Hurdles to homework
Schools struggle to get students connected online, address special needs and keep learning
Places like Smith’s or McDonald’s parking lots became overnight hotspots, and families without a stable connection found themselves sitting in the family car to get school work done.
In an effort to get every student connected, education and community leaders are putting their heads together so no child is left behind. With the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and a stay at home order to boot, there is not an end in sight for the future of remote learning.
In a recent report published by the New Mexico State Legislature, teachers reported not being able to reach one in five students, and one in three students aren’t actively participating in online learning throughout the day. This is an alarming number, especially in rural districts like Peñasco, where a simple snowstorm could cause the community to lose internet connection and could erase a child’s chance of remote learning for the day.
Lisa Hamilton, superintendent of Peñasco Independent School District, said she and her teachers are focusing on after-school tutoring programs and increasing engagement wherever they can. Although the tutoring and after-school sessions are currently virtual, she did say the district has plans to bring students back to the classroom as soon as they can.
“The biggest concern for us is a student who either doesn’t participate because of connectivity issues, or doesn’t participate because remote learning is not something that they want to do,” Hamilton said.
To engage the latter, teachers are becoming more and more creative in their teaching styles and employing methods like projectbased learning. Instead of teaching a concept first, students are given the opportunity to unplug and delve into a project, like collecting water samples to learn decimals. These hands-on experiments teach real world skills, and is one method Hamilton said they are focusing on. Flipped teaching is another, and is common for foreign language classes where the students are given the vocabulary and content first, then a lesson is given in the virtual classroom where students can practice what they’ve already learned at home.
“We’re just trying different ways to increase engagement,” she said, adding how the stats from the state legislature report is sobering. “We acknowledge that there’s a remote burn out, and that’s been cited by other superintendents. Kids can be tired of just logging in so we’re trying different things.”
Reaching remote students
Hamilton said Peñasco Independent School District is managing through community partnerships and Taos Behavioral Health is just one of many resources used to reach out to struggling students to help get them back on track.
“We do have a few students, very few, who need one-to-one support and in-person support and we’re really, really fortunate that we’ve partnered with Taos Behavioral Health,” she said. “And they are able to bring students in and provide coordinated services and get the students on track and motivated to log in and give them opportunities to complete their work as well.”
Eric Mares, clinical director at Taos Behavioral Health, said in Peñasco they have a direct link to the schools and are still offering tutoring and social, emotional counseling services in a 1:3 ratio (one teacher to three students). These services are called “pods,” and are currently in-person, but follow a strict safety protocol and a sanitization process.
There’s the counseling component and the comprehensive community support services component that focuses on five functional domains: independent living, working, learning, socialization and recreation. For children, the center focuses on the latter three, which Mares said students are most lacking right now.
“We’re helping them learn, get on to their school, log on to their classes, start organizing their days and start establishing good habits of falling into their work and managing their own time,” Mares said. “We assist them, but not do it for them. We serve as coaches and guidance for them, and that’s the role of the Community Support Workers or CSWs.”
During the most recent shutdown orders, Taos Behavioral Health is still providing much needed in-person services to the community, granted the safety pledge is taken and internet isn’t accessible or possible. While not a tutoring service per se, it is all behavioral health oriented and fulfills the needs that teachers can’t provide to the most at risk students.
“I would say we’re lacking on the learning piece, because we’re not teachers we’re not there just strictly for education, but we do our best to try and incorporate that into our pods, with our programming with the pods,” he said. “They are around people, they are getting that social interaction, but then we’re also offering that emotional support for whatever they might be going through: depression or anxiety, adjustment-type issues.”
Mares said Taos Behavioral Health focuses mainly on the students who have experienced some form of trauma, whether it be domestic violence or depression, and have a clinical diagnosis.
Pre-COVID, each staff member would be managing a caseload of eight students or more, but by keeping the ratio of students small, Mares said the quality of services has improved and is giving the kids the attention and support they deserve.
“Actually, for everybody that was in our program we hired enough staff to make sure they continued being served,” Mares said. “Nobody fell off from our services, but it does limit us unfortunately from how many more kids we could fit into the program. That’s a hard thing. I love our community, but I have to think in my head administratively how much capacity do we have? If we say yes to everybody then we might not be doing good for anybody, ya know? We have to be careful of that.”
Getting kids online
Without a stable internet connection, students in Taos County and the surrounding school districts are essentially foregoing an education. High-risk students – those who struggle emotionally, socially and whose families may struggle financially – are at the greatest risk of falling behind. Elizabeth LeBlanc, director of Teaching and Learning at Taos Academy Charter School, is one such educator who is heeding the call to connect. (LeBlanc is not related to this reporter.)
Through her work with the Taos Education Collaborative, which includes Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, all area schools and the town of Taos, 100 hotspots were identified throughout the county and 25 families received sponsored internet service through the remainder of the school year. But the need remains dire.
“It really is a community effort to try to figure out how to support these families. So the first thing we did was try to generate a safety net, ‘where are 100 places across Taos County where a kid who’s at home access goes out for any reason can go work, turn in assignments and not get too far behind?’” LeBlanc said. “Knowing this is not a great long-term solution but look at it as kind of a band aid.”
Places like Smith’s or McDonald’s parking lots became overnight hotspots, and families without a stable connection found themselves sitting in the family car to get school work done. But with winter coming, LeBlanc and Siena Sanderson, Program Director for the Nurturing Center at Taos Behavioral Health, both stressed the importance of a long-term solution.
“You can hear the urgency in our voices even though we don’t have great solutions and we’re trying really hard to get them, I think we’re looking at more rather than less disengagement over time,” LeBlanc said, “And already, at least from talking to folks that work at the district and folks that work at University of New Mexico-Taos, and actually the Secretary of Education, statewide this is an issue. We’re seeing more and more students and families disengage from K-12 learning.”
LeBlanc’s hope is that a home internet connection becomes a basic human right like food, water and shelter.
“Previously it was something that you wanted everybody to have,” she said. “Now you’re literally disconnected from your education if you don’t have it so it’s a huge equity issue.”
Bills to pay
Sanderson said the greatest need for families in the community is simply the financial support to stay in their homes, let alone connected to the internet. Recently, her office helped families complete a 14-page application for rent and mortgage assistance. Everyone who came to her office qualified and needed the assistance she said.
“We’re just trying to keep people afloat the best we can in terms of just the slightest bit of assistance because right now if we don’t take care of that, I mean what I’m seeing is that people are having to make a choice between online internet access, which might cost them $50 a month, versus their wood or electric bill or whatever,” Sanderson said. “So now we’ve added this extra bill for people and they don’t have enough to pay their other bills. So they’re going to have to start making choices, and that’s where Elizabeth (LeBlanc) comes in, because she’s been so helpful in trying to get some financial assistance for families for their internet bill.”
Although the Taos Municipal School district has ordered rounds of hotspots for families to have internet access, and more are on the way, LeBlanc said the true number of families who are struggling is unknown, and that’s the scary part.
“But some families may be out of cell service range, they may have multiple students trying to use it, or it just doesn’t work at their location,” she said. “So if you ask them, yes, they have access. But is it consistent, solid internet access that allows their students to learn at all times? No. that’s something that complicates the issue of just knowing what exactly we’re dealing with.”