One of ARK's Mentor-Educate-Reinforce pupils and his family features in a Cayman Compass story about the issues and anxieties related to the upcoming/new school year in Cayman, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Cayman's schools were closed in mid-March, and learning took place at home.
In principle, home learning is an idea that can work well in many circumstances. In practice, many MER children struggled because of challenging family lives and economic constraints made worse by unemployment.
MER is a partnership between ARK and the Cayman Learning Center and School, and between March and June, CLC delivered 1-on-1 intensive learning intervention to our MER pupils, in the same format as home learning.
CLC Director Carrie Patraeula noted that "Despite a very challenging 2019-20 school year that resulted in school lockdowns and end of year remote learning, all MER students made gains. We are delighted that more than half of the students advanced between 1.2 to 2.2 years in reading accuracy and overall fluency gains!"
