Parents unsure of plans for school
Joshua Claybourn is leaning toward sending his kindergarten daughter to in-person classes at a private school next month. Holly Davis’ sixth-grade daughter will learn online, though the family has not yet decided what to do for school for a teenage daughter who requires special accommodations for hearing problems and dyslexia and another who’s starting college.
As they decide how their children will learn this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, these parents are anxiously weighing the benefits of in-person instruction against the risks that schools could shut their doors again or that their children could contract the virus and pass it on.
“To say we are stressed might be an understatement,” said Davis, of Noblesville, Indiana, whose family is self-isolating after one of their daughters was exposed to COVID-19 at a cross-country meet. “We’re being forced to make impossible decisions.”
Across the country, chaos and disarray have marked the start of the school year as families await decisions from district officials and, where they have a choice, make agonizing decisions over whether to enroll their children in online or in-person classes– often with incomplete or little guidance from schools.
Parents who can work from home wonder if they will have enough time to help their children learn online. Some would need to line up child care. They have no idea if it will be safe to send their children to school – or whether the school doors open at all or stay open if someone is diagnosed with the virus.
And many dread a return to the scenario that millions faced in the spring, when parents tried to work while their kids attended school – all while everyone was cooped up at home.
Claybourn said it’s not clear yet whether his local public school system in Newburgh, Indiana, would close if a someone had COVID-19. The private school he’s eyeing said it would close only the child’s classroom, and only for two to three weeks.
The public school also plans to offer an online option, but for Claybourn, an attorney who works outside of his home, “that is not a solution because ultimately requires someone with the kids all day.”
“I will never be as good of a teacher as the trained professionals,” he said. “I understand the concern about kids contracting and spreading the virus, but for me the larger concern is the prospect of not being in school for an extended period.”
For Davis and her husband, health concerns and the threat that schools could shutter at a moment’s notice pushed them to choose online learning for their youngest daughter, rather than a hybrid program that would also incorporate some in-person learning.
In New York City, Macho Lara, an IT manager at a Brooklyn charter school, said he and his wife have agonized over what to do with their children, who are entering third and fifth grade at public schools.
Officials are tentatively offering the public school system’s 1.1 million students the choice between continuing remote instruction or opting for a hybrid model in which children attend inperson classes a few days out of the week.