school in the time of COVID
Last week our school district announced that the 2020-2021 school year will be starting as planned on August 5th. Parents have the option to send their kids to school or stay at home and participate in digital learning. With a soon to be third grader and kindergartner the decision was easy for me - my kids will be attending school in person.
This post is not intended to convince anyone that they should send their kids to school. I could not care less about what other parents choose to do with their kids. Every family is different and every family must decide what works best for them. There are several factors that impacted our decision including the quality of education, quality of life for our family, finances and prayer.
quality of education
The school has not announced what the plan for digital learning will look like in the new year. I have to assume it would be an improvement from our experience at the end of the 2020 school year since there has been more time to prepare for digital learning. Our digital learning experience was not an adequate replacement for in-class learning. The program was designed to be used 1 or 2 days out of the year during the occasional inclement weather day. The program was not designed to be used over long periods of time or intended to introduce new concepts to students. This is not a slight on my son’s teacher. She had no time to prepare and I know worked overtime to provide the best plan possible. I am dissing myself. I am not a teacher!
My husband and I did the assignments with our son every day. Every video was watched, every worksheet completed, every test taken. Did he learn anything? No clue! No clue because I am not a teacher and I am not trained to assess my child’s learning progress. I don’t know how to determine if he fully grasped the concepts we introduced to him.
Even if the digital learning strategy for the upcoming year is improved I am not confident it would be improved enough to be as effective as the in-class learning that I know my children need to succeed. I am concerned that if they participate in online learning at the beginning of the school year they will fall behind and have a hard time adjusting and keeping up with their classmates when they eventually return to the classroom. It’s one thing to end a school year from home; how many new concepts are introduced at the end of a school year? Starting off the year at home is more concerning. If I did not feel comfortable sending my kids to school I would probably look into homeschooling programs designed specifically for learning at home by experts in homeschool education versus participating in the digital learning provided by our public school.
Quality of life
As I have already mentioned, I am not a teacher. In fact, more than that I am a poor teacher. It does not matter what the subject matter is I do not communicate how to do something in a way that is clear and easy to understand. I get too far in the weeds on the why instead of just focusing on the how. Me teaching my kids is probably more confusing than educational.
My son and I made it through the end of the school year but it was challenging. We butted heads a lot. He was frustrated. I was frustrated. This really put a cloud over our home and our relationship. Thankfully we found some methods to make it work but going into another year with 2 kids, not just one, would put an unnecessary strain on my relationship with my kids and the peace in our home and that is important to me.
The most surprising thing to me about quarantine was how much my kids missed being in their classroom and around their friends. I knew that it would be challenging but it was much harder on them than I thought it would be. There were days my kids would be in tears because they just wanted to go back to school. Crying to go back to school! I can’t tell you how much our son looked forward to his weekly Zoom call with his class and how jealous our daughter was that she didn’t have a Zoom call every week. Kids need to interact with other kids, at least my kids need that interaction and those relationships.
Financial Impact
It would be dishonest to say that finances haven’t played a role in our decision to send the kids to school next month. It’s not the main factor but it is a factor. Georgia is not in lockdown. The office where I work is open and back to business as usual. At the end of the school year my office was closed and I was working from home. It was very challenging working from home with three kids when only one was doing digital learning, let alone 2. Working from home is no longer an option and even if it was I will have a kindergartner. My 3rd grader is an excellent reader and can do most of his work on his own but the kindergartner will require a much more hands-on approach. This leaves our family with a few options.
My husband could quit his job and become a full time dad/homeschool teacher
I quite my job and become a full time mom/homeschool teacher
We hire a nanny/caregiver/teacher to stay home with the kids and handle the online learning - likely at a premium cost especially if all 3 kids are at home. Or the caregiver stays with the older kids and we send the almost 2 year old to daycare. At that point we would be paying so much in childcare one of us might as well quit our job.
I’m not sure leaving stable jobs in the middle of a pandemic is a wise decision. Over the last few months we have all seen friends and family lose jobs and their entire business. If one of us leaves our job there is no guarantee that the other won’t lose their job too.
Faith over fear
We are a no fear family. I like to joke that we are a #safetysecond family. I wrote a whole post about it here. I do not have any fear of getting COVID-19 and I have no fear of my kids contracting COVID-19. Keep in mind that I have been back to work in an office full time for 2 months. All 3 of my kids have been in daycare full time since the start of the summer. My husband is a frontline worker working full time (and overtime for weeks on end). Social distancing is not really an option for police officers. We are healthy, we are happy and we are not going to let fear dictate our decisions.
If the school changes course and decides not to offer in-person learning we will figure it out. Although I think my kids being in school is what is best for them educationally as well as socially I will not live in fear if things do not go according to our plan. Ultimately God is in control. Isaiah 41:10 says “Fear not for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Yes! Isn’t that an encouragement?
My son’s favorite question is “What if…..?”. He must say this to me twenty times a day. It’s exhausting because no answer will satisfy his quest to create a scenario that I can’t give an answer to. He will just dive deeper and deeper until I say enough. I think we do this all the time with God. Instead of just trusting that He has a plan we play out every possible worst case scenario as if running through every “what if” will somehow change the outcome. Spoiler alert: God is not surprised by anything that is going on. It may seem like the world is on fire but God is still in control and He does have a plan.
I want to encourage other parents struggling with this decision to pray and trust God. If He is leading you to stay home - stay home! If he is leading you to send your kids to school - send them! Fear and guilt are not a strategy. Do what you know is best for your family and take your peace with that decision. The COVID guidelines could change tomorrow anyway and make the decision for you so don’t worry about this.
Be safe!