Back to school in new, old-fashioned way

It’s back to school this week for students in Santa Fe Public Schools, an education like no other in our history. Students and teachers are engaging in distance learning, with independent work a major part of the experiment. The schools are physically closed until the end of the spring semester by order of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, part of her efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic. She has few good choices in this situation.

To keep large groups of children and adults together is an invitation to spread a disease that threatens to overwhelm our health system. To move schools to digital learning statewide could cause many children to fall behind and further exacerbate the differences between the haves and the have-nots.

Right now, we trust that the smart people in charge of the Public Education Department and local school districts across the state are planning how to compensate — someday — for what is likely to be a lessthan-ideal educational experience. Weeks or months of a pandemic spent at home cannot become a lifelong burden for our children, always behind and never at grade level.

Remediation could mean returning to school early in fall for intense review before the semester is scheduled to begin, or it could mean hiring tutors for children who fell behind at home, whatever the reason. There also should be successes — lessons that can be used to improve education as New Mexico continues to try and open the world for our schoolchildren through the promise of learning.

Santa Fe is fortunate that its voters have approved technology bonds that provide every child in the district an electronic device on which to learn. In terms of access, we have less inequity than many places.

Still, about 10 percent of some 13,000 students lack internet access at home, a situation that is being addressed with the city and school district by establishing Wi-Fi hot spots to make sure students are able to access their lessons.

Around the state, it is likely that more children will lack access to necessary computers and Wi-Fi access — those children must receive necessary resources. On Monday, Albuquerque Public Schools and New Mexico PBS announced an initiative that will offer K-5 lessons in key topics daily, a welcome supplement.

Obviously, in a more perfect world, no one would advocate for trial-and-error schooling. No one would want to deny children the benefits of being in classrooms, including socialization and friendship. No one would want to burden already harried parents by, in effect, putting them directly in charge. No one would want to give teachers several days of training — if that — to become distance learning experts.

Most of all, no one would want a system that by its nature is inequitable, further emphasizing the socioeconomic and class differences among students.

Some children have parents with time and knowledge to assist in their lessons. Many don’t. Some children lack internet access. Some children will have no supervision because parents are at work, toiling in essential jobs from first responder to grocery store checker. Some, of all economic classes, live in homes that are violent or marred by addiction — school was their safe place.

Too often, children go to school hungry. They eat breakfast at their desks and their one hot meal of the day is at lunch. To make sure kids can eat, the schools and other agencies are collaborating to get food to families. Curbside drop-offs have been set up at various sites to feed children during the school week from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. — if they have transportation to get to the meal sites.

When the United States finishes handling the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, we must come to grips with a society where some 30 million children around the country qualify for free and reduced meals at school. In New Mexico, that number is 67.6 percent of all public schoolchildren.

This pandemic, as much as it is a public health threat, has spotlighted the many cracks in the fabric of society. The failure of all of us to provide well for children is a major issue. That so many children have to eat breakfast, lunch and even dinner at school is a failure that should have been unacceptable long before people were encouraged to stay home to avoid disease and death. Understanding why this is happening and improving the situation has to be one of the country’s first priorities when this crisis is over.

For now, it’s back to school in Santa Fe. May there be lessons in this crisis, both in the classroom and for our country as we help children learn in this new yet old-fashioned way.

It’s old-fashioned in that it’s in the home, the way children learned for centuries before the establishment of public schools. And it’s new, with knowledge flowing through computers, with the teacher on a screen instead of being physically before the classroom. With few good choices amid the pandemic, it’s all of our jobs now to make the best of this opportunity. Our children deserve no less.