The Time of COVID exposes a new category of educational challenge. It is not that school has lacked for challenges these days, but we have found a new dilemma for educating children when school houses are closed. These are no option households characterized by any of the following:
- No Internet or totally inadequate Internet
- No daytime supervision
- No daycare
- No daycare that supports schooling
- Children too young to be left alone
We give nominal lip service to the fact that public education is our nation’s #1 day care provider. Millions of children are cared for and educated every day of a school year. In many communities, school-based wrap around services go far beyond the 3 Rs to include feeding, clothing, medical care, mental health care, family services, recreational activities, and the list goes on. Even during vacation periods, children and families continue to receive school-based services. In the lives of many children and families, school is a major player.
COVID closed most schools in March. Closed meant human-contact services stopped. When education shifted to online, households quickly were categorized in their capacity to support continuing 4K-12 education. Households with
- adequate Internet and
- an adult at home
were able to engage in online learning and complete the 2019-20 school year. Completion did not look like completion in prior years, but these households were able to engage with teachers and receive grade level and course specific instruction.
Opposite these engaged households, we found many, too many, no option households. The term no option refers to the fact that children in these households have no option for education other than daily in-school attendance. When school house doors are closed, they have no option for a continuing education.
An at-home adult. In the 1900s, seems like a long time ago, it was more common for a mother to be a homemaker. Many mothers worked, but even more were at home. During school vacation periods or when a child was ill, a parent at home provided supervision and care. An at-home parent is rare in the 2000s when each adult in the household typically works away from home. During school vacation periods or when a child is ill, parents need back-up systems to provide supervision and care. The Time of COVID clearly separated households into those with adequate back-up systems and those with no options for back-ups.
Adults need to work. No option conditions are not necessarily related household employment or income level, but they can be. The Time of COVID forced many adults in high to low income positions into unemployment. The need to find work, to create income to pay bills, and to support the family financially left many at-home children without adult supervision or care in their homes. This is not a fault; it is another type of no option.
Day care centers also closed. A back-up for many families when the school house is closed are local day care operators. In one sentence – when COVID closed school houses it also closed day cares. No option there anymore.
Older children as home school support for younger children. Older siblings are a natural and historic go-to when school houses are closed, adults need to work, and day cares are closed. Older children take care of younger children. COVID, however, has stressed even this arrangement. The role of baby-sitter/care provider for younger siblings is different than the role of in-home tutor and school work supervisor. As many parents find they are not cut out to be home school teachers, so do older brothers and sisters. And, if older children also are students, all children compete for time online and with family digital devices.
Digital devices. No option conditions are not due to a lack of digital devices, but they can be. In the era of online education, any screen will do. A student with a cell phone to desktop computer array can engage with a teacher for online teaching and learning. Cell phones, however, are too small for school work assignments. To fill the gap when a child does not have an adequate digital device to do online lessons, especially written and calculated assignments, many schools gave their students a take home IPad, Chromebook or laptop. And, due to worry that COVID can be spread on hard surfaces, many schools want their students to keep these devices.
No or inadequate Internet. Online teaching and learning lives and dies on the Internet. No option households are clearly defined by their having no Internet connection or an inadequate Internet connection. As ubiquitous as the Internet seems, there are many households in every community without. Households having subscriptions to cable providers and high speed are on one end of the Internet continuum and households, often rural, that lie in the dead zones of tower and satellite provision are on the other end. A dead zone without Internet provider coverage is an online education desert. In between these two extremes are the majority of households with low megabits per second for downloading and slower still for uploading. Online teaching and learning requires access to enough connection to stream instruction into the home and to upload assignments back to school. Connectivity is further stressed if two children or more are competing or online time at home. Internet inaccessibility contributes to online dropouts.
As testimony, my home is connected via on copper wire telephone connections that averages 3.5 megabits for downloading and .5 megabits for uploading. I drive to the local school where I park outside and mooch on their Internet. Zooming in my home is a stop and go session with more stops than goes. This is a common problem in my rural area.
Yet, schools are mandated to provide a continuing education for all children in the Time of COVID. But wait, there is an option. It is an older concept with a renewed capacity to provide an option for no option households.
The school fall back is a teacher of homebound children. In many schools, a homebound teacher serves children too sick with lengthy illness or injury to attend school, home schooled children needing IEP or 504 Plan service, or children out-of school for disciplinary reasons. In Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow, an itinerant teacher was hired by Dutch farmers to teach their children at home. He was Ichabod Crane. Our home bound teacher is a modern day Ichabod Crane who schedules time at no option households to transport assignments from in-school or at-home teachers to at-home students, provide linking instruction and tutoring for school assignments, conduct assessments and tests, and return completed school work to the teacher. She drives a circuit of homes every day and provides continuing education where COVID prevents daily school attendance, lack of Internet prevents online connection, and children need a non-home body for their homeschooling. Ichabod Crane rides again!
In the Time of COVID, schools do not spend as much every day for substitute teaching. Funding for daily subs can be diverted to hiring home bound teachers. Home bound teachers complying with CDC guidance of hand washing, masking, social distancing and sanitizing common surface and without own underlying health conditions can reasonably visit and teach children at home. Teacher-certified substitute teachers who are unemployed by schools due to school house closure can supply a pool of potential home bound teachers.
Homebound teachers link an at-home child with the child’s regularly assigned teachers. Homebound teachers keep a child on track to meet the school’s annual curricular goals for all students. In combination with homes where Internet, digital devices, adults supervision, and adequate home schooling exist, a home bound teacher rescues the continuing instruction for no option children and keeps all children engaged in continuing education.
Just when we think there are no options, another option emerges. Such is the work of public education.