Educating our kids takes a village — and more
As career educators, our back-to-school time is usually packed with long meetings, classroom shopping and great excitement. From school administrators to classroom teachers, football coaches to cafeteria workers, everyone is coming back from the hazy days of summer and looking forward to a new start and new beginnings. But back to school in 2020 in the COVID-19 era is full of challenges and worries that none of us could have foreseen.
The New Mexico Public Education Department has taken a deliberate approach to reopening across the state, giving local districts the autonomy to make decisions that make sense for their individual schools. Districts and schools may begin a phased-in, hybrid approach on or after Tuesday. Certainly, some localities with low infection and transmission rates have decided they are on target for in-person learning. Some school districts have decided to put off in-person learning until next semester, allowing extra time for their schools to secure personal protective equipment, communicate their plans and safety procedures to their faculty and families, and provide health, safety and IT training to educators.
We also need to contend with the fact that partial or complete online learning doesn’t address the 30 percent of New Mexicans without an internet connection who can’t be a part of virtual classrooms at home. In addition, 55 percent of New Mexicans use cable or other internet providers that don’t meet the consistent bandwidth standards needed to watch lengthy presentations or fill out forms while multiple household members are online simultaneously.
These families face unacceptable barriers to learning, even when students are attending school in person, because the internet is an essential tool for today’s education and economy. A hybrid in-person and virtual schooling model, or even an all-online model, may not work for everyone. Some students, especially those with disabilities, need the special in-person support of hands-on teachers and aides, while other learners simply don’t have the capacity to process information from a computer screen alone. And the social, emotional and psychological benefits conferred by practicing drills with a soccer team or visiting a museum with an art class are hard to quantify and difficult to replicate online.
This pandemic has made clearer the unequivocal and inescapable reality of educational inequity in our state. If there is any silver lining from this continued public health crisis, it’s the small businesses, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, local governments and private citizens who’ve come together in an unprecedented way to meet the educational needs of our students.
The Legislature must now do its part by building the broadband infrastructure necessary to provide all our students, their families and those new partnerships with access to the online learning they deserve, as well as related economic and health opportunities.
There is no perfect solution that will allow schools to reopen with zero risks to the students, teachers, staff and their families. Thus, we must make space for robust community input and keep striving to give our kids high-quality educational opportunities, while also keeping all New Mexicans safe. To our families and students, we’re in this with you. As legislators and as teachers, we want to hear from you. There is no single, one-size-fits-all answer, and circumstances change daily. We must stay focused on the goal: educating our students while maintaining their safety.
State Rep. Joy Garratt has been an educator for 28 years and serves on the House Education Committee and Legislative Education Study Committee. State Rep. Natalie Figueroa is a high school teacher at Volcano Vista and serves on the House Education Committee.