San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Remote learning options prove elusive
San Antonio mom says in-person classes aren’t worth the health risks to her four kids
It is five weeks into the school year, but Tiffany Richards’ four children, ages 6 to 13, have not returned to the classroom.
Two of them are immunocompromised and Richards, 33, said she does not want to take a chance that any of them contract COVID-19. Her oldest child, Avee, is 13 and has type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. Her 6-year-old, Earl, has type 1 diabetes, ADHD and an impulse control disorder.
Richards has a doctor’s note that says all four kids should stay home for school rather than go in person. When Earl was diagnosed in June, Richards said she started trying to reach out to the kids’ respective Northside Independent School District campuses to make sure they all received necessary accommodations.
Getting in touch with representatives was difficult in the summer, and Richards said she didn’t get to speak to anyone until the school year was kicking off.
But now Richards is waiting for an update from the school and thinking about how she should move forward. As a single mother and personal trainer, Richards said home school isn’t an option. She knows other parents who had similar concerns, but have caved and sent their kids to school in person.
With three children too young to be vaccinated and COVID-19 case counts on a late summer surge, Richards said she is committed to finding an alternative that protects her children’s health.
“I don’t feel comfortable about sending the children to school,” she explained Thursday, “because to me, yes, education is very important, but their health is more important.”
There are 353 active cases among Northside students and 31 among campus staff, according to the weekly district COVID-19 report.
Two of Richards’ kids are en
rolled at Glenoaks Elementary School, while the other two are enrolled at Neff Middle School. The Northside dashboard shows there was one active case at the former and three at the latter the week of Sept. 13.
Richards said she got an update on Friday that the elementary school will try to squeeze Earl and 8-year-old Amelia into a virtual learning option that is only for first- through fifth-graders. If that doesn’t work out, she was told the school would return to its past efforts of working to get homebound services just for Earl.
It has been about a month since Richards has heard from the middle school, which she said in the past has recommended that she try to home-school her kids or enroll them in a virtual academy through the Texas Education Agency. Richards was told Friday that someone from the middle school will contact her soon for an update on her options, but was also told that Avee is not likely eligible for homebound services.According to the agency’s website, general education homebound services, which were available prior to the pandemic, can be provided to a student expected to be confined at home or hospital bedside for a minimum of four weeks. It must be provided by a certified general education teacher. The website says that “medically fragile students” who have a concern about developing medical conditions potentially could meet the key requirements for homebound instruction.
Northside encourages parents who are concerned about in-person learning to work with their child’s school directly, district spokesman Barry Perez said in a Thursday statement. He said he cannot comment on any individual student.
“In the event a parent requests a medical exemption, we will review and make a determination on a case by case basis,” he said via email. “In our efforts to address individual concerns presented by parents and/or students, we have worked to provide acceptable alternatives to accommodate for individual medical conditions. Likewise, we have also worked with families to accommodate medical conditions necessitating homebound services.”
Perez said the school is not offering any new virtual learning option. At the end of last school year, families of students in first through fifth grade were asked whether they wanted inperson learning. He said that if students met certain academic, attendance and behavior criteria, they were allowed to pursue a virtual option. There are 250 firstthrough fifth-grade students who are doing so, but the deadline has passed for anyone to be added.
Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed Senate Bill 15 into law in an effort to help schools fund remote learning options. There has been “little immediate impact” on Northside, Perez said. Under the law, schools can’t force teachers to conduct both in-person and classroom instruction, as many did last year.
Even prior to the bill’s being signed, Perez said in August that “with many districts struggling to staff teachers for in-person learning, the additional staffing burden as a result of a virtual learning model would make it difficult, if not impossible, to provide large-scale virtual instruction.” He said those concerns still stand, so the district “is not offering any new virtual learning option.”
But Perez said the main reason the school is not offering virtual learning is that the district believes inperson learning is the best option for students.
“The data that we have seen not only for our district but statewide is that the vast majority of our students cannot afford to lose additional instructional time and not be in person,” Perez said. “We know that in-person instruction and feel strongly that in-person instruction is the best model for the vast majority of our students. That is certainly the biggest influence in saying we are not offering a virtual option because we feel that being in person is best for our students.”
Richards said that she is continuing to look for ways to ensure that all her children can learn from home, whether through an alternate means that was recommended by Northside officials when she spoke to them or trying to get her kids into a different school district. Even after getting an update from Northside on Friday, Richards said she is disappointed that there are not more options available to her.
“Anybody else that I’ve known that had issues, they’ve just given up and sent their kids to school,” Richards said Thursday. “For me, it’s not worth it. I’d rather have my kids have to repeat the grade, I guess, next year than go to school and get sick and risk their health.”