After the approval of up to eight Virtual Learning Days by the Maryland State Department of Education, Prince George’s County Public Schools announced three scheduled asynchronous virtual learning half days to facilitate teachers’ end-of-quarter grading and planning. The first day, November 7, was just over three weeks after their announcement and left many families scrambling to change appointments and plans to accommodate children at home that day. The second scheduled virtual half day is Wednesday, January 25.
Working Parents
John Zale works from home for the federal government and is the parent of a kindergartener. He echoed the concerns of other working parents. “It’s a problem for families,” he said. “Most parents’ situations necessitate two working adults to maintain a household. Unless there’s some other framework for engaging kids during the day, it’s just another stress and a major imposition on working families.”
Brooke Kenny is on the board of Greenbelt Elementary School’s PTA. She’s also the operations manager for a senior service organization; she changed jobs and went from working full-time to half-time because of an inability to find quality childcare during Covid. (Many schools had not resumed before and aftercare for children even at the start of fall 2022.) “I think what’s best for families as a whole is often the last thing considered,” said Kenny, sharing her personal thoughts, and not speaking as a representative of the PTA.
One county teacher and parent, who requested their name be withheld as a county employee, said, “As a teacher and mom, I’m doing double duty. I feel the district doesn’t completely consider all the logistics involved. We’re often expected to do it all as teachers and then as parents, especially mothers.”
“Figuring everything out is difficult, and it means I’m giving up even more work time,” shared Lauren Silberman, who lives in Greenbelt but works near Annapolis while her husband commutes to Virginia. “It’s such a juggle. And we only have one kid. I can only imagine how much more confusing and difficult it must be for parents of multiple students.”
Gisela Bardossy, a Greenbelter with three children who are county students, said, “For full-time working parents it is a nightmare! It is a treasure hunt to find the work that they need to do, going through pages, links and who knows what … and with multiple children gets even worse. A part of me has given up and just doesn’t care as a coping mechanism.” Bardossy is an associate clinical professor at the University of Maryland. “I don’t work from home,” she explained. “There are some days that I can but I don’t have power over the schedule, so when I have to be in-person I have to be there. For example, January 25!”
“It makes me mad,” said Valentina Aquila, mother of a kindergartner and an educator herself. If the point is to give teachers more time to grade or time off, Aquila would prefer a day off. She has to take her child to the aftercare program at Greenbelt Elementary School during the remote days and is thankful that they are open. She’d prefer to see fewer partial and remote days and regular days off instead, pointing to the several partial days in the school year that could be consolidated to make planning easier for parents and provide real breaks for teachers and students.
Instructional Days
When the schools have virtual and half days they are counted as instructional days in the school year, of which there need to be 180. Parents who had local family for support and flexibility in their work were most amenable to virtual days. This group preferred virtual days to no school so that the school year wouldn’t be extended.
Melissa Yashinski works part-time from home and describes her schedule as very flexible. She would have preferred that the half day in November was in-school as originally scheduled, partly due to the short notice. “But I preferred the move to virtual over just cancelling and having to make the day up, lengthening the school year,” she shared. “I guess, ideally, I’d rather have the day completely off and a few less days of school, but since we have to hit that 180 days, I’m fine with a few asynchronous ones,” she said.
Sharing an alternate point of view, Amanda Demos Larsen preferred virtual half days to in-person ones. “We love it and hope they do more,” she said. “I much prefer that we have a few asynchronous days rather than have the school year lengthened,” Demos Larsen added. “My kids’ teachers have all been really clear both to the kids and to the parents about what work to do during the day and it doesn’t seem any more difficult than homework. I would prefer that they do less on a device and more on paper, but that’s an issue with work at school, homework, etc.” Demos Larsen said she can do some of her work from home and having teenagers allows her to go into the office for at least part of the day. “So, for me,” she said, “drop-off and early pickup would have disrupted my workday more than asynchronous learning.”
Opportunities
For families who are able to spend the virtual days with their children, they can actually offer a welcome break in the middle of the school year and the opportunity for learning through play, bonding and adventure. Next week Robert Goddard Montessori’s PTA is organizing an ice-skating playdate during the virtual day.
Alyssa Sickle has children in first and third grade at Greenbelt Elementary School. “I only work very part-time. So, for me, I’m happy to get a ‘free day.’” In November she took advantage of the weather and took her children for an outing, engaging in some learning by playing. “Obviously that is harder for a parent without the flexibility to not be at work,” she said. “I realize I have the flexibility to make this work, and I don’t think much instruction will be lost. Households with all the adults working full-time are likely more frustrated,” shared Sickle. Next week she’s planning to take advantage of the asynchronous day again by going out of town for a couple of days, “knowing the kids won’t miss much when we’re gone for that virtual day.”
