COVID school closures strain Norwalk parents
‘I dread going back to remote’
NORWALK — Students in 17 different Norwalk schools and programs logged onto their computers Friday to begin their school day.
The city’s school buildings are still open — and the district says their plan is to stay this way — but as COVID-19 cases rise and crop up, schools are often moved to remote learning due to shortages from staff in quarantine.
Norwalk’s situation appears unique in the area: Other nearby districts, like Greenwich, are only shutting down certain classes and cohorts based on COVID cases, while Bridgeport and Danbury have gone remote altogether for the time being. But an expansive quarantine policy and a commitment to keeping schools open means many Norwalk families are switching between remote and in-person learning, even if they opted for the latter.
Despite the constant switching, many parents are hoping things stay this way.
“I dread going back to remote,” said Jenn McMurrer. “I don’t think we could go back to that and make it out the other side sane. I’m really hopeful even if we have to close down, it’ll be for a short period of time.”
McMurrer has a son in second grade at Marvin Elementary School, where she’s PTA president, and a daughter in preschool at the Norwalk Early Childhood Center. Both have been back in person since the beginning of the year.
Her daughter, who is autistic and has speech delays, thrives now that she can receive her therapies in-person, she said. It has been a step up from the spring where McMurrer was trying to get her toddler to sit in front of a computer and do therapies via Zoom.
Her son is also in school, minus five days of remote learning which McMurrer said was more seamless than it was in the spring. However, the shift in her son when he was home was noticeable — he got
emotional more easily and acted out more.
“The only thing I could equate it to was he was home and not seeing any of his friends,” McMurrer said. “I think it’s really important for most students and great Norwalk is offering in-person classes and trying to keep everything open. ... We’re in the same storm but we’re all in different boats. It’s different for everyone but I feel it’s very important for my typical and atypical kid to be in school.”
But schools going remote for up to two weeks at a time can throw working families into a state of chaos. Several schools went remote this week, including Cranbury Elementary, Wolfpit Elementary and Tracey Magnet Elementary. All four high schools, including P-TECH and the Center for Global Studies, are on remote learning until Dec. 14. Five schools, including Project Search, are on remote learning until after the holiday break.
Kristen Byron, a single mom who works full-time as a counselor in Bridgeport schools, said she was working hard to manage her schedule with her daughter’s Norwalk school schedule. Despite Bridgeport being remote, Byron still has to report to her school building every day and work from there rather than at home.
Byron’s day starts at 7:30 a.m. while her daughter’s fifth-grade class at Cranbury doesn’t start until 9:05 a.m., so she has been paying a babysitter to supervise her before and after school.
When she found out on Wednesday that Cranbury is on remote learning until Dec. 21, she said it took her three hours to come up with a plan that involved taking emergency sick days, bringing in a babysitter and swapping off child care duties with a friend in her daughter’s class.
“It doesn’t make it easy for us full-time working people,” she said. “It’s just a pain in the butt. ... Once you get a $20/hour sitter, it’s becoming pricey.”
The fear of going remote entirely looms large for parents with children in special education, many of whom see more success with in-person classes and services.
Cynthia Escobar has three children in Norwalk schools — two at Kendall Elementary and one at Ponus Ridge Middle School — who she said struggled with remote learning in March. Still, when schools reopened in the fall, she kept her children remote until she saw how the district with handling COVID. Happy with what she saw, she moved her kids to in-person in October, but the thought of going allremote again worries her.
“I know a lot of parents want everyone to go straight into remote, but I believe younger children want in-person schooling,” she said. “... To be full time from home, it will be a big challenge, especially for my special needs child. He regressed a bit last year when we were stuck at home. ... Special ed kids, they need consistency and a lot of times they react negatively to change to go from being in-person to remote. A lot of times they can’t verbalize so then they regress. It’s hard to have that connection too through a computer screen.”
Norwalk schools Chief Communications Officer Brenda Wilcox Williams said on Wednesday the schools plan to stay in person as long as possible.
“We plan to do our best to maintain a schedule that includes in-person learning for families who want their child to attend face-to-face instruction,” she said. “We continue to work closely with our city’s Health Department, and to monitor all guidance from state health and education officials for any new recommendations.”
Families on full remote learning, though, have found the experience to be overall better than when the schools first transitioned back in March.
“They’re doing a fantastic job given the tools they have,” said David Heuvelman whose son is currently on full-time remote learning. “We as a community have held the tools to the highest of standards and they’ve been breaking their backs trying to maintain those standards for us. They’ve done a very good job the world we live in today is a little whacky.”
Many schools are being closed not from spread of cases, but from the number of staff in quarantine. Norwalk’s policy is to quarantine anyone within 6 feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes. Some parents question this, especially at the middle and high school levels which don’t use cohorts like the elementary schools.
“They don’t have a system in place for middle school,” said Nora King, whose son is at Roton Middle School. “They just shut down. That’s not a system.”
The looming holidays and the predicted spike from gatherings aren’t helping ease concerns. Last week, after Thanksgiving, there were at least 459 cases of COVID confirmed in Norwalk with more results coming in — the highest number of cases the city has seen in a single week, per data from city officials.
“We have certainly seen an increase in cases postThanksgiving in Norwalk and across the entire state,” said Norwalk Health Director Deanna D’Amore. “This is not a surprise, given that small gatherings continue to be one of the leading causes of spreading the virus. This trend may continue with people attending holiday gatherings and parties and not following proper protocols.”
This week already saw 322 cases as of Thursday, raising concerns about more shutdowns and inschool exposure.
“It’s something I struggle with almost daily,” said McMurrer, whose family stayed home for Thanksgiving due to rising case numbers. “That was a hard decision for us. ... We’re hoping other people follow suit and do the responsible thing. We’re all in this together. It only takes one or a few people to create a domino effect and affect my kids.”