This article was originally posted on Chalkbeat by Yesenia Robles on March 3, 2020.
As schools grapple with responding to the new coronavirus and the federal government’s recommendation to plan for extended closures, one thing is becoming clear: remote learning remains a remote possibility.
This week, the for-profit education company K12, one of the largest providers of online curriculum in the country, started contacting school districts in counties that have been affected by the new coronavirus in Washington and California to offer their services in the event that schools are closed.
Stefanie Gilary, a spokeswoman for DSST, a large charter network in Denver, said the organization is looking at options.
“Since we have 1-to-1 technology we definitely feel really lucky,” Gilary said, referring to the fact that all the school’s students have access to a portable tech device. “It will give us some opportunities for remote learning, but we are still exploring what that would look like.”
Since some families don’t have internet access at home, Gilary said DSST is considering relying more on applications on cell phones, which more students have access to.
Mike Miles, the CEO of the Academy of Advanced Learning in Aurora, said his network Third Future Schools, which includes two other schools in the southern part of the state, never closes schools — even for snow days. The group was already in the process of putting teacher lessons online, but that work may not be done before the summer.
“Frankly we’re behind when it comes to preparing for a pandemic, but hopefully we can get up to speed,” Miles said.
Miles said not all his students have internet at home, or laptops, so the decision to close and switch to remote learning would not be made lightly.
“There’s no pressure on us right now to stay open or to close, but we put pressure on ourselves,” Miles said. “We never close. We understand that parents still have to work and there has to be a safe place for students.”
Other schools that are also a step ahead are those that use e-learning days — days where schools are closed, but students are doing classwork from home.
Twelve states have formal policies on “e-learning days” to count virtual instruction toward attendance and academic requirements.
In Colorado, a handful of schools have begun using virtual instruction days in place of snow days. One is a high school in District 49, in the Colorado Springs area, south of Denver.
A spokesman said the school uses a virtual instruction model for those snow days, and called it “an advantage” for the district, which is now looking at whether it could expand it districtwide in case schools needed to shut down.
For remote-learning days, Colorado requires districts to “ensure that all students have the appropriate electronic equipment and resources,” including hardware and internet access.
In Indiana, many schools — particularly in suburban districts — regularly hold e-learning days instead of canceling classes for snow or professional development. Remote learning has grown so common that schools no longer need to seek permission from the state to use an e-learning day in place of a regular school day.
But e-learning is not the norm for Indianapolis districts that serve mostly students from low-income families. Wayne Township on the west side of Indianapolis, for example, hasn’t yet held a districtwide e-learning day for its 17,000 students, 70% of whom come from low-income families.
Similarly, it’s unclear whether the Detroit Public Schools Community District, or the many charters that operate in the city, could provide remote learning to students. In 2017, just 67.5% of households in the city had broadband internet, the lowest rate among 25 large U.S. cities.
Likewise, in Memphis only about 72% of households have internet access at home.
In 2018, school officials there had to quickly provide laptops and put together a remote instruction plan after a rat infestation forced Shelby County Schools to relocate 800 students from Kirby High School for four months. But plans for students to use libraries or community centers to connect to the internet would not work during a coronavirus outbreak since health officials say people should avoid public gathering places.
In Washington, where some schools are already closing for a few days, education officials issued a memo advising that, “it will likely make more sense to cancel school and/or district services and make up missed days at the end of the school year, rather than deploying a distance learning model that can be accessed by some, but not all, of your students.”
In Hong Kong, officials encouraged schools to use online learning for 800,000 students who have been out of school for a month due to coronavirus concerns, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Teachers there have tried a variety of approaches, but some parents reported difficulty helping their children with their homework or keeping them on task, the paper reported.
The ed tech-focused news outlet EdSurge interviewed several teachers from private international schools that have been closed for long stretches in China, and more recently in South Korea. At first, teachers emailed students work. Then as the closure dragged on, schools started offering instructional videos, or audio to accompany a lesson. Some teachers struggled under the longer work hours as they tried to check in with each of their students.
One Chinese teacher noted that some students were struggling, especially those in younger grades or those who didn’t have as much support from family members.
“Students are bored; students are lonely,” the teacher said. “We have students who are just completely absent.”
In many cases, school districts will ultimately make school closure decisions with local health department officials.
Heidi Dragoo, epidemiology program manager for a Colorado mountain community that closed an entire district last fall over a widespread stomach illness, said communication is one of the most important things.
“The earlier you can get out and reach out to your partners the better,” Dragoo said. “It took everyone working together.”
Chalkbeat journalists Kalyn Belsha in Chicago; Matt Barnum, Alex Zimmerman and Amy Zimmer in New York; Laura Faith Kebede in Memphis; Lori Higgins in Detroit; and Stephanie Wang in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.