The heart of education is relationships and community connection. This includes the vital relationship between the teacher and student, the peer community among students, and the colleague community among teachers. Up until now, these relationships rested on the laurels of assumed face-to-face interaction.
Those relationships came to grinding halt as the novel coronavirus pandemic caused school shutdowns that swept the nation at an unprecedented speed. School districts and administrators scrambled to reorganize the education system while simultaneously ensuring students’ and teachers’ needs are met.
School districts in Chicago, Texas, and Vermont (to name a few) announced early on that they would be working to provide meals for students despite the shutdown. These announcements made headlines. But in all of these pragmatic and practical steps, what happened to the ever-significant relationships that hold a school community together?
The answer depends on where school districts were in terms of distance learning before the crisis. Let’s divide school districts into three groups: Group 1 is districts that were already using online learning platforms such as Google Classroom; Group 2 is districts which are not online but have the resources to get there; Group 3 is districts that are not online and do not have the resources or funding to get there.
Las Virgenes Unified School District in California is fortunate to be in Group 1. LVUSD was ahead of the curve and started incorporating Google Classroom 12-18 months ago, according to School Board Vice President Angela Cutbill.
“We started setting up the structure some time ago [and] worked very hard to thoughtfully roll out a 1:1 device system,” Cutbill told me. When the shutdown announcement came, “we were ready to go.”
In Cutbill’s district, there is a great emphasis on maintaining those relationships and community connections. Principals are regularly checking in with teachers, and they are implementing processes to ensure teachers connect with one another to share techniques and collaborate on effective teaching practices. “We are also focusing on the health and well-being of our teachers,” said Cutbill. “We are offering online yoga and meditation classes and staff journaling classes.”
Likewise, a school district in New York was ready to go because the district was already incorporating Google Classroom. “The minute the announcement came, we jumped right into distance learning,” said a New York teacher who requested anonymity. In this district, “there are daily messages to parents to keep them updated and regular team meetings and check-ins. Students are working on collaborative projects using Google and are continuing to engage with one another.”
But a number of districts need time to roll out distance learning and are placed squarely in Group 2. For example, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, schools are offering well-curated resources and activities for families to do at home.
Then, in Group 3, there are school districts such as the one in Seattle that are not switching to online learning, in what the Seattle Times calls “a moonshot to save the school year.” Indeed, it is not an easy switch to implement. Some Seattle-area districts are experimenting with going online, but others lack the resources to go online. Districts with a high portion of students living in poverty lack the technology and resources to give all their students online instruction, so there are no classes at all, at least for now.
Even in Group 1 districts such as LVUSD, it has been a heavy lift for teachers as they transformed their lesson plans into online learning plans. “I am concerned about the huge time and effort teachers have had to spend on this. They are home, they are concerned for their families, and they working all at the same time,” Cutbill said.
“It was a lot of work. We went from being an in-person school to being online completely overnight,” the New York teacher said. “The hardest thing is that education is all about connection and loving kids in a greatness and that’s hard to do from far away.”
There is also a concern about achievement gaps. Not every student can shift seamlessly to online learning due to varying learning styles.
“Some districts thought we could close for a few weeks and absorb that shock temporarily, but now, it seems like we are really wrestling with the fact that schools are not going to open for the rest of the school year,” said Sean Gill, a research analyst for the Center on Reinventing Public Education. In terms of existing achievement gaps, “kids who are already disadvantaged will probably fall behind more,” said Gill. “We are going to have to think about how we do remediation because, eventually, kids will be going back to physical classrooms.”
This will certainly take some creative problem-solving on the part of educators and administrators in the coming months.
But there is hope. In El Paso, Texas, teachers have been instructed to call homes and check in to see if families have internet access. Palm Beach, Florida, is soliciting feedback from parents with students with disabilities and planning to follow up to create individualized support plans. “I am really encouraged by the tremendous amount of goodwill in education,” said Gill. “That is the saving grace people will want to figure out adjusting to the new normal.”
Teachers such as the ones in LVUSD are going above and beyond to ensure that students are still connected with their teachers and communities.
“Emojis and the silliness that comes with them are lightening things and ensuring we are still having fun as we learn,” said the New York teacher. “Really cool things are happening as teachers rise to the occasion. For example, music departments are filming performances and posting them online.”
“We are in talks to determine what school will look like when we come back and doing something special at that time for our district,” said Cutbill.
No matter how long the coronavirus shutdowns go on, it is encouraging and heartwarming to witness school districts and teachers still committed to the heartbeat of education — connection and community.
Pooja Bachani is the assistant director of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement & Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University. All views expressed are her own and do not represent her employer.
