Courtesy
Clark County School District parent Sara Rose helps her children Elvis, 11, and Colin, 14, complete assignments remotely while schools are closed.
Thursday, April 9, 2020 | 2 a.m.
Related content
When Gov. Steve Sisolak mandated last month that all Nevada schools close and switch to remote learning, East Career and Technical Academy Principal Darlin Delgado was well-prepared for the adjustment.
“My administrative team and I had been paying attention to what those trends were nationally. We already had a plan for what we were going to do as a school in case schools were closed,” Delgado said.
As a Title I school with a high percentage of students from low-income backgrounds, East Career and Technical Academy receives supplementary funding from the federal government to purchase Chromebooks for use in 90% of the school’s classrooms, she said. Not only are students comfortable using the devices already, but the school has enough Chromebooks for everyone who needs one while learning from home, Delgado said.
Even with those resources, teachers at the east Las Vegas school have not connected with every student during the closure. Delgado recently heard from one teacher who has been unable to reach one-third of the about 150 students they educate.
While some of those students lack devices or reliable internet service, others face more complex barriers.
“There are already kids coming to school with a lot of challenges,” Delgado said. “This (pandemic) only adds a thicker layer of trauma to my families and my community.”
Last month, Clark County Schools Superintendent Jesus Jara said he couldn’t “guarantee” that all students would be educated during the school closures. Some students faced too many obstacles, including lack of digital tools, to say definitively that everyone would receive quality remote education, Jara said.
Three weeks into remote learning at CCSD schools, that reality is sinking in, even as teachers and schools make progress educating thousands of students and go out of their way to connect with and support families.
East Career and Technical Academy is not the only school unable to reach some students and families. Red Rock Elementary School second-grade teacher Elysa Arroyo said she has not connected with three out of her 17 students’ families at all since school closed.
That’s not for lack of trying: Arroyo has called, emailed and sent messages through the communications application ClassDojo to all her students’ parents, she said.
“Phone numbers don’t work, all those things,” Arroyo said.
Francisco Sermeno, a seventh-grade math teacher at Von Tobel Middle School in North Las Vegas, estimates that about 40% of his students have not responded to any messages nor completed any assignments.
“I’ve called parents and their phones go straight to voicemail,” Sermeno said.
A spokesperson from the district acknowledged that educators will need to evaluate gaps that arise during the school closure and “develop long-term strategies for closing those gaps.” But the spokesperson did not directly answer a question about the extent of those gaps and whether the district is keeping track of how many students are completing assignments or communicating with teachers.
“During the timeframe in which schools are closed, all students are being provided with learning extension opportunities,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
Chromebook distribution helps close the digital divide
Obtaining and distributing Chromebooks for students who lack the technology to complete remote work is one of the district’s priorities. It received 17,000 Chromebooks through the federal government last week and is waiting for more to arrive, a spokesperson said.
Nonetheless, CCSD estimates that as many as 74,000 students still lack a device that would allow them to complete assignments and communicate with their teachers. In addition to families who have no computers or Chromebooks at home, plenty seem to fall somewhere in the middle, said Rebecca Garcia, president of the Nevada PTA and a member of the superintendent’s Parent and Community Advisory Council.
“Maybe you have one device and you need four,” she said.
Some schools have sent out surveys to determine how many students lack access to technology, said Garcia, who received a survey from her son’s middle school last week. Von Tobel Middle School teachers are similarly trying to determine which students’ families need Chromebooks, Sermeno said.
But once schools determine who needs a Chromebook to complete assignments, distributing them takes time and requires communication with district officials, even for Title I schools like Von Tobel that already have the devices, Sermeno said.
“There’s not an unlimited supply of Chromebooks,” he said.
Another issue delaying the distribution of Chromebooks is ensuring that students return them and use them responsibly. Chromebooks used in school buildings are protected by a firewall, but that built-in protection disappears when the devices are distributed outside the buildings, Garcia said.
As a result, the district must install software that only allows students to view appropriate content while at home, Garcia said. Families also need to sign an agreement prior to taking one home.
“It’s this whole multistep process. My kid’s school has Chromebooks for every kid, just about, but they’re not ready to send them home with every kid,” Garcia said.
Of course, Chromebooks are useless if students do not have reliable access to the internet. Thankfully, the options for students without internet access appear to be expanding as internet providers roll out free resources families can use during the pandemic.
Earlier this week, Cox Communications added new free hotspots to benefit students at home, said Valley High Principal Ramona Esparza. This has allowed some students at Valley who previously lacked internet access to connect with their teachers and complete assignments, Esparza said.
“My kids had (already) been using technology a lot, so it’s just the access, getting WiFi, and getting the devices in their hands,” she said.
Pandemic-fueled stress complicates remote learning
For many families, technology is only one factor complicating remote education, said Colin Seale, education equity advocate and founder and CEO of thinkLaw.
“The problems with access go well beyond the digital divide,” said Seale, a former Las Vegas-area teacher. “The problems with access existed before the pandemic and will exist after the pandemic.”
Students need a quiet space at home to work, which is harder than ever to come by for some families due to the pandemic. Many were already financially vulnerable: As of 2019, 63.8% of CCSD students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and an estimated 4.2% were homeless.
“Their parents, maybe they’re losing jobs,” Esparza said. “If they’re losing jobs and not being able to pay for cellphone bills, or being evicted, that’s when it becomes a challenge. Because when we call home, where are they?”
Students whose families are undocumented and therefore ineligible for unemployment benefits face another layer of stress, Delgado said. At East Career and Technical Academy, some of those families are presumed to have moved out of town entirely, she said.
Even families who are not having to relocate nor facing financial hardship might be dealing with heightened stress due to the pandemic. Spring Valley High math teacher Jill Jaeger fears that existing problems at home could be worsened by the fact that all or most family members are forced to be together.
“Sometimes home becomes a very small space,” Jaeger said. “I worry about all the yucky things that could be happening in other homes because of the stress, and I worry about my students being able to overcome those challenges.”
As parents try to help their children stay on track with remote learning, difficulties have arisen for them as well. Lori Williams, a parent of three elementary school students, said she had recently gotten used to using Zoom for her students’ classes until the district mandated that schools stop using the video conference call program over security concerns.
“All of this is a learning curve for parents and most teachers, and it takes some time to figure out,” Williams said.
Sara Rose, who has one child in fifth grade, one in eighth grade and a baby, said she has had to adjust her routine significantly since schools closed. She is trying to set a consistent schedule for her older kids to ensure they complete assignments while also keeping them busy during downtime. But there are “too many hours in the day to fill,” she said.
“I’m tired, and I wish I could binge-watch a show, but that’s not really a thing right now,” Rose wrote in an online message.
Educators and district officials say their priority is the safety, health and well-being of students. Considering the situation families are facing at this time, that’s the way it should be, Seale said.
“I’ve seen things go out on social media that this isn’t homeschooling or distance learning, this is crisis schooling,” he said. “This is us trying to figure out some way to have some modicum of normalcy in a space that is completely abnormal.”
At the same time, he hopes the district will not use concerns about equity “as an excuse to do nothing.” Students will inevitably come out of quarantine having received different levels of schooling because of existing inequities heightened by the pandemic, Seale said. The question is, how will the district respond to that?
“At the end of this, we know there’s a lot of repair work that’ll need to be done,” Seale said. “What are we going to do? What does rebuilding look like?”
