Remote Greenwich students adjust to the new normal
GREENWICH — For Josh Kahn, the decision about school was fairly straightforward.
His mother has bad asthma and his grandparents are in a high-risk demographic. His options were to stay home or go back to school and risk exposing his family to COVID-19. And so for the past month, Kahn has been among the more than 400 Greenwich High School students who have opted to learn remotely five days per week.
For Kahn, a 16-year-old junior, the biggest difficulty has come in science class, where lab assignments can be hard to replicate from home.
“I’ve had the most trouble with physics, because there are labs the kids do in class that you kind of can’t do at home,” Kahn said. “They just have a computer at the table with whoever is at school, with the camera facing it. Then they give the data.”
Other than physics, Kahn said that learning from home has gone surprisingly well this fall.
“I’m actually not having too bad of a time,” he said. “They’ve handled it really well so far.”
In total, the Greenwich Public Schools reported that more than 1,400 students have chosen full remote learning this fall, joining their peers virtually from their bedrooms, dining rooms, kitchens or wherever else they can find space. For many, like Kahn, their reasoning was simple: the likelihood of catching the virus that has caused a global pandemic, and killed more than a million people worldwide, seemed higher by going back to school inperson.
And Kahn, like others, is hunkering down for the foreseeable future, though he
is pleasantly surprised at how well the school district has stymied the transmission of the coronavirus. There is still no end in sight for the junior and other students around the state and country.
“There was talk of school not even lasting until now, so it’s optimistic because people didn’t think it would last through September,” Kahn said. “But here we are. So we’ll see.”
Freshman year from home
If not for the pandemic, Sawyer Palmer, 14, would have gotten his first taste of Greenwich High School this fall. Instead, the first month of his freshman year has been spent in front of a computer at a desk in his bedroom.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he said.
“If anything I think it’s taken away from the stress” of starting high school, Palmer said. “One of the things I was stressed about was getting from class to class. Being home actually took away that stress.”
According to Sawyer Palmer and his brother, Slater, 11, who is in sixth grade, learning from home has become sort of the new norm. The stress and anxiety that both boys felt at the beginning of the pandemic has mostly subsided. And aside from the occasional tech issues, remote learning carried with it a number of
benefits.
Sawyer Palmer said, in general, he receives less homework learning remotely than he did in-person. As a result of the lighter workload and not needing to ride the bus, he estimates he gets two to three more hours of sleep each night. And Slater Palmer said he gets more breaks with remote learning than he normally would in school. He’s able to get outside during the day and toss a football with his father. And at lunchtime, if his mother, Lisa, isn’t cooking, he can make himself mac and cheese — an improvement on the bagged lunches he carried to school.
And Slater, who said he gets distracted easily, said it’s easier to focus from home, without his classmates in the same room. But then there are video games, which the boys are strictly forbidden from playing — Lisa Palmer said they have a rule prohibiting Minecraft during the school day — but provide temptation nonetheless.
“There’s not much distraction around the house as much as having games downloaded on computer,” Sawyer Palmer said. “I don’t play them, but it’s kind of a distraction.”
There and back again
Like Sawyer Palmer, Imogen Buck started her freshman year of high school this September.
She elected to do so in person, but in just the sec
ond week of classes, after the school’s first confirmed positive case, she changed her mind. Buck has been learning from home ever since.
“I think the only real difference is the social aspect,” Imogen Buck said.
The Bucks situation is unique. Imogen Buck’s youngest sibling, Sam, 9, is in elementary school and has a rare terminal disease called vanishing white matter, and a fever could be deadly. As a result, the Bucks have been practicing some form of social distancing since his diagnosis seven years ago.
So for Imogen Buck, especially, the transition to remote learning has been smooth. But for her brother, James, 11, it has been more challenging.
“He says in general teachers kind of forget about the remote kids,” their mother, Allyson Buck, said. “He was working on a project and he kept trying to ask questions on the group and they just ignored the chat.”
For the first two days of class, James Buck was unable to sign into his account. And the temptation to surf the web can sometimes be to strong to suppress.
“I know our son especially is not a very focused child,” Allyson Buck said. “Our daughter is very diligent, she’s fine. When we did distance learning before, I had them all downstairs with me in the kitchen. The problem is now that they’re all streaming and I can’t see what they’re doing. Often I’ll walk into my son’s room and he switches off YouTube.”
But the problems have been most pronounced for her youngest child.
Allyson Buck said communication between the district and special education families has been almost nonexistent. Because of the severity of her son’s disabilities, Allyson Buck has had to serve as therapist, paraeducator and teacher to Sam. Ultimately, he was forced to go back to Glenville School for an hour a day to receive occupational therapy.
“We’ve just been basically floundering and asking questions and getting nowhere,” she said.
With her youngest, Allyson Buck felt she had no choice but to send him back at least partially in person. But for her elder two children, she doesn’t believe allowing them to return is feasible.
“I think if we had gone with a more hybrid model we probably would’ve considered sending them back if we felt they were actually distanced,” Allyson Buck said. “But with the number of kids in the schools, it’s just not possible.”
A tall order
Noah and Riley Olsson are 11-year-old twins in the first month of sixth grade.
Both have their complaints about remote learning: poor internet connections can cause issues, there’s a disconnect between inperson and remote learners, gym and other specials don’t translate particularly well and teachers often have trouble juggling the students who are physically present in class and those who are tuning in virtually.
But there is one large silver lining.
“The positive of being at home, there’s a lot less chance I get sick,” Noah Olsson said.
The Olsson twins are the son and daughter of Jonathan and Meghan Olsson, the latter of whom is the sole Board of Education member who has opted to keep her kids home. Olsson, herself an educator who is a fully remote teacher for a school in Lexington, Mass., said she sympathizes with the job Greenwich teachers are being asked to do.
“I think what we’re asking these educators is a really tall order,” Olsson said. “We’re kind of asking the impossible in a lot of ways. There are the students in front of them and then they have to be cognizant of students at home learning.”
It is an adjustment for teachers and students alike. But at least according to Riley Olsson, remote learning has mostly been a success.
“I like it, it’s good enough,” Riley Olsson said. “But it’s different than being in person this year.”