Different view of virtual
‘Naturally intuitive’ girl with cancer adjusts to remote learning challenge
HAMPTON — For Chloe Koenig, class starts at 6 p.m. When she logs into Zoom, there are no other students from Tarrant Middle School — just her teacher, Patrick McRae. And instead of switching between classrooms like other seventh-graders, she works on one subject a day. Sometimes, she and McRae just talk.
Chloe has Ewing’s Sarcoma, a very rare cancer that grows in bones or the soft tissue around them. Between treatments and the pandemic, normal virtual
school doesn’t work for her, much less the in-person classes Hampton recently started offering.
“It’s definitely a lot harder,”
Chloe said. “I’d rather be in-person because right now, school just feels like I’m not required to do it, like I can just not do it if I don’t want to do it.”
Every year, there’s a small group of students who for medical reasons, can’t go to school for a full day. Some opt for home-bound instruction, and in a normal year, a teacher would meet the student outside of school to help them stay on track.
This year, things are a little different.
“It’s really been a lot easier of a process,” McRae said. “Now, we meet via Zoom. It actually allows Chloe to be able to share her screen with me so I can see what she’s working on versus kind of just guessing where she might need help.”
Chloe was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic Ewing’s sarcoma in 2018, when she was 10. It first appeared in one of her ribs, according to Crissy Koenig, Chloe’s mother.
She went through chemotherapy, radiation and a major surgery to reconstruct her chest wall. Chloe went almost a year with no evidence of disease until July, when doctors at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters found two tumors in
her skull.
Soon after, she started chemotherapy again. But this time, it came during a pandemic, which made leaving the house even riskier.
Crissy Koenig recalls one grocery store trip around Christmas where Chloe’s anxiety was palpable.
“I could just see it in her face — she was just so freaked out about how many people were there and who was wearing masks, who wasn’t,” she said. “We just try to stay away from everything that we can.”
Chloe said she wasn’t as nervous as her mom says, but they all have been taking precautions since her diagnosis. The family often has groceries delivered and only goes out when there are few people.
“I feel like I was a little bit worried, but I think my parents were more worried about it than I was,” Chloe said. “We don’t go anywhere other than the hospital and occasionally maybe going grocery shopping.”
When virtual school started in September, it posed new challenges. At first, Chloe tried to keep up with regular classes, sometimes joining Zoom sessions from the hospital.
But staying on track was difficult. One of the biggest challenges was Chloe’s allergic reactions, meaning she was drowsy from allergy medications for large parts of the day. She’d try to use independent learning days to catch back up but would find herself swamped with more assignments.
Usually a strong student, her grades slipped. In the first quarter, she had mostly Cs and Bs.
“It was just like a brick wall everywhere she turned,” her mom said.
Toward the end of last year, Crissy Koenig decided to go to Chloe’s principal and ask what they could do. Within a few days, they were able to get everything set up for homebound classes with McRae, who had been Chloe’s sixthgrade algebra teacher.
This is McRae’s second year of homebound teaching. He applies many of the principles he uses in his other classrooms, particularly building relationships with students. Earlier this month, McRae was named Tarrant’s Teacher of the Year.
It’s now normal to hear McRae’s voice in the house around dinner time telling funny stories and talking to Chloe about what’s going on in her life.
“I try to be over-the-top funny at times, but more importantly I let Chloe kind of control where the conversations go,” McRae said. “I’m just genuine with her; I don’t try to pretend like I’m someone I’m not.”
Chloe’s had an impact on McRae, he says, in part because he’s been able to see the positive impact on her. After switching to homebound, Chloe is back to all As in her classes.
“She really doesn’t need a lot of guidance, to be honest,” McRae said. “She’s just a naturally intuitive, smart young girl.”
Right around the time Chloe finished her first round of chemo, McRae’s sister was finishing her fight with cancer. At school one day, McRae Pulled Chloe aside and showed her a photo of his sister, missing hair like Chloe.
“What Chloe said to me was, ‘Oh, she’s so pretty. I hope she’s doing OK,’ ” McRae said. “That was huge in that moment. She didn’t realize it, but that was really touching to me.”
With her current round of chemo nearing an end and coronavirus case numbers lower, Chloe is a little optimistic about the future. Last Tuesday morning, Make-A-Wish Virginia surprised her by granting her wish — a golden retriever puppy named Finn.
As we go into the next phase of the pandemic, Chloe hopes some form of virtual learning stays available.
“There should always be an option for that, to be honest,” Chloe said. “That would be a lot easier for kids going through something that I’ve gone through.”