I Want My Kids Back in School (Yes, Even During COVID-19)

When our house turned into a home office for two full time working parents and classroom for our two elementary school-aged kids back in March, I felt like my world was spinning. My type A personality wasn’t prepared for such unknown. After suffering through for weeks of trying to find a balance and create schedules and being adamant that “tomorrow will be better”, I stopped. I had to stop attempting to organize my days because it simply wasn’t working. I accepted the chaos, made it to the last day of school in June and prayed that was the end of it.

Yet, this week we learned our school district will be doing 100% remote learning when school resumes in September.

Summer has been a blessing because it means I have been able to be on site at work and my kids have been enjoying summer camp where they get to be outside playing with kids their ages. Their mental, physical and emotional heath has flourished in comparison to what the spring brought with an incredible lack of social interaction. My kids were over things like Zoom calls by about mid-April. They needed actual interaction, even if at 6 feet apart. Our summer routine has safely brought that to them.

Moms, I know many of you have been praying for a remote only option because that is what you feel works best for your family. I also know many of you have been pleading for an option that includes some sort of onsite option. It’s completely out of our control but one way or the other, we all had opinions of what we were hoping as an outcome. But here is where I stand;

I want my kids back in school, even during COVID-19.

There. I said it.

Early in the planning stages for what our district would be doing come the fall, creative ideas were thrown out like utilizing high school space to ensure elementary classes could be small, installing plastic partition walls so that teachers could have space and having certain groups on site certain days. I kept optimistic that plans could be worked out to make some sort of on-site learning a reality.

Maybe it’s because my place of work has gone to extreme measures to ensure we are safe. We have completely shifted our way of working on site and are still adjusting daily to it. Given what I have seen as possible, I kept hopeful our school district could make something possible as well.

Let’s be clear, I do not work with children in my day job. I do not manage things like a bus system or cafeteria or many of the hundreds of things a school district would have to figure out. I support the decision of our Superintendent and school leaders and trust they looked at each viable option. But supporting it doesn’t mean I have to agree with or like it. I also realize they probably don’t like the decision either but felt defeated by this virus.

Wanting my kids back in school isn’t solely because of the fact that we are a dual income family and cannot fathom how to again be home school teachers. It’s not solely because despite my kids having wonderful teachers, I saw their education suffer even though I burned myself out ensuring they missed zero assignments. It’s not solely because part of development includes social interaction and remote learning significantly despairs them in this.

It’s not one of those things. It’s all of those things.

Even with COVID-19 looming around, I would still support safety measures being taken and allowing my children on-site at school.

Perhaps it’s because summer gave me too strong of a glimpse of what it’s like to allow kids to be kids while taking extreme health and safety measures like masks and social distancing. Perhaps it’s because while of course I worry about the virus, I also worry about what remote learning is doing to this generation of students.

I worry for not only my kids but for all kids when fall hits and we are back to being cooped up in our houses somehow attempting to teach them while maintaining employment. I worry for the kids who are in less than stable home environments and what this means for them.

I pray for the teachers who didn’t choose this but now are forced to shift how they teach. I pray our remote learning model will include things like live instruction versus recordings so students can receive interaction and immediate feedback.

I pray parents feel supported by their school district and by their employer as we venture in to again find balance between the two.

But most of all, I pray we are out of the woods sooner than later with this pandemic so that our kids can go back to school.