Districts asked to boost distance learning
Teachers scramble as large numbers of students don’t have access to internet
SACRAMENTO >> If they haven’t done so already, school districts must immediately ramp up their distance-learning curricula because classroom doors will almost certainly be closed indefinitely during the coronavirus pandemic, and students can’t be left behind.
That was the message delivered Wednesday by both Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond.
Neither issued firm guidelines or orders on how to achieve that, however, suggesting instead that the state will work with school districts to help make it happen.
Thurmond said he’s urging all superintendents to “proceed as if we can only educate our kids through distance learning for the remainder of the school year.” The day before, he sent out a letter to more than 1,000 school districts in California urging them to prioritize their distance-learning efforts.
Newsom weighed in on that theme Wednesday in a news conference.
“It should be clear that the right thing to do for our children and for our parents and communities is to make sure they’re preparing today to see our school system up where we are increasing class time, but increasing it at home,” Newsom said.
Many districts, however, are facing the stark reality that teacher-student interaction will be limited in some cases to video lectures delivered from inside teachers’ homes or through a simple phone call.
And that could lead to lowered expectations as instructors devise new grading systems while figuring out how to give lessons to large numbers of students without access to their own computers.
But help is on the way. To address the “digital gap,” Newsom announced Google has “stepped up in a big way” and will provide 100,000 free points of access to improve Wi-Fi and broadband capacity across the state for a minimum of three months.
The tech firm also is sending out thousands of Chromebook laptops to the approximately 20% of California public school students who don’t have regular uninterrupted access to the internet. State officials said that gap has now been cut by more than half in the past several weeks.
A survey done by the state suggests that roughly 162,000 Wi-Fi access points are needed to fully cover all students who don’t have access to the internet, so Newsom is asking other tech firms to help with the rest.
“We need more Googles. We still have a little bit more coverage we’ll need,” Newsom said. “This was a substantial enhancement that came just at the right time.”
Currently, most students in districts that started dabbling in distance learning when schools were initially closed last month are working individually — without or with limited guidance from their teachers — through apps and websites offering interactive educational activities such as math exercises, reading tests, science lessons and virtual labs.
State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond said other students who have not had access to the internet are getting assignment packets delivered by school buses, among other “extremely creative” efforts.
School districts are looking to up the ante. Many are trying to figure out how to get teachers into students’ homes through virtual classrooms such as the videoconferencing app Zoom or Google Classroom — a big challenge for the Bay Area’s largest school districts whose student bodies include hundreds of children without uninterrupted access to the internet.
Oakland Unified spokesman John Sasaki said the district hasn’t started distance learning “because so many of our families lack technology and internet access at home, making it impossible for them to access any new work online.” He added that the district’s educational plan “will not introduce new content.”
San Francisco public school officials said Wednesday they have distributed more than 5,200 devices to students in grades 3-12 and estimate they’ll need to distribute 5,000 more over the next week.
Bruce Aparton, a kindergarten teacher at Grattan Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District, was concerned earlier this week about a lack of computers for students.
“As a public school teacher, one of our biggest concerns is equity,” Aparton said. “Some kids have tutors, some kids have nothing. They don’t even have a place to do their homework. If you have one computer in your family and you have multiple siblings in your family, and a parent working from home, what do you do with that?”
Meanwhile, some districts such as Palo Alto Unified — rated No. 1 in the state by Niche.com — already had a framework up and running this week, which it completed and shared with parents March 27.
In a 23-page “continuity of learning manual” sent to parents, Superintendent Don Austin said academic programs hosted through the app Schoology should provide a balance of online and tech-free instructional activities.
The online learning models that some school districts such as Palo Alto have in place aren’t for everyone, however.
At Summit Rainier Charter School in San Jose, Spanish teacher Isela Mosqueira said the biggest challenges with the school’s online learning program were working out the kinks in video conferencing, doing regular checkups with students and delivering the curriculum over a computer.
“A lot of our students don’t have internet access or don’t have the most conducive environment at home for supportive learning or any accountability at home,” Mosqueira said. “It’s hard compared to a physical classroom holding them to the same expectations. How do we hold students accountable if they’re not here.”
It’s also vexing for teachers to keep up with each student as online learning puts more distance between them.
“We’re asked to run classes as normal, deadline as normal, and there’s such a larger amount of kids to follow up with that aren’t doing their work. I can’t be calling 50 families every day in addition to everything,” Mosqueira said.
Daniel Hernandez, a junior at Middle College High School in San Pablo, has experienced distance learning at both the high school and college levels. Middle College High School is part of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, but students also work toward earning an associate degree by taking courses at Contra Costa College.
Hernandez, who lives in Pinole, said his high school teachers aren’t requiring him to complete work but are posting “assignments for enrichment” through Google Classroom and other online portals.
Meanwhile, his college professors are hosting lectures through Zoom and Canvas, which “has been trouble-free.”
For parents dealing with the stress of losing jobs and income amid the coronavirus outbreak, relying on each other as schools close down has been of paramount importance.
Pecolia Manigo, executive director of the Bay Area Parent Leadership Action Network, said lowincome students are most at risk during school closures.
“We know certain families are more impacted by the shelter-in-place order, particularly families who work in the service industry who aren’t able to work right now,” Manigo said.
“I’m stressed,” said the mother of a preschooler, elementary student and high school junior. “I have to be realistic about what I can and can’t do and also take care of myself. All of us parents are leaning on each other in ways, to be honest, we never had to lean on people before.”