Katy Meza knows full well that the pain from a distance learning causes her son Matthew. The third student struggles with isolation, becomes frustrated with sitting in front of the computer for hours and is academically stuck.
Yet Meza says she is not prepared to return to personal schooling at Bryson Elementary School in South Gate anytime soon.
Almost every family she knows has someone who fell ill with COVID-19. Her neighbor died of the disease, and his wife was admitted to the hospital. And Meza does not trust that her son’s school – which was often short of toilet paper and soap before the pandemic – can keep him safe or prevent him from becoming infected with the virus and bringing it home to his grandparents.
“I can try to teach him his multiplication tables or fractions,” she said. “But we can not get our health or our lives back.”
On Tuesday, an agreement was reached between LA Unified and the teachers’ union that aims to bring students back to campus by mid-April, prompting a critical decision among LA parents: Should they return their children? This is a question facing parents in the country, as policymakers are urging schools across California to reopen and allocate $ 2 billion in education funds to elementary schools that teach personally next month.
There is a big difference of opinion between parents and caregivers on the issue.
Some parents, frustrated with the mental health and academic consequences of distance education, are eager to see their children return to the classrooms and quickly demand to learn again.
“Schools can now be reopened safely, full-time, five days a week, of course with proper mitigation,” said Megan Bacigalupi, a parent advocate for the newly formed group. California Open Schools. “Our group will continue to fight until all children are back in school.”
Others are cautious – especially in places that have experienced the devastating and unfair consequences of COVID-19. Even if their school reopens, they keep their children at home with continuing distance education, an option that school districts should offer during the pandemic.
“There’s a lot of pain in the community,” said Maria Brenes, executive director of Eastside advocacy group InnerCity Struggle. ‘There will have to be a lot of involvement for families to feel,’ OK, there are circumstances where I feel my child will be safe. ”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was possible to safely reopen school campuses with proper precautions – including wearing universal mask, social distance, regular hand washing, improved cleaning and ventilation of schools and other protocols.
Last month, LA County reached the state threshold for the reopening of campuses at elementary schools, which has led many to open their doors or plan soon. Middle and high schools are likely to be re-admitted within days. Districts in affluent communities led the charge for rapid reopening.
Both national and local district level surveys highlight split parenting views on return, with families weighing many factors, including the impact COVID-19 has had on their local community, whether they live in intergenerational generations and whether they trust their school can have their children keep safe.
Mandy Zhou of San Marino said she was hesitant when her son’s first grade class reopened for personal learning late last month. According to her, most of her friends decided to keep their children at home in this affluent district, where most of the students are of Asian descent.
Zhou said her decision to allow her son to return was influenced by San Marino Unified School District’s regular communication with parents who asked for their input, she said. She knew that her son had become bored with distance education and felt he needed more direct interaction with his teacher and peers.
The day he was to return to campus, Zhou said, her son woke up and put on his backpack at 9 a.m., though school only started almost noon. When she downloads it, she sees how he finds socially distant ways to play with classmates.
‘Even though they are six meters apart, they still play. They play rock paper scissors, they run around, ”she said. “He’s pretty happy.”
A recent survey among families of elementary school students in the Arcadia Unified School District found that about half want to continue with distance education while the other half want to return to campus, spokesman Ryan Foran said. The district, where nearly two-thirds of the students are Asians or Asians, and about a quarter come from low-income families, plans to reopen to elementary school students in April.
Long Beach Unified, which plans to open its doors for personal schooling for students in a transition school to fifth grade by the end of March, has found a similar rift. About 50% of the parents of primary school students opted for online learning while 44% opted for personal tutoring. Chris Eftychiou, spokesman, said five percent did not vote. A majority of the students in the district are Latino and about 65% are low-income families.
At Beverly Hills Unified, more than two-thirds of students would return to personal tutoring when campuses reopened in elementary schools Monday, while 32 percent would remain online, spokeswoman Rebecca Starkins said. About 70% of the students in the district are white and about 17% are low-income families.
But at Inglewood Unified, where a majority of students are Latino and about 40% are black, about 71% of families said in a survey earlier this year that they do not feel comfortable sending their children back to school as soon as they are allowed to return. not. said.
Los Angeles Unified, which surveyed parents in November, reported that about 66% of families said they would prefer to continue learning online if students could physically return to campus. About 38% of black families, 30% of Latino families and 29% of Asian families prefer personal learning, compared to 58% of white families.
LAUSD Supt. Austin Beutner said parents will be asked again in the coming weeks to consider their choice.
At the national level, the Pew Research Center found in February that public opinion on reopening schools differs based on race and income: black, Latino, and Asian adults are more likely than white adults to say that the risk to teachers and students would become infected or spread of the coronavirus should receive much consideration in decisions about reopening schools. The vast majority of black, Latino, and Asian adults also said that schools should wait to reopen until teachers are vaccinated, compared to about half of white adults.
Researchers at USC also found that the question of whether it should be reopened was divided along racial and economic lines. In a national survey, 63% of white parents preferred a form of return to personal learning, just as 68% of those with an income of more than $ 150,000. More than half of black, Latino and Asian parents, meanwhile, preferred distance education.
Parents on both sides of the issue said they felt out of decision-making, and many said their school districts should work better to communicate with parents and involve them.
“I would like LA Unified to consider us,” said Meza of South Gate. “These are our children. And they need to work with us to make a plan so we can feel safe. ‘
Lydia Friend of Watts, the grandmother of two fifth-graders who visit LAUSD schools, pleads for schools to reopen.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Lydia Friend, who lives in Watts and has been a community activist for decades, said she is eager for her grandchildren to return to school. She is concerned about the toll on the mental health of children being isolated, she said.
“Our children are suffering at home,” she said. “Especially for parents who can’t afford daycare, for parents who work and children stay at home.”
Friend said she constantly talks to families in the community and that many of them are reluctant to let their children back on campus, but she believes it is important that they have the option to return.
What makes her most frustrated is she feels like parents and caregivers did not have a voice in decisions.
Brenes, who has two children in Eastside schools, said school leaders need to work extra diligently to communicate with families if they want them to feel safe about the safety of their children.
“Our community has witnessed first-hand how bad the pandemic was,” she said, “and how they do not always feel prioritized or protected.”
The feeling was reinforced throughout the pandemic as black and Latino students were left behind excessively during school closures due to lack of access to technology. Black and Latino communities were excessively harmed by the virus and vaccines went disproportionately to white and affluent communities, Brenes said.
All of this leads people to the question, “Does the system really have our best interests in mind?” Brenes said. “You can not separate it from the issue of reopening.”