By LEAH DARNELL, student reporter
This spring, the sounds of children’s laughter filled the basement of Amelia Bushman’s home in Alva, where she runs a daycare. Upstairs, three of her children – Lydia, Landon and Maesyn – scattered school assignments across the floor of their new “classroom.”
Bushman struggled to keep her children motivated to complete classwork while she remained busy with her daycare business.
“Our school did a lot of review, and it wasn’t very interactive,” Bushman said. “It was a lot of watching videos that the teacher had made, and it was a review. So, they kind of got bored of it.”
The coronavirus drastically changed education in schools across the United States – as well as the Alva schools the Bushman children attend – and it continues to do so. Education officials quickly made the decision to shut down schools as the coronavirus pandemic reached a high in the middle of the spring semester. The shuttering of schools forced parents like Bushman to be their children’s teachers at home while balancing their own jobs.
During the time her children practiced distance learning, Bushman had three out of her five children in the Alva Public Schools system. Their ages range between 5 and 10.
Someone had to keep Landon and Maesyn, her two youngest children, on task, Bushman said. Both of her children would quickly click through their assignments for the day, but would not take the time to do the home-school assignments correctly. Bushman had to ask their teachers to send the assignments back so the work would be done correctly.
While parents faced a variety of challenges and difficulties, resources and family services were available for parents and students.
Amber Maier at Northwest Family Services, along with her coworkers, continued to offer counseling even under the circumstances. Maier and her coworkers met with families using a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) compliant program, which also helped families do visitation virtually.
During the sudden shift to online learning, Chesni Thomas, a middle school teacher in Alva, taught her students through Google Classroom and had Google Meet times set aside to check in with her group of students.
While she was balancing her responsibilities as a teacher, Thomas was trying to help her daughter, Asa, with her own home-school assignments.
Thomas said she was “making sure that she felt engagement and that she was important while I was still making sure that the educational needs of my students were being met via the internet.”
Before school began for the fall semester, coronavirus numbers were low in Woods County, and Alva school officials provided a plan to bring students back to school safely. At the same time, they offered other learning methods for families who are choosing to practice distance learning.
ALVA SCHOOLS ADAPT
Tim Argo, Alva Public Schools superintendent, said the school has implemented new safety guidelines.
“One [new guideline] is cafeteria,” Argo said. “We all don’t eat in the cafeteria at the same time. We have some alternate eating locations. We have transitioned our students to where they all face the same direction in the cafeteria.”
The second new guideline pertains to bus routes. Argo and other administrators asked parents to take their children to school and pick them up from school at the end of the day.
School officials are providing breakfast and lunch for students who are going to school virtually.
School officials are also assigning teachers to work with students via Google Meet. Those teachers will help students complete their coursework. Counselors are available through Google Meet for families who choose to meet with one.
“We’ve tried to provide them [virtual students] the same resources we would a student who is in our brick and mortar,” Argo said.
At the state level, the Oklahoma State Board of Education provided resources and information for parents during the spring semester. State officials compiled a list of frequently-asked questions from parents and answered those questions in a 28-page document on the State Department of Education’s website. They also had Zoom calls with school officials around the state.
Joy Hofmeister, the state superintendent of public instruction, provided advice for schools that are seeing an increase in student coronavirus cases.
SAFETY IS A PRIORITY
“Of course the most important, and I should have reserved this for that highest priority of ours, is the safety and well-being and health of our students and those who serve in schools,” Hofmeister said. “And yet we know that many, many Oklahomans care deeply about the education of their family and children and those in the community. What we aren’t seeing everyone as aware of [is] how we all play a role in giving that opportunity for in-person learning for our students or denying that because of high outbreaks.”
Bushman kept her children at home this school year because of the numerous outbreaks around the state, and because she feared Alva may have to make the transition back to online learning.
Bushman said it’s important for her to keep a schedule so she can balance teaching her children and running her daycare. She is trying to transition her daycare into a preschool. While she is scheduling her kids’ day, she is also trying to hire workers for her preschool so she can spend more time with her children.
Bushman has a schedule of when her children need to be on a certain program. While her three children are studying, Bushman lets them know where she is around the house so that, in the meantime, each can do a different task or activity and doesn’t require one-on-one help.
In the midst of the chaos, Bushman said, she hired someone who is skilled in different areas to assist the preschoolers. If her children don’t get assignments done during the day, they do home-school lessons during the evening hours. They also complete work on the weekends.
“I have learned from just starting off in March to now there are so many resources out there that it can overwhelm you,” Bushman said. “There is tons of online things. There is tons of things you can order and have sent to you. Prices vary. It can be overwhelming with how much information [is available], and I told my family, I said, ‘It will not be for a lack of resources that our kids won’t learn because there is tons of stuff out there.”’
Distance learning wasn’t an option for some parents, including Thomas. Since school started back in August, she has been back to work in her classroom at Alva Middle School. Asa Thomas is going to school while wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.
“So, there are a few reasons as to why I sent Asa back to the school building brick-and-mortar setting, as we call it,” Thomas said. “No. 1 was because I feel like Alva has done a great job of making sure that our kids are going to be safe and taking precautions wearing masks out in areas where you can’t socially distance. I really believe in that, and I really believe in the public school system. But then, the other side of that, I am a teacher, and so I really don’t have a choice.
“I guess, at the end of the day, you do have choices, but it made it a much easier decision for me because I know what Mr. Argo and our other administrators have put in place, and I know what their heart is for our students, and I feel like she is safe.”
Bushman offered some advice to parents from what she has learned so far in this school year.
“Just take each day as it comes because one day is going to look completely different than the next,” Bushman said. “Life is too short to just flip out and lose your cool over the little things, so just take it little by little, and it’s not going to be pretty. It might be messy, but just go with it, and be with your kids.”