So, about those equity issues
Apr. 7th, 2020 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutWhen schools started closing shortly before Friday the 13th of March, they closed down in a wide variety of ways. My own district first said Friday would be a half day --- classic fakeout -- then canceled Friday entirely after we had already left for the day. D'oh. Making absolutely certain no one cleans out their locker or desk or office or whatever.
The initial closure was brief, and then the state guidance took over. First, the state extended the closure. Then, the state gave guidance that some kind of educational continuity was necessary.
But before the state gave that guidance, there was a lot of enrichment talk and social and emotional connection to the school and teachers talk. Which is delightful, and I am fine with that. I mean, it would have been more helpful to say, sorry, tell your kid to log into google classroom and check their school email for what they are supposed to be doing. Also, help them get zoom working on their device. If you do not have a device with a microphone and camera, or you do not have internet access, tell us so we can connect you. Honestly, that was the most useful stuff, after, hey, if you need food, tell us, we will bring you some on the school bus. They did, ultimately, communicate all that, but the amount of email that had to be sifted through to get to that point was cartoonish. I am only now digging my way out from under.
I realize that for younger kids, the message was different and involves SeeSaw? Maybe? I do not know; my kids are 5th and 8th graders. My kids also both have IEPs, one in a substantially separate classroom, the other with a full time aide. It was with great interest that I waited to find out what the plan was for that. While I understood that the hey, if you are hungry, tell us, came first, and that distributing devices to get kids connected came second, I felt like somewhere after that, the whole, oh, you have an IEP thing would probably come up. But instead, it seemed like basically the decision was going to be to not actually have distance learning, just enrichment and social and emotional connection sustained.
Really.
So, you know, that IEP form actually has an entire chunk on it about what will be done to help with regression, far more common and more severe with kids who need 504s and IEPs than with less neurodiverse kids, and honestly, regression should NOT be underestimated for the entire school population. And yet, the idea was, since the law says that kids with special needs are not supposed to get something that is functionally Less Than the mainstream population, the school was just not going to educate anyone? OK, but there is a minimum standard here, with the regression issue it hits kids with IEPs and 504s harder than those without (in theory, anyway). Just Not Doing Anything was not actually addressing the equity issue.
And yet, with the exception, shockingly, of New Hampshire (and possibly somewhere else I failed to notice) all over the country white, middle class people, with and without kids, with and without special needs, plenty of them teachers, just wisely nodded and signed off on the idea that it was somehow a justification for Not Educating, that there was an equity issue, and if you cannot do it fairly, you should not even offer anything.
Um. That is not equitable. That differentially impacts the neurodiverse. AND white, middle class people with the ability to sign kids up for for-pay home schooling online curricula and a variety of other things are way less impacted by shutting down than, well, anyone who is not a member of that group.
NOT schooling is NOT a solution to the problems of equity in schooling.
If I hear that again, I am probably going to say something that damages my relationship with you. Try not to suggest that Not school is a solution to the problem of equity. Definitely do not fucking blame poor people and/or special needs people for Why We Are Not Doing Distance Learning.
I mean, it would have been fine to just say, hey, we have no fucking clue what we are doing, give us a couple of weeks to get over ourselves and we will have something in the meantime here are links to entertain you and the kiddos and wow is this hard. I would have been fine with that. I mean, I like what NH did better, especially after hearing from a parent who is dealing with it (with a special needs kid). But right now, there is just a bizarre circus of misunderstanding, miscommunication and wisely nodding along with absolute insanity, that is only starting to abate.
