Credit Recovery is a recovery program that allows students to make up credit for failing classes on campus. This program allows students to save money from attending summer school. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, credit recovery experienced changes in numbers that Legacy’s Head Counselor, Ms. Dana Vorsino, addressed. 

“With COVID affecting our student’s performances, Credit Recovery worked as a popular solution to solve students falling behind in school, alongside the free summer school provided in our time of virtual school,” Ms. Vorsino said.

About 5-7% of students were enrolled in credit recovery before COVID-19. After COVID-19, the percentage of students involved in credit recovery rose to 10%. With recovery numbers increasing, causes of course failure amongst students became a concern. 

“The most common cause of falling grades would be absences. The absences are often caused by illness or students skipping their classes,” Ms. Vorsino said. “We have begun to implement older policies within this year of 2022-2023. Students can now fail after missing over four class periods.”

During the 2020-2021 school year, student absences were exempted because of rampant COVID illness and virtual school complications. 

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“With these stricter rules, improvements in behavior have been seen, but of course, we encourage students to attend their classes and participate in school activities,” Ms. Vorsino said. “It’s unfortunate that COVID caused such a struggle, but we do ask them to do their best.” 

Credit Recovery serves as a vital resource for students and functions to aid students’ education. Photojournalism Teacher Rachel Dearinger has assisted the incoming students as of the year of 2022-2023. Even though it can save students’ grades, the actual process of Credit Recovery may not be suited for everyone.

“When a student gets into credit recovery, they are sitting at a computer watching videos on Edgenuity, an online program that teaches different objects to students in grades K-12, in order to redo or catch up on failed work in regards to the specific subject or subjects they failed,” Ms. Dearinger said. “The problem with this is that this system does not work for some of our students. Many really do need aid from a tutor or teacher, unfortunately, our program doesn’t have that. The same goes for other programs like Saturday School and Summer School.”

While more extensive aid would help the students in credit recovery, the cost of extra teachers and tutors is too much. Another alternative solution for these students would be enrollment in Mansfield’s Phoenix Academy, a program that allows students to proceed at their own pace and is more interactive.

 “Even with the flaws of Credit Recovery, the majority of our students find their credits recovered within their first session. We have very few repeat students,” Ms. Dearinger said. “That’s why I believe that credit recovery is a vital staple to our school and one of the best resources available to our students.”

Within the year of 2022-2023, recovery numbers are lowering and improvements in student performances are being made.

“While in recent years, we’ve experienced plenty of struggle, I truly believe that Credit Recovery holds strong as a solution to aid failing students.” Ms. Vorsino said.