Education reporters share their own back-to-school decisions

11 education reporters describe what their school-age children are going to be doing to start the 2020-21 school year

By Alexander Russo

After nearly six months of working from home and covering the many challenges facing school systems, education journalists who are parents of school-aged kids have faced the same difficult choice to make as every other parent: What to do with school for this fall?

And in particular, whether to pursue or avoid in-person options, which a recent New York Times story dubbed “a parent’s toughest call”?

Based on a very unscientific and relatively small sample of 11 responses from willing reporters, the choices education journalists are making about what to do with their kids are just as wrenching and complicated as everyone else’s.

They tend to yearn for a return to in-person learning but have an eye on safety. In some cases, there is no choice: The district has decided on one option for everyone. In others, the choices keep changing: First, hybrid was an option, but now it’s not. Not content with the options, one among those who responded is looking outside the district.

In other words, they’re living the varied realities and difficult decisions everyone else is experiencing.

Above: In this recent first-person story, Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli described her own decision to send her children back to part-time in-person school to start the new year.

SCRAMBLING

A week before school started, my 7-year-old’s district shifted plans, moving from a hybrid model to all virtual. I’m scrambling, panicked, and still exploring options that might work with two working parents, factoring in my unpredictable schedule and my spouse’s need to be at his place of employment once or twice a week. The 4-year-old is set to go back to full-time in-person preschool.

— Philadelphia Inquirer education reporter Kristen Graham

RELIEVED NOT TO HAVE TO DECIDE

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) is all virtual, so we don’t have any options. I’m relieved it’s not a decision I had to make. Teachers and families are in an impossible situation, and the people who ultimately end up losing are the children. Our first day of virtual pre-K  was disorganized and chaotic because early ed teachers haven’t been given enough training on how to use the online platforms required by DCPS. The schedule  kept changing because teachers were trying to figure out how best to bond with brand-new children via a video chat. My son’s teacher deserves a raise (and a bottle of wine) for teaching virtually while also being a parent to virtual learners in her own home.

— Former AP education writer Dorie Turner Nolt

CURIOUS ABOUT HYBRID

The decision was made for me as Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is completely remote for the first quarter and my youngest son, the only one left at home, goes to a CPS high school. He is a sophomore. However, for a few weeks CPS was thinking about holding a hybrid of in-person/remote learning and I was considering sending him into school. My reasoning was that he is taking Advanced Trig and Honors Physics. I am worried about being able to support him. In the spring he really struggled in geometry and chemistry and my husband and I are not really able to help him. Getting a teacher to answer his questions via email was difficult and he would spend a lot of time watching Khan Academy videos to try to figure out how to do the work and even then his grades in these subjects dropped. So, while I am worried about COVID and would have stopped letting him see my mom or my older relatives, I am weighing that against the need for him to do well in school because it affects his future.

— WBEZ Chicago education reporter Sarah Karp

ALL REMOTE, BUT STILL NO SCHEDULE

NYC’s delay is really frustrating. We have no information. I signed the kids up for all remote, but so far we have no teachers’ names, no supply lists, no schedule.

— Chalkbeat editor Cara Fitzpatrick

WORRIED, BUT SKEPTICAL ABOUT REMOTE LEARNING

My oldest daughter had her first days of 2nd grade in Milwaukee Public Schools – online only. Writing about COVID every day for the last 6 months, I get the concerns and my first instinct is toward caution, i.e., keeping class online until cases fall or there’s a vaccine. But I’m also suspicious of online classes even under the best circumstances. My daughter gets speech and other services that don’t translate well to Zoom, and I do really worry about impacts of learning loss. And, of course, I feel sad for her that she’s missing this time to socialize in a normal way with her peers, which is in some ways just as important as academic development. I just try to remember that this time won’t last forever – that it’s just a moment that we need to just sort of put our heads down and get through it.

