New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
An agonizing decision to withdraw children from school
This past school year, as COVID-19 cases started spiking in Connecticut, Aaron Tiezzi, who goes by A.J., was in kindergarten in Colchester. His brother, Grant, 3, was in preschool.
As schools across the state began moving to remote learning to lessen the spread of the virus, A.J. and Grant joined the hundreds of thousands of Connecticut school children to go home and stare into screens of cherubic faces. Their parents, Aaron and Beth, told them there was a germ and they needed to stay home for a while. The boys mostly adjusted to the new routine — mostly.
Beth Tiezzi had once wanted to be a teacher, and she’d taught English classes remotely, so she was no stranger to delivering curriculum online. She tried to motivate her sons, but keeping up with the Zoom meetings — which son met at what time — was frustrating. Or she’d figure out their schedules, and one of her children would balk at sitting in front of a screen. Add to that, the family was expecting a third child — Ellie, now 6 months old.
Can we agree that remote learning is challenging? Technology — at home and school — must be equal to the demand. Children are asked to be more self-directed, and parents are doing more of the heavy lifting when it came to educating their children — and that’s challenging even if the parent has the time and patience to teach.
And then there is the homework and what the child heard was the assignment, as opposed to what the parent heard. A grownup could be excused for having the occasional meltdown.
In April, Sarah Parcak, an anthropology professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham, became the national darling of Zoomedout parents when she announced that she and her husband were withdrawing their first-grade son from school. She tweeted, “We cannot cope with this insanity. Survival and protecting his well-being come first.”
When the Twitterverse reached out with helpful tips for the family, the professor responded, “Don’t any of you dare offer help or resources.
We both work full-time, I also help run my nonprofit AND manage a complex project in Egypt AND am running a COVID-19 tracking platform. So, his happiness trumps crappy math worksheet management.”
A few hours later, she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. The two events are not related, but still.
The challenges of remote learning have moved some parents to take on the education of their children on their own, or with the help of tutors. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, prior to the pandemic, just 3 to 4 percent of American children were homeschooled, but industry watchers expect that number to balloon. The National Home Education Research Institute estimates as many as 14 percent of American school children will be educated at home by school year’s end. A spokesman for the National Home School Association told the Associated Press that in just one day in July, they received 3,400 requests for information.
The organization had to upgrade its email inbox to handle the requests. Connecticut-based Facebook pages for families interested in home schooling have been rapidly gaining new members as the weeks get longer.
Beth Tiezzi spent part of the summer agonizing about the fall. The Tiezzis worried about exposure to the virus, but mostly, they worried about the emotional and mental health of their sons. Some universities and colleges announced they would resume in-person classes, with significant modifications. When Colchester, like so many districts in the state, announced they’d adopt a hybrid schedule that involved a significant amount of time online, her heart sunk.
“Two days in school, three days at home, we would be all over the place,” said Elizabeth Tiezzi. “I was stressed out all the time.”
Home-schooling seemed like a big step. A.J. is sociable, like his mother. How would they create opportunities for social gatherings during a pandemic? But one day, Beth Tiezzi was again musing out loud about school, and her husband said quietly, “I think you’ve already made your decision.”
The family wrote a letter to withdraw their sons from school, bought curriculum for their first-grader, and turned a playroom into a classroom. Some days, the boys want to play. That’s allowed, and then they do a little more work the next day. They’re on a schedule that better suits them and the meltdowns are at a minimum.
You should know that Beth Tiezzi has nothing but praise for her local teachers and school administrators. They are attempting the impossible in a ridiculous situation. She says she feels fortunate that her family has the option to home-school. She calls it the best decision she ever made.
That was reinforced this week, when Colchester schools announced they would shut down in-person classes for two weeks because of a staff shortage. Students were given a day off on Wednesday while teachers prepared for all-remote classes. Other schools in towns like Bridgeport, Waterbury and Wallingford — among others — have gone to remote learning because of students or staff testing positive for the virus.
