‘...Teachers, not a Chromebook.’: Lancaster parents plead for full return to school.
Heather Brasington doesn’t have all the expertise, nor all the answers.
“I am not a teacher, nor do I claim to be one,” the Lancaster County resident said. “I am not a computer person. I’m not a COVID expert, or virologist. But I am a mother. I cannot speak on things that I don’t know. But I know children.”
Brasington and close to two dozen other community members, mostly parents of students in the Lancaster County School District, came to the school board with a clear message earlier this week. Two days a week in school isn’t working.
“I run five different lunch schedules,” said Brasington, mother of five daughters. “I juggle seventh grade, sixth grade, fourth grade and third grade math, English, history, science and all the other exploratory classes. Some days we work from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.”
Steve Sherrill said he sees the same with his daughter.
“The current environment that we’re in, two days a week of live instruction, with teacher led instruction, just simply isn’t working,” he said.
The district plan of two days in class and three at home is a struggle for students, teachers and administrators, he said.
“Kids lost three months at the end of last year,” Sherrill said. “They’re losing 60% of their time this year, without having teacher led instruction. So there’s no way that they’re not falling behind. If they were behind, they’re falling further behind.
“It’s taking them three times longer to accomplish a task, and during that task they’re not learning and they’re not able to grow in their education. Every day that goes by, we’re falling further and further behind.”
It can be more severe for students who aren’t engaged. One teacher told the board, of his 85 students, 45 are failing the social studies class. Of those 45 students, 33 haven’t done anything.
“Not the very first assignment,” he said. “Most of these kids are home alone. They’re not going to do the work.”
A foster parent had her son, a third-grader old enough to be in fourth grade, read a page from a kindergarten level book to the school board. Her son gets tutoring at a local church.
“It is by no means the school district’s fault, or this board’s fault or the teachers’ fault about my child being behind that far,” the foster parent said.
Yet, she said, the child isn’t catching up on two days in school.
“What he has not overcome since March, that’s on somebody,” she said.
Return if it’s safe
Schools throughout the country closed in March as COVID-19 cases grew. Schools then returned with varying plans this fall.
Lancaster County has a virtual school option. For in-person students, its a mix of two days in class and three at home.
The district has a variety of plans to bring students back, first to four and eventually to five days a week. More than 30% of district students are fully virtual now and some could transition to in-class. Returns would be based on health department data on COVID-19 spread in Lancaster County.
If spread lowers and stays low for two weeks a decision could come to start bringing students back. It would take a couple of weeks to bring back elementary school, another week for middle. High school would come last.
“We’re looking at actually after winter break, when we think that would probably be more realistic,” said superintendent Jonathan Phipps.
The district tries to be as accommodating as possible, he said, like letting students go between virtual and in-person models. Other districts asked for semester or full year commitments to a learning model.
Speakers lined up to address the board at its recent meeting as chants of “five days a week” rang out from just outside the meeting room.
Taking an emotional toll
Parents say just two days in class is a struggle at home. Brasington describeed multiple Google meets, often simultaneously. She said she doesn’t eat lunch most days, and doesn’t cook in the evenings. A daughter who had A grades before COVID now cries over school work.
“She is required to do third grade work and complete third grade standards, but yet she never got to complete second grade,” Brasington said.
Siblings often interrupt one another. Or older siblings have to help with lunch or school for younger siblings. Brasington said she worries with feelings of depression or anxiety across the district.
“That is just as real a reality as COVID, but no one is calculating that data,” she said.
“They need their teachers, not a Chromebook.”
Chelsea Sane said it isn’t just frustrated children. She thought twice about apologizing to the school board when her toddler cried during the recent meeting.
“That is my reality every single day, trying to teach my 6-year-old,” Sane said.
Sane said her young son needs his teachers.
“Teachers go to school for four plus years to know how to do this each and every day,” she said. “I’m not trained. I get frustrated. My 6-year-old gets frustrated.
“I feel like I’m a failure in teaching my child, and now he’s a failure.”
Sarah Dailey is a past educator who works now with a church tutoring program.
“As a past educator, it breaks my heart,” she said. “It breaks my heart to see what these kids are going through.”
She said she works with kindergarten and first-grade students who can’t concentrate with a computer. Children barely old enough to read and write have to add computer skills and answer questions in text boxes on screens. Children are frustrated, crying, saying they don’t want to go to school or associating school with a daily struggle, she said.
“(One student) needs to be in a classroom where he’s getting teacher instruction the old fashioned way, not through a Chromebook,” Dailey said.
She said she has concerns of the long-term educational impact.
“The devastation they’re going through every day, and the frustration and the tears and the thinking that they’re not able to do this, that they’re not smart enough,” Dailey said. “They are smart enough, and we need to give them that opportunity to see that.”
Jamie Bailey has two children, ages 5 and 3. Her older son initially was excited about kindergarten this year.
“He loved school,” Bailey said, “for the first two days of school.”
Bailey said her son wanted to go straight back but couldn’t because of COVID-19.
“Then we started the homework packets, and it was downhill from there,” Bailey said.
Bailey works and, with dinner and other responsibilities, often can’t get to homework with her 5-year-old until 8:30 p.m. By then he’s exhausted, she said. There is crying and screaming at times. She said she doesn’t want her son to suffer through education in coming years because of a bad experience in kindergarten.
“I don’t have time to teach him how he needs to be taught, to succeed in life, and that is what breaks my heart,” Bailey said.
Melissa Tanner is an occupational therapist. She said she sees issues with patients. She talked of a grandmother trying to teach six grandchildren.
“It’s really affecting just the patients and the children,” Tanner said.
Tanner also has two children, age 12 and 16. They went with an outside virtual option that, in certain classes, just isn’t working.
“I would be glad to send my kids back five days a week,” she said. “I want him out of virtual learning.”
Tina Helms said teachers and school administrators provide compassion, love, support, guidance and structure for children.
“These students aren’t just another kid or another number,” she said. “These are their children.”
It’s now been seven months since her child, Helms said, was in a normal school environment. She too worries with loneliness, depression, abandonment or other feelings the separation could cause. Not to mention COVID-19 measures inside schools when students are there.
“My child complains of a headache every single day,” Helms said. “I wear a mask. I’m in healthcare. I have to wear (one). I get it. My children shouldn’t come home every day crying of a headache.”
Parents say the current model creates stress in homes, that putting children back in school can help alleviate.
“If anything we have taken a step back,” Helms said, “and enough is enough.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 3:33 PM.
