Some families opt for distance learning
BRIDGEPORT — Given the choice to return to classrooms full- time, some Bridgeport families have selected to stick with distance learning.
Bridgeport Public Schools announced last month that all students may go back to school buildings four days a week starting Monday, more than a year after the COVID- 19 pandemic shuttered schools. Wednesdays will be remote days for all students while teachers engage in professional development.
Many Bridgeport students have been practically in- person full time, due to the large number of families who selected remote over hybrid freeing up space in classrooms.
But despite the chance to gain a semblance of normalcy, some families have decided to proceed as they have been for the past several months: learning from the safety of their own homes.
Their reasons are varied, from health concerns to social anxieties to not wanting to wear uniforms at this late stage in the school year. However, they all decided that it’s not yet time to be back in school.
“My kids will not be back,” said Eurydice Spell, the mom of three Bridgeport students. “They only have two months left of school. It doesn’t make sense to put them in this predicament now.”
Spell’s oldest daughter is 16 and a junior at BullardHavens Technical High School; her twins are 8 years old and attend Classical Studies Magnet Academy. After consulting with her children, they decided to stick with the district’s online option.
“I understand there’s a lot of parents who have to go back to work — I’ll have to go back too. But I have to make a conscious choice,” she said. “It’s not about the money, it’s about health.”
Spell has a pre- existing condition that makes her more susceptible to a bad case of COVID- 19 and said she’s wary of the risk that her kids could bring the virus home.
She also worries that back- to- school would be awkward socially with two months left in the school year.
“They’ve been there every day,” she said, of students already attending in person. “They only see our kids on the screen.”
Spell acknowledged she’s in a unique position to choose distance learning. Spell has experience as an educator, and her children have adapted well to the remote environment — “better than I imagined them doing,” she said.
“Everything is going back to normal little- bylittle,” she said. “While we’re still in the middle of this, and I’m still trying to figure out what is what, I’m going to leave it.”
Sharon Hodges and her family made a similar decision. Hodges’s daughter, a senior in the magnet program at Central High School, has been all- remote since in- person learning temporarily paused around Thanksgiving.
“She has only three classes — it’s her senior year,” said her mom. “There’s no purpose of me sending her to school for a month and a half, and I don’t trust that they’re capable — especially for high school — of incorporating four days a week.”
Central is a big school, she said, with an enrollment of about 1,500 students, according to city data. Hodges added that she might’ve been more comfortable sending her daughter back into the building, had she known more about the specific safety measures in place for a high school of that size.
“We’re not getting this information,” she said.
Hodges also had concerns about the distribution of COVID- 19 vaccines.
“( The district) didn’t mandate — they suggested that they get the shot. So you don’t know if teachers, administrators, security or office staff have been fully vaccinated,” she said.
Plus, Hodges’s daughter is doing well learning from home. She doesn’t have to wear a uniform, and she even made honor roll while a remote learner.
But concerns linger as more students return to the classroom, among some families who are continuing to learn from home.
“As the parent of a distance learner,” the Board of Education’s Joseph Sokolovic raised at a meeting before school break, “with teachers focusing more on in- person learners, as obviously there’s going to be more in- person students coming at this time, what does the classroom look like? What does, say, my son’s ( Microsoft) Teams look like? Are we still going to be streaming the whiteboard, and the lessons are going to be posted online?”
Superintendent Michael Testani assured parents that most of remote learners’ days will remain exactly the same.
“I just wanted to give families a little bit of notice if the teacher happens to step away from the camera to attend to a child, especially in the primary grades where they might be a child who needs attention... that they may see a little more of that,” he said.
Testani also implored parents again to consider sending their children back to classrooms, even if they missed the soft deadline to elect in- person learning.
“I know some of the schools would like to get ( student headcounts) for planning purposes,” he said. “Parents do have the right, and if a week or two into the return from break, parents want to send their kids in, we’re welcoming all our kids back. We hope to see them soon.”