When Tiezzi saw the news about her local district, she knew.
“We definitely made the right decision for our family,” she said.
NEW HAVEN — President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett, considered a staunch conservative in the vein of Justice Antonin Scalia, to the Supreme Court Saturday afternoon, prompting reactions from Connecticut residents and officials.
Barrett sits on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She formerly clerked for Scalia and described her judicial philosophy as similar Saturday. In a statement, the White House press office said she has “demonstrated a steadfast dedication to upholding the Constitution as written, and not legislating from the bench.”
Trump called Barrett a “woman of unparalleled achievement” as he announced her nomination, according to the Associated Press, describing her as one of the nation’s “brilliant and gifted legal minds” and “very eminently qualified for the job.”
Bill Dunlap, professor of law at Quinnipiac University, said Barrett was both “extremely qualified” for the job and “very conservative.” She would have been within the realm of possibility as a choice for any Republican president, not just Trump, he said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, both Democrats, expressed opposition to Barrett’s nomination in separate statements Friday.
Blumenthal said the nomination was proffered as part of an “illegitimate sham process, barely one month before an election as Americans are already casting their votes,” and described Barrett’s views as “extreme,” saying she had already been “vetted and screened to meet two tests: a commitment to striking down the Affordable Care Act and to overturning Roe v. Wade.”
“Judge Barrett has criticized past decisions protecting access to health care, shown hostility to reproductive freedoms, and expressed a willingness to overturn settled Supreme Court precedent that does not align with her extreme views. If Judge Barrett’s views become law, hundreds of millions of Americans living with preexisting conditions would lose access to their health care. In the middle of a global pandemic that has claimed more than 200,000 American lives, rushing confirmation of an extreme jurist who will decimate health care is unconscionable,” said Blumenthal. “I refuse to treat this process as legitimate and will not meet with Judge Barrett.”
Murphy also framed Barrett’s nomination through her possible impact on the Affordable Care Act, as well as health care more generally during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“If Trump puts Amy Coney Barrett, his handpicked nominee, on the court, millions of people I represent in Connecticut will be kicked off their health care plans, in the middle of a global pandemic. This is the catastrophe that will be coming if Coney Barrett, who is being chosen specifically because she will vote to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act, is confirmed,” said Murphy. “The Republicans have been on a decades-long crusade to dismantle the Affordable Care Act — sending us back to the days when insurance companies could deny you coverage for having a preexisting condition. Now, a case is pending that will take away health care for millions, and Senate Republicans are predictably reneging on their pledge from four years ago of not appointing a Supreme Court justice during an election year, in order to rush Coney Barrett onto the court in time to end health care for millions.”
Dunlap noted that many Americans have begun to consider the Supreme Court as more of a third political branch, rather than the representative of an independent judiciary.
“In the long run, what’s been going on over the last few years will be very, very bad for the court and its reputation among the American public,” said Dunlap.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Dunlap said, has seemingly gone out of his way to address this trend. Among other rulings, Roberts voted to preserve the Affordable Care Act and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act and against the White House’s attempt to add a question regarding citizenship to the census.
If confirmed, Barrett, as another conservative justice, would likely limit Roberts’ ability to wield that sort of influence, Dunlap said.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Barrett’s nomination could impact fundamental aspects of life for Americans, noting that his office was involved in cases involving, among other topics, coverage for preexisting conditions like cancer and diabetes, “our clean air and climate,” and “a woman’s right to privacy in her personal health care decisions.”
“All roads lead to the Supreme Court. Amy Coney Barrett, if confirmed, will either protect or dismantle some of the most consequential and fundamental rights enjoyed by Connecticut families today. The stakes could not be higher,” said Tong.
Barrett, 48, was nominated to fill the seat of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was considered to be a finalist in 2018 before Trump nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the seat vacated when Justice Anthony Kennedy retired, according to the Associated Press.
She is a Roman Catholic and has seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and a son with Down syndrome, according to the AP. Her husband, Jesse, and her children joined her at the White House Saturday.