discuss how their skilled team can help your student reach his or her goals.