The number of middle and high school students in the Salt Lake City School District who have failed one class — or all first-quarter classes — has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic while all of its students are attending school online.

Data released to The Salt Lake Tribune in response to a public records request shows that 4,200 Salt Lake City secondary students received one or more F’s or incompletes in the first quarter. That’s 1,500 more students failing a class than last year.

And 364 secondary students failed every first-quarter class — a whopping 600% increase in failing students over last year.

Salt Lake City is the only district in the state to keep all students home for instruction.

The data didn’t include the grades of elementary students, whose term ended later than their older peers.

“The pandemic has really hit our city in ways we’re not seeing in other parts of the state,” said district spokeswoman Yándary Chatwin, noting the high rate of transmission, which means many families are dealing with the virus. “The new learning format obviously is a factor as well.”

She called the increases “disheartening” and said teachers are “working above and beyond. They’re figuring out what the needs are of our students. We need to figure why our students are struggling … so we can get our students back on track.”

On Friday, principals sent emails to every parent detailing the numbers and the ways the schools are responding — from changing schedules, adding more learning time to each class and increasing home visits to bringing in more small groups of students to learn face to face.

The emails also gave tips to parents on how to help their students, including checking to ensure their students are attending their Zoom classes, since most kids who are failing aren’t attending; checking their students’ grades; attending teachers’ office hours and even taking away video games during the school day.

Plans are being made to boost summer school offerings and connect students with other interventions to make up lost ground.

Molly Pearce, a parent of students in the district who is advocating that the board give parents the choice to return all students to in-person learning, also received the data and said it proves that the board made the wrong decision.

Chatwin anticipates board members will discuss the grades at their next meeting in January. “This is data they haven’t had before.”

James Tobler, a teacher at Highland High and president of the local teachers’ union, the Salt Lake Education Association, said teachers want to return to in-person instruction — once it is safe to do so. The association supports the board’s position to hold off on secondary students’ return until the virus is under control.

It hasn’t determined how low the positivity rate should be to be deemed safe, but “certainly 22% positivity is too high. In New York, they hit 3% and they were freaking out. Here we are at 22% and our district is under tremendous amount of pressure from the state Legislature and from parents to return to in-person despite the high numbers.”

Tobler also pointed to Granite District’s experience to show that giving parents a choice to return or attend via distance learning may not solve the problem of poor grades. The number of students who failed one or more classes in Granite jumped more from 2019 than it did in Salt Lake City.

“Granite and other school districts are giving the families the option,” Tobler said, “and a lot of those F’s are coming from parents who chose to go remote.”

The majority of the failing grades in Salt Lake City are among high school students. And a third of the students who failed all of first quarter attend West High.

“It’s terrifying and extremely concerning to see that many students failing and particularly those failing all of their classes,” said West Principal Jared Wright. “They’re now off track for graduation.”

This despite the enormous effort he says educators and staff are making to work with students.

“It means that online school for some students means no school,” Wright said. “It’s not an issue of getting them more computers or more internet.”

But many middle school students are having a hard time keeping up with their school work, too. The schools in Salt Lake City with the largest jumps in students failing at least one class, compared to last year, attend Northwest, Glendale, Clayton and Hillside middle schools. Granite District’s grades showed a similar pattern.

The transition to middle school from elementary school is difficult in a typical year, when students jump from having three teachers at the most to now up to up to seven, notes Jennifer Throndsen, director of teaching and learning for the Utah State Office of Education who also has a daughter attending a middle school in Salt Lake City.

Having to learn teachers’ expectations via computer, plus navigate the various online platforms and ways to submit assignments, makes school that much harder.

“That’s adding to the failure rate,” she said.

Students who need help and could normally seek it out during class or after school don’t have that option online and must email their teachers. That might not be a big deal for adults or high school students, but “kids in middle school haven’t learned how to self-advocate,” Throndsen said. “It’s requiring them to step into a more developed role.”

Lack of socializing is also playing a role in students’ poor grades, Throndsen suspects. Developmentally, kids in this age group are forming their identities through social engagement. Socializing is a huge motivator for this age group, she says, and that’s been taken away when they go to school online.

Tyler Howe, principal at Granite District’s West Lake STEM, in West Valley City, said large groups of distance-learning students have been “clamoring” to return to school in the second quarter because they missed seeing friends. “If there’s one side effect of this whole mess, it’s been that,” he says. “It’s exciting to watch kids value being at school and wanting to be at school.”

He sees a difference in the distance-learning students who are failing one or two classes — who likely need help with technology and self discipline — compared to those failing all of first quarter. That group is hardest to reach, nevertheless reengage, he said.

“There is a group of our distance learners who are distance learners in name only. They’ve registered with us but, to be frank, they just never showed up.”