Parents pull kids from Fairfield schools
‘It just wasn’t going to work. I don’t regret it for one second’
FAIRFIELD — Crissy Kelly was happy when her son James, 9, got his cohort in August to go back to school.
It was the one they wanted, but as she watched school board meetings she felt like there was no sense of urgency to return fully in person and decided to pull him from the district instead.
“We had great teachers. We loved all that,” Crissy Kelly said. “It had everything to do with the model. It just wasn’t going to work. I don’t regret it for one second.”
She’s not alone. Officials report a big increase in students withdrawing from Fairfield Public Schools, instead opting for private school or homeschooling. Other districts are seeing similar trends. Parents making this decision say it is, in part, because of the ineffectiveness of virtual learning.
Kelly, who has four kids ranging from fourth to seventh grade, said she decided to have James attend The Unquowa School, a private elementary school in town where he could attend full-time in person. James had a lot of trouble with virtual learning in the spring, when the
COVID-19 pandemic forced the district to go remote, Kelly said.
“We just pulled the trigger,” she said.
Where they’re going
As of Nov. 17, 376 students had withdrawn from Fairfield Public Schools, Zakia Parrish, the district's executive director of operations and processes, said at a recent meeting.
Parrish said 331 new students registered to join the district between July and November though, an increase of 70 from the last school year. There are approxi
mately 9,400 registered students in the town’s public schools, according to school system records from October.
Of students who left the school system but are still being educated in Fairfield, data shows 57 students switched to homeschool, 53 students went to religious private schools and 41 students left to go to non-religious private schools.
Another 37 students have gone to private schools in other towns and 96 left Fairfield to attend a different public school district, according to the data.
The data shows 74 students withdrew to attend public schools in a different state and 13 left for private schools in a different state. Three students moved out of the country, while one left to go to a magnet school and another left for a charter school.
Parrish said 120 students in total withdrew from the district to go to private schools last year.
“So, there was, definitely, a significant increase just in terms of timeframe,” she said. “We still have the (rest) of the year to go. Also, for homeschool, there was an even greater increase. We had six that withdrew to homeschool last school year. As of Oct. 23, we were at 57.”
The majority of withdrawals occurred during the summer before the school year started.
Superintendent of Schools Mike Cummings said at a recent meeting that the data shows him that more parents are exercising their ability to make decisions about where their children attend school in light of the coronavirus pandemic. He added he’s spoken with some of these parents about
why they decided to switch to homeschooling.
“It provides a stability of structure for them that, right now, the schools are not able to offer,” he said. “It gives them comfort in terms of safety precautions.”
Based on informal conversations with other superintendents, Cummings said Fairfield’s data is part of a trend around the state. He also acknowledged that some parents are pulling their kids out of town public schools so they can attend schools that are still doing full-time, in-person learning.
The experience so far
Kelly said James has had a great transition, adding he is getting the educational support she could not have given him at home if he were in the public school’s hybrid program.
She said she was unable to help James with certain topics, adding it caused a strain in their relationship. But a recent parent-teacher conference at Unquowa highlighted how transferring him is making a difference.
“I got great feedback,” she said. “It’s not like we flipped a switch and, all of a sudden, he’s this amazing writer. But, they are on top of it. They know what he needs to work on. They are pulling him aside daily when he’s struggling with something, and they work with him on it. He’s more confident now.”
That is the kind of effort and attention she knew he was going to need and wasn’t experiencing last year when she would try to help him with the virtual work.
“Before, we would open up one of these assignments he had online, and we both just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘ One of us is going to be in tears at the end of this — maybe both of us,’” she said. “There has
been none of that now.”
Kelly said she and her husband already knew they would keep James at Unquowa for at least two years, but now feel they will keep him there until eighth grade because it’s where she and her husband see him thriving.
Amber French, who organized a protest in support of a full-time, in person option for Fairfield students in August, said her son, Everett, 7, struggled with virtual learning in the spring. He was set to attend McKinley Elementary School, but when she saw the fall semester was going to be hybrid, she knew it was going to be to his detriment.
“He became very agitated with remote learning,” she said. “He doesn’t like to sit down in front of a screen and do school work. It was a real struggle. I couldn’t see him go through that again.”
For that reason, among others, French said she and her husband decided to have Everett attend Assumption Catholic School — a religious private school. She said there was an immediate response, with him thriving and smiling every day when he comes home from school.
“It’s the best decision we’ve ever made for him,” French said.
A midyear switch
When considering their 11-year-old son, Julian, French said they decided to let him try the hybrid model at Tomlinson Middle School because they did not want to take away the experience of going to middle school.
Keeping him there, French said, lead to disheartening results.
He would finish his work by 9:45 a.m. on his remote days and spend the rest of the day playing Minecraft.
French said remote Wednesdays, which were supposed to have synchronous learning with teachers, were better because he was engaging with teachers. But, she said, Julian had a few teachers who never held synchronous learning.
She said this lead to him having a bunch of free time where he wasn’t learning anything, and resulted in her needing to police his screen time.
French said Julian started having panic attacks, one of them while in school. She said the guidance counselor they met with in the aftermath was wonderful and
explained to them that he was going from “zero to 100” on days where he had in-person class.
“That was giving him anxiety,” she said.
She said Julian told her he was having little interaction with his friends in class or at lunch, adding he was getting overwhelmed. Seeing that going to school inperson did not make him happy, she said she decided to enroll him at Assumption as well.
Julian was originally sad to be leaving his friends, French said, and not thrilled to be going to a school with a full workload. It has been a huge adjustment, she said, noting that he got used to coasting through school. She’s already seen a change since he started after Halloween.
“He comes home and he’s giddy. They both are. They’re giddy when they come off the bus. They’re smiling, they’re laughing,” she said, adding they weren’t spending as much time in front of screens.
Having children in both
Jennifer Michael said she and her husband moved to Fairfield from Stamford for the school system. They have two sons —Jack, 7, and Joe, 11.
Michael said Jack is still in the district, but they decided to transfer Joe to Assumption a few weeks ago. This was a surprise, she said, because Jack was the one struggling last year in virtual learning.
Being so young, Michael said, Jack needed much more support than Joe. She went into summer and fall thinking she might have to homeschool Jack, adding her priorities for him were exercise and play — and away from full days of screens.
When Joe started at Roger Ludlowe Middle School, she said, she began to notice issues with the system.
She said a wide variety in systems and methods for how teachers post work made it hard for her to track what work was done and what needed to be done.
“They really are asking the parents to take on the in-person role for them, to a large degree,” she said.
Trying to keep tabs on him, help him and manage his work, was a struggle, especially since she works full-time and has a younger son, Michael said.
She said she noticed that Joe was just working the system, not thriving like she wanted.
Michael said she began to become disillusioned with the district’s educational system, adding it was ironic that she made the decision to pull Joe while officials began discussing going back full-time.
After going to an open house at Assumption, she said she decided it was the best place for him. While she never imagined she would send one of her children to a Catholic school, she said it’s working great so far.
“He started the week before Thanksgiving,” she said. “I can’t even tell you how good it’s going. He had friends immediately. He comes home smiling. He plays with his brother. He likes it and he liked the structure.”