I should probably say something here about the hilarious uselessness of the email checkin I received for one of my kids today. It was an utter fuckup of cutting and pasting, with the gender pronouns referring to my kid switching back and forth throughout the email. Super weird! I have been going out of my way to tell team members about what A. and I have been doing. I mean, we sent email to the music teacher (zoom piano lesson! with a brief video!), the art teacher (uploaded to artsonia! and sent more pictures and a video to her!), the PE teacher (BitGym! lifting! walks!) and the classroom teacher (regular checkins to tell her how great her assignments and lessons are and to double check that our efforts to get A.'s work submitted were successful). What little I am getting back from them to fulfill on the IEP is slightly more useless than crickets. [ETA: To be fair, I think we successfully scheduled a speech therapy appointment for tomorrow. I will try to remember to report back on that.]
Which is fine. This is hard. I get that. And honestly, this may be a marginally better placement for A. than being at school. I am having fun with it, for that matter. Hopefully all the other families with special needs are getting help that is useful for them.
The initial closure was brief, and then the state guidance took over. First, the state extended the closure. Then, the state gave guidance that some kind of educational continuity was necessary.
But before the state gave that guidance, there was a lot of enrichment talk and social and emotional connection to the school and teachers talk. Which is delightful, and I am fine with that. I mean, it would have been more helpful to say, sorry, tell your kid to log into google classroom and check their school email for what they are supposed to be doing. Also, help them get zoom working on their device. If you do not have a device with a microphone and camera, or you do not have internet access, tell us so we can connect you. Honestly, that was the most useful stuff, after, hey, if you need food, tell us, we will bring you some on the school bus. They did, ultimately, communicate all that, but the amount of email that had to be sifted through to get to that point was cartoonish. I am only now digging my way out from under.
I realize that for younger kids, the message was different and involves SeeSaw? Maybe? I do not know; my kids are 5th and 8th graders. My kids also both have IEPs, one in a substantially separate classroom, the other with a full time aide. It was with great interest that I waited to find out what the plan was for that. While I understood that the hey, if you are hungry, tell us, came first, and that distributing devices to get kids connected came second, I felt like somewhere after that, the whole, oh, you have an IEP thing would probably come up. But instead, it seemed like basically the decision was going to be to not actually have distance learning, just enrichment and social and emotional connection sustained.
Really.
So, you know, that IEP form actually has an entire chunk on it about what will be done to help with regression, far more common and more severe with kids who need 504s and IEPs than with less neurodiverse kids, and honestly, regression should NOT be underestimated for the entire school population. And yet, the idea was, since the law says that kids with special needs are not supposed to get something that is functionally Less Than the mainstream population, the school was just not going to educate anyone? OK, but there is a minimum standard here, with the regression issue it hits kids with IEPs and 504s harder than those without (in theory, anyway). Just Not Doing Anything was not actually addressing the equity issue.
And yet, with the exception, shockingly, of New Hampshire (and possibly somewhere else I failed to notice) all over the country white, middle class people, with and without kids, with and without special needs, plenty of them teachers, just wisely nodded and signed off on the idea that it was somehow a justification for Not Educating, that there was an equity issue, and if you cannot do it fairly, you should not even offer anything.
Um. That is not equitable. That differentially impacts the neurodiverse. AND white, middle class people with the ability to sign kids up for for-pay home schooling online curricula and a variety of other things are way less impacted by shutting down than, well, anyone who is not a member of that group.
NOT schooling is NOT a solution to the problems of equity in schooling.
If I hear that again, I am probably going to say something that damages my relationship with you. Try not to suggest that Not school is a solution to the problem of equity. Definitely do not fucking blame poor people and/or special needs people for Why We Are Not Doing Distance Learning.
I mean, it would have been fine to just say, hey, we have no fucking clue what we are doing, give us a couple of weeks to get over ourselves and we will have something in the meantime here are links to entertain you and the kiddos and wow is this hard. I would have been fine with that. I mean, I like what NH did better, especially after hearing from a parent who is dealing with it (with a special needs kid). But right now, there is just a bizarre circus of misunderstanding, miscommunication and wisely nodding along with absolute insanity, that is only starting to abate.