— Former Voice of San Diego and The 74 education reporter Mario Koran

STRUGGLING WITH ALL THE ‘STARTS AND STOPS’

My oldest is 20, and he just went back to college for his junior year. My youngest is 3, and she just went back to in-person preschool. But my elementary-aged children, who are 5 and 8, are home doing remote learning through Chicago Public Schools. We didn’t have a choice, as Chicago is starting the year virtually. I worry about my college student not being careful enough; I worry about my anxiety spilling over to my kindergartner and 3rd grader as they try to log in and out of meetings. We got their schedules this week, and there are a lot of starts and stops — every start and stop of a live meeting is going to require some hand-holding from an adult, at least in the beginning, for children this young. How will that work? I worry the least about my preschooler. Her school is small, they have taken a lot of safety precautions, and we have a long-standing relationship with the staff there. I’ve found that knowing the plan, and the fact that families were consulted many times as educators there developed it throughout the summer, made an incredible difference in our comfort level.

— Chalkbeat Chicago bureau chief Cassie Walker Burke

TEENAGER PREFERS REMOTE

I feel fortunate to have a daughter who adjusted very well to virtual learning in March. She never missed a Zoom class and turned in her work early. Boredom was probably her greatest challenge. During the summer, the district began sending surveys asking our preferences for in-person or remote this fall and she had me choose remote. She’s been in school about a week and she hasn’t had any complaints so far. Her assignment load seems to be the same it would be if she was attending in person. Most of her closest friends are not school friends, so I think that is why she’s settled on continuing virtually if that remains an option.

— Senior reporter for The 74 Linda Jacobson

STARTING WITH HYBRID

I have a 16-year-old junior. We’ve gone back and forth on whether to send her back to the classroom. We had the option of online-only, but we let her weigh in as well, and she wanted to try in-person, which begins Sept. 8. It was a tough call, given that Myrtle Beach was a hot spot for a good while. But we also let her work her job in fast food, at Chick-fil-A, and eased up on some of the restrictions we had early on — though still expect her to wear masks, socially distance, etc. We all still do all of that, and we only try to go places where those things are in place. As far as school, the district just decided to start in a hybrid fashion on the 8th, with a couple days in school, a couple online, so we’ll see how it goes.

— The Grade contributor Issac J. Bailey

LEANING TOWARD HYBRID – UNTIL THE OPTION WAS REMOVED

Last spring when they shut down the remote learning was nonexistent for us, and I didn’t want a repeat of that. My 16-year-old daughter is on a veterinarian track and they spend part of their week on a farm. But the numbers had really been spiking in Arlington, where we live. They almost went back on lockdown. So there was no way I was going to put my daughter back in there. I didn’t want my daughter to be a guinea pig. So I picked the remote learning option. But then the school district shut down the in-person option, which was frankly a relief for me. Now all the kids are going to be treated equally. The school basically took the decision off our hands.

— Wall Street Journal national education reporter Tawnell Hobbs

 WAITING THEIR TURN FOR IN-PERSON

My 4-year-old and 6-year-old are both doing distance learning for now. Our district is bringing kids back in small phases based first on need and then parent preference. We’ve opted for in-person instruction as soon as possible, because we trust the metrics that the district is using to determine both safety and equity in returning. So we know that they will phase us in safely, and that we will not be taking a spot that should go to a classmate with fewer resources at home.

– The 74’s Bekah McNeel

RELUCTANTLY GOING PRIVATE

I looked hard at the risks, not just related to COVID, but to other mental and physical health challenges my daughter and I have faced during the pandemic, including anxiety and pre-diabetes due to weight gain. After a lot of thought and with financial support from family, my daughter will leave public school and attend a tiny private school offering outdoor-only, in-person classes three days a week, two days remote. Their remote plans seem much more sane and humane than our district’s guidance. We had hoped to delay the official transfer until the district takes its annual head count for state aid because we love her public school and we know they need those resources. But the district is monitoring attendance and the school is afraid of getting in trouble. I feel so sad and guilty about sending her to private school, even if I think it will be better for my kid.

— Education reporter who wished to remain anonymous

RETURNING TO NORMAL

The pandemic means my oldest son has lived in isolation for nearly 10% of his life. He needs to see his friends. A 1st grader, he also needs to learn to read. And so he will be going to school. Because Connecticut has one of the lowest infection rates,  I feel safe enough sending him. Ask me in a month if a second wave hits our state, I am sure I will feel differently. My 2-year-old is returning to day care, too. Honestly, I’m not going to know what to do with a normal workday.

— CT Mirror reporter Jacqueline Rabe Thomas

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