EDUCATION CHALLENGES
Schools face myriad challenges as remote learning gets underway
Schools in Western Pennsylvania are large both in number and diversity.
are 43 school districts, including Pittsburgh Public Schools, the second-biggest district in the state with nearly 23,000 students.
The number of districts does not account for private, parochial and charter schools, the number of which is also significant.
Differences between the resources that schools have access to have been apparent as the schools attempt to implement remote learning plans amid the COVID-19 shutdown. Some schools were better prepared to move class outside their buildings because of investments in technology, while others are still trying to secure materials that will make their education continuity plans possible.
“You see the inequity,” said Jeffrey Matty, superintendent of the Wilmington Area School District in Lawrence County. “I think that’s something that when we’re all done with this crisis, we’ll be able to see and maybe we’ll realize that having every student have the ability to get access [to technology] if they want to, that’ll be a positive.”
Schools will likely learn many lessons from the shutdown that they can use after it ends, but they have to deal with the reality of remote learning now. The Pennsylvania Department of Education said it still expects schools to make a significant effort to educate all of their students despite relaxing significant requirements that institutions face in normal years.
School officials said they and their staffs have had to be flexible and creative to make such a fast transition to remote learning.
In Wilmington Area, Mr. Matty and his staff worked to equip students from fifth through 12th grade with Google Chromebook laptops before there was ever the threat of a pandemic. But simply having a device does not solve every problem.
Some students in the district, located in rural northern Lawrence County, still have issues with internet connectivity. The district allows those students to come to a school parking lot where they can get close enough to a hot spot to download assignments onto their Chromebooks. The Chromebooks give students the ability to work on the downloaded material without having to access the internet.
Most rural school districts face similar hardships. To help support schools facing those issues as well as other problems, the state education department has instructed the 29 intermediate units in the state to assist with the implementation of learning continuity plans.
Donald Martin, the executive director of Intermediate Unit 1, which works with 25 school districts and five career and technical centers in Washington, Fayette and Greene counties, said the shutdown could have been “very ugly.” Instead, he said, schools and other entities have worked together to find a way forward.
“What could really be an excuse for districts, I’m very proud of our districts because they didn’t make that excuse,” Mr. Martin said. “They looked at the resources they had, and we spent some time early on discussing this and really having some serious discussions over bandwidth and lack of technology ... then we got to work.”
Mr. Martin said teachers and school administrators have made lessons available to students through laptops, iPads, tablets and even smart phones. Schools and local libraries have opened their parking lots to students who need to access the internet hot spots, as have local businesses that have removed Wi-Fi passwords to allow students to work nearby.
The difficulties are not limited to schools in rural areas. Schools close to Pittsburgh have their own challenges.
With its vast enrollment, the change would have been arduous for the Pittsburgh Public Schools even without some of the technological and equity concerns.
“We’ve been working around the clock literally transitioning from a brick and mortar to a remote environment,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said. “To do that within a couple of weeks to a month is sheer manpower. We’re up to the task; we’re getting it done.”
Pittsburgh Public Schools has a large percentage of low -income students who don’t have access to devices necessary for remote learning. As the district prepares to restart required lessons for students on April 16, it is in a race to secure thousands of laptops for students — and teachers — who need them.
The district has ordered 5,000 laptops that it will add to its stockpile of 2,500. The University of Pittsburgh donated another 599 laptops to the district.
Schools must ensure that all students, including those with disabilities and English language learners, have fair access to education even if it is done remotely.
“One of the things we want to make sure we do is not rush to put something out there that wasn’t beneficial and equitable to all students,” Mr. Hamlet said.
Pittsburgh is not the only district working to acquire more devices for its students.
The Woodland Hills School District started a drive in an attempt to raise enough money to purchase 700 Chromebook laptops.
Phillip Woods, the principal of Woodland Hills High School, said he wants the district to begin remote learning later this month, but students first need devices so that they are able to access their classwork.
The charter institution Propel Schools, with sites in and around the city, has an enrollment largely made up of students who come from low-income families. The network plans to begin its remote instruction later this month, but teachers have been communicating with families as often as possible.
Propel has distributed about 2,000 Chromebooks to students, many of which have been sent through FedEx because many families have a hard time getting transportation, according to Tina Chekan, Propel’s CEO/superintendent.
“This is a process,” Ms. Chekan said. “We know for a fact if those basic needs aren’t met first, then working is going to be much more challenging for our students.”
While the pandemic has changed the way education is implemented in the country virtually overnight, not all schools have needed weeks to prepare.
The Elizabeth Forward School District only missed one day of school, March 16, Superintendent Todd Keruskin said.
For years, the district has given every student a digital device that provides access to classwork. Having that resource allowed remote instruction to begin the second day of the statewide closure.
Even districts that will not be able to secure a device for every student will have to search for ways to make remote learning possible.
Though not every student in the Fort Cherry School District in Washington County has a device, students there have not missed a day of instruction. The district first used flexible instruction days approved by the state for snow days and other unscheduled closures, then worked to continue remote lessons.
All seventh through 12th grade students in Fort Cherry are provided with Chromebooks, but students in kindergarten through sixth grade are not.
The district created work packets for all of the approximately 500 kindergarten though sixth grade students, which were then distributed using school buses, Superintendent Jill Jacoby said.
“We did a Wednesday morning run, and we told the parents and the kids that we will be there at the same time they normally get the bus,” she said. “My community was amazing, because someone started a poster campaign, so all the kids made posters about how much they loved school and had them at the bus stops.”
Ms. Jacoby said she has been in contact every day with other superintendents as well as her district’s intermediate unit, IU1. Having that support, she said, has been helpful.
Through it all, she anticipates that this shutdown will lead to a reassessment of education in America.
“If this doesn’t change the educational landscape, then I’ll be shocked,” Ms. Jacoby said. “I think now we’re seeing that education isn’t what it used to be in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, that we’ve got to move forward and modernize our opportunities for learning for kids.”