Back to School, Any Which Way

Finally, it’s back to school week. Six long months ago, our school district closed its doors for what was then thought to be three weeks. None of us were prepared for what was ahead, or for how long. After an extended and very different summer, the doors of our education centers are re-opening. The regular assignment of home room classes has been joined by cohort placements and choices over in-person, hybrid, or fully remote learning for every student as administrators and educators grapple with providing learning opportunities in a safe environment. Meanwhile, teachers, parents, and students alike check off supply lists including masks, hand sanitizer, jump ropes, and juggling balls along with the more traditional stationery items. It would be remiss of me to say that excitement isn’t in the air, but this time it’s mixed with other emotions. Never before has teaching, parenting, or being a student been such an unknown.

In our school district, the initial hybrid schooling that our family has opted for has been delayed and we will begin the academic year fully remote. At this point, our hope is that this is only for a week, but if the rest of 2020 is anything to go by, who knows? If you’ll pardon me mixing my metaphors, the pandemic has certainly thrown us some curve balls, and the fat lady isn’t singing yet!

The summer of 2020 will forever be remembered as a working summer. Not just for those individuals doing their day jobs from a makeshift office thrown together out of necessity rather than desire, but for every single one of us who has a connection to education. All the things we usually look forward to in a summer – sleep away camps, day camps, travel, and time to decompress – were at best interrupted and in some cases replaced with a juggling act that was doomed to failure before we picked up our juggling balls. In the background of every decision we made was the nagging doubt that we were doing the right thing. Should we book a trip anywhere? Can we afford to take time off work? Can we afford not to? And then came the surveys about returning to school and an endless barrage of essential but exhausting decisions to be made about sending our kids into a classroom when – as adults – we are remaining isolated at home. No amount of Zoom meetings or statistics can give us the right answers and we are left grappling with a choice between mental and physical health. The short answer is that there is no right answer, but that’s not easy to accept. Like many, I’ve read articles that consider the pros and cons of each scenario, and one thing is lacking in both cases – certainty.

It’s no wonder then, that the single emotion of excitement has conflicting feelings jostling for attention. To get a better sense of this, I spoke to some parents in my local area to see how they’ve fared living through what’s being dubbed a ‘summer of lost opportunity’, and how they feel about back to school.

Kate Nielsen, mother of three from Holliston, describes her experience as a rollercoaster. She shared with me how her family adapted during the first weeks of being sent home from the Holliston Public Schools. “We were excited in the beginning. There was no school, and we could still play outside with neighbors.” Kate’s 8-year-old daughter was keen to set up the ‘Kate Nielsen Elementary School,’ she explains. “I just said, here’s some workbooks, and the kids enjoyed completing them. We even had care cards for good behavior,” she says.

But as the reality of not returning to school became apparent, the novelty wore off for the Nielsens as well as many other families. Be Peron, mother of three from Holliston whose children attended Holliston’s Elementary School, and Christa McAuliffe Charter School and Joseph P Keefe Technical High School in Framingham, found that she was unable to meet her children’s needs while maintaining her job as a librarian at a nearby Catholic school. Be explains, “My school hit the ground running and I was working three days after the district closures. This didn’t work for my kids though, and I had no choice but to quit my job to support them.”

McAuliffe started with enrichment learning, tying cooking, and juggling to skills and standards. But once the school moved to academics, Be felt that there was too much dependence on synchronous online learning. Her 13-year-old son was staring at a screen for a whole day. This rang true for other parents too, including Sarah Owen, mother of two from Holliston.

Sarah’s oldest son was in Pre-K at Sam Placentino Elementary School in the spring and was required to attend one full class and two smaller group Zooms per week. With a 14-month-old son, and her husband working from home, Sarah hung up her camera from her professional photography business for a while to focus on the needs of her family. She explains, “The change was so abrupt, it was hard for me to adapt. I had planned for my son to be in school and suddenly that wasn’t possible.”

This shift is something that many can relate to. Everyone I spoke to commented on the lack of personal space. Even the children felt the confines of being at home throughout an extended summer. In my own household, adult time has become a thing of the past. My children are almost 13, and 10, and yet every night is family movie night, we’ve binge-watched all five seasons of Fuller House (a reminder that we’re Brits that moved here five years ago), and I’m often crawling into bed wondering where my Kindle or phone has gone to discover that one child is reading on one device while the other is listening to an audio book on the other. And there’s not only no time to escape, but, as Kate pointed out, where are we going to go? She adds, “Even a single trip to the beach involved a herculean effort to pre-book parking at an inflated price and arrive as the parking lot opened.”

While every family wrestled with the choice of extending their bubble or staying isolated, Karen DiModica, a teacher who works at the David Mindess Elementary School in Ashland and lives in Holliston with her four children, was always on. She compared the summer of 2020 to other years. “As a rule of thumb, I usually finish up school at the end of June, take July to relax, and, come August, go full steam ahead into school mode. This year, I talked with my teaching colleagues all summer long. We shared ideas of how to go back safely and were in bi-weekly Zoom meetings with our Superintendent.” When I spoke to Karen, she was in school getting her classroom ready for the return of 11 students who she will welcome back to in-person learning.

Karen’s expectations for her 3rd grade students have shifted. “Teachers want to go back to school where we can offer so much more than the three Rs. Those facets are important, but the social emotional piece is huge and it’s important to get kids into school for their mental health.” Karen’s hope for her students is that they make new friends, feel a connection to their teacher, and build on their academics. She is excited to be back in school, even though it throws up the challenge of supporting her own children when they are remote learning. It’s her hope that her children have a similar experience to that which she will offer her class.

However different this summer has been, it’s hard to ignore that enforced family time can have benefits too. Every family I spoke to recognized the value in being able to take a step back from their hectic schedules. Bike rides, family walks, family meals, working moms and dads being around more, were all popular responses from my contributors, as well as taking time to shop locally to support small businesses. Sarah’s husband witnessed a milestone that he would otherwise have missed by being in the office. Thanks to the lockdown, he was there to see his youngest son take his first steps. And an introverted 13-year-old has found his social comfort zone with interactive video games and cycling with friends. To my mind, these are real wins that should be celebrated.

There will undoubtedly be more obstacles to overcome with the new normal. Wearing masks is universal. This presents Sarah with an added challenge for her incoming Kindergartner who will return to full time in-person learning. She explained that her son has sensory issues and cannot wear a mask without chewing on it. Faced with the possibility of providing a handful of masks for her child every day, she went about finding inserts that move the material away from her son’s mouth so that he doesn’t make it wet. She’s relieved to have found a solution that will allow her son to benefit from the structure and routine of being in class.

One thing is certain: our children won’t have the school experience they are used to whether they are in-person or remote and that isn’t likely to change this academic year. But hopefully the summer has taught us some lessons. Be’s 11-year-old daughter has returned to a different school district this year. Although she’s fully remote due to Framingham being a hotspot for the virus, she’s already making new friends, despite being in an artificial environment. Be commented on how her three children have become much closer. “They’ve all learnt patience, complexity, and compassion at a level they hadn’t experienced before,” she says.

With teachers like Karen doing their best to give their students what they need, and the lessons that we’ve learned through the summer, maybe there is good reason to be excited about going back to school after all.