Terminology
Some parents, particularly those of younger children who may not have experienced the different modalities during Covid, were confused by the terminology of virtual, asynchronous and synchronous, which it seems were poorly defined for newer parents, if at all. Asynchronous virtual learning is learning that takes place at the student’s pace and timing – often assignments posted to the school’s Electronic Learning Management System (ELMS), which are to be completed and submitted online by the student. Synchronous virtual learning is that which takes place in real time, for example when a teacher holds class via Zoom. Virtual Learning is an umbrella term that encompasses them both. This year the school system changed their ELMS from Blackboard to Canvas, so students and teachers are navigating a new platform and interface.
In Practice
For many students who had to do virtual learning from the spring of 2020 until the spring or fall of 2021, the process of getting to virtual synchronous classes at the right time, finding the links from different teachers and trying to get them to work in real time was particularly stressful and, for those that struggled, it brings back difficult memories of the pandemic.
“My child (and me, for that matter) will forever be scarred by virtual learning,” said Kenny. “I realize it was necessary at the time, but why keep pushing it now?” she asked. “The school system has not adequately invested in a system that would make virtual learning smoother and more effective,” she said. “Until they do, I feel it’s best to just have regular school or no school at all.”
For some parents, synchronous virtual learning means that they need to keep track of their children’s meetings during the day as well as their own and be at hand to assist getting them into their virtual locations at the right times. At least with asynchronous learning parents could assist and plan to help with work at a time that worked best for them. The vast majority of parents and students who shared their experience with the News Review were relieved that so far the virtual learning this year is all asynchronous.
“I do prefer asynchronous learning to online learning,” shared Demos Larsen, “but I think that’s mostly because of Zoom fatigue from the pandemic. I think an online platform that works well could be useful occasionally. I’m all about adding variety to the way classes meet to learn.”
Brittany La Couture, a lawyer who works from her home in Greenbelt, also preferred asynchronous virtual learning. “I’m sure asynchronous is better than [synchronous] virtual, especially for the littles,” she told the News Review. “But what’s the point? The teachers still have to put the lessons together plus worry about dealing with all the parents with tech issues.” La Couture pointed out that the necessity to assist children with their schoolwork hindered parents from arranging joint care. “Parents not only have to take a day off work to provide the lessons, but we can’t even necessarily work together to pool for childcare because every kid will have different lessons,” she pointed out. “If the kids aren’t in school they should just have the day off. Full stop.”
“The asynchronous work was better than actual Zoom school,” agreed Yashinski, “Both my kids finished their work by 9:45 in the morning and we had the rest of the day to do whatever. Their teachers also provided the assignments on Friday so we could have done them early if we chose to.”
Lei Zong, a computer engineer who works from home some days and from her office in Baltimore others, was an outlier in her preference for synchronous virtual days over asynchronous. “My kids did well in virtual learning and their teachers seemed to be somewhat effective,” said Zong. “I know there are always kids that don’t do well in virtual, but it worked out for us and I’d prefer [synchronous] virtual than pure asynchronous as I feel that my kids would get more out of having a little face time with the teachers.” On the last virtual day she was able to enlist help from grandparents. “Having grandparents nearby is another luxury that many don’t have,” she acknowledged. On January 25 either she or her husband will arrange to work from home.
Learning Loss
Just as Zong believes her children would get more out of synchronous classes than asynchronous work, numerous parents felt their children would be learning little during the asynchronous virtual half days. Some completed the assigned work in 30 minutes. The same criticism has been made of in-person half days, too.
“Early dismissal days always seem like a waste and this way the kids and parents don’t have to make the effort to get to school for a day of classes that are shortened so much that they’re pretty useless for learning (at least in middle and high school),” said Demos Larsen.
“Surely it is not done because of educational benefits,” Aquila said of the virtual days.
“If the school needs a day off to do whatever, just say so,” urged Kenny, “I don’t need my child hooked up to yet another app to ‘learn.’ It’s hard enough to get kids away from screens without school pushing them toward it every chance they can dump them in front of one. Thanks to ‘asynchronous learning days’ throughout the pandemic, children effectively went to school four days a week. For years. And now there’s an enormous learning deficit. What a mystery ….
I’d rather the year get extended and they are actually learning rather than just checking the box of having had a ‘school day.’”
Since the last virtual day, more schools have been able to get before and aftercare operational, which is a help for working families, who, for a fee, can send their children during the virtual days. “At least my child gets social interaction on these days, but my expectation is that the actual learning achieved will be little to none,” Kenny told the News Review.
So far the public schools have only scheduled asynchronous days. The State has specified only up to three of the virtual days may be asynchronous, which means that unscheduled virtual days, for snow for example, may have to be synchronous if they bring the district over that total.