I should probably say something here about the hilarious uselessness of the email checkin I received for one of my kids today. It was an utter fuckup of cutting and pasting, with the gender pronouns referring to my kid switching back and forth throughout the email. Super weird! I have been going out of my way to tell team members about what A. and I have been doing. I mean, we sent email to the music teacher (zoom piano lesson! with a brief video!), the art teacher (uploaded to artsonia! and sent more pictures and a video to her!), the PE teacher (BitGym! lifting! walks!) and the classroom teacher (regular checkins to tell her how great her assignments and lessons are and to double check that our efforts to get A.'s work submitted were successful). What little I am getting back from them to fulfill on the IEP is slightly more useless than crickets. [ETA: To be fair, I think we successfully scheduled a speech therapy appointment for tomorrow. I will try to remember to report back on that.]
Which is fine. This is hard. I get that. And honestly, this may be a marginally better placement for A. than being at school. I am having fun with it, for that matter. Hopefully all the other families with special needs are getting help that is useful for them.
Ughhh, sorry to hear this
Date: 2020-04-10 04:47 pm (UTC)Re: Ughhh, sorry to hear this
Date: 2020-04-10 07:06 pm (UTC)Did Northshore really stop doing online learning? They paused, but then restarted. The effect is remarkably similar to my district. Initially, each teacher did their own thing, then the district put out guidelines based on state guidance and everything got much more specific and scheduled, which, IMO, was a really good thing because the cognitive overload of sorting through the enrichment lists was bonkers.
Anyway, as near as I can tell, Northshore continued providing chromebooks and hot spots like everywhere else, altho they may also have paper options and my efforts to understand the offerings below grade 4 have been dismal.
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/northshore-school-district-relaunches-online-learning-program-pausing-due-equity-issues/amp/
Re: Ughhh, sorry to hear this
Date: 2020-04-12 03:44 pm (UTC)Re: Ughhh, sorry to hear this
Date: 2020-04-12 03:58 pm (UTC)https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/special-education-coronavirus.html
Obviously, none of us trust DeVos to use this appropriately — I would hope that goes without saying. There seems to be some oversight provision in it. But the article does capture the behavior of school districts initially: because they feared that doing distance / online learning would work less well for special ed and/or people in poverty or other marginalized populations, and that that would result in lawsuits, they figured better just not do it at all or make it optional. I objected, on the basis that I would sue for failure to offer anything to deal with the issue of regression which occurs during ordinary breaks from school, never mind this one. I thought it was stupid, lazy thinking and irresponsible as a policy argument. Until I saw this article, I was not 100% certain that I had the thought process correct; this articulates it very clearly.
“Administrators and educators say without the waivers they would be forced to meet unrealistic expectations and face costly lawsuits. Avoiding those consequences could mean that districts decide not to offer any education at all to students in the next two months.”
We do not train doctors and keep them around to avoid lawsuits. We do not have schools to avoid lawsuits. Their jobs are hard and important and we expect them to do their best. I also expect that the judiciary will take into account the larger context in the event of a special education related lawsuit.
All that said, my sympathy for poor rural districts who find themselves paying steep legal fees over due process or other complaints is quite limited. We are privileged enough that we could pre-emptively move to a suburban district in a state with fantastic access to special education. We did that, because we used to live in (a) (state)(s) with less than fantastic access. Lawsuits are a motivating tool; I would hate to see waivers to pre-empt that motivation.
A friend in NH said that when her district started school (literally within days of physically closing the schools), she got a call regarding her child’s 504/IEP (I forget which) before she could even get around to bugging the team. That is the Correct way to handle things.
NYT also had this article (this is more the poverty / working parents / kids with chore and care responsibilities end of things) about attendance and ability to establish and maintain school to family contact:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/coronavirus-schools-attendance-absent.html
None of this is easy. Everyone is trying very, very hard. I have a lot of faith that if we do not just give up, we will be able to get through it somehow, and I do not doubt that whatever happens with schools, the kids are learning a ton just by living through these months.