The dream of many parents of a certain level of privilege is the attractive idea to work from home while also being clever enough to time manage home schooling and/or other extracurricular activities for their children. Blogs, social media groups, and even magazine publications target the middle-class family with creative ideas and tips for them to be able to manage an at-home gig, a Youtube channel on a DIY theme, as well as heroically take their children to karate, art classes, and ballet all while everyone is wearing matching outfits.
Clearly, I am jokingly bringing together the stereotype of the middle to upper class family that have the resources to manage such feats. As an administrator at a private school, many of our families are working class but maintain a level of financial security. That is, they are mostly middle working class family (mom and dad have blue collar jobs but not classified as living in poverty) who were able to manage the transition to homeschooling with some ease, despite the challenges they faced with balancing the challenges of working from home. As a private school that receives recipients of the Florida tax credit scholarship, however, there are some families that we serve who are living in poverty and others whose immigration status/journey makes their children particularly vulnerable to distant learning. In witnessing a sudden transition to distant learning, I witnessed the trend with immigrant families who do not speak English had their children fall behind the last quarter of the 2019-2020 school year.
The day our school announced school closure due to the coronavirus, the administrators had a tight plan in place. As part of the school closure and transition to online learning, we ensured that families had proper access to reliable technology. We assisted families in signing up for Comcast’s free internet program and loaned out laptops for families who needed them. As learning transitioned, administrators kept track of student attendance as well as students who appeared to have fallen off the grid. Those families were contacted by phone, and we worked tirelessly to ensure they understood the new mode of learning. As the list of families eventually disappeared, the same names continued on the list. Those students who never had the opportunity to continue their learning online – via student portal, Zoom, and our learning programs- had something in common: immigrant families of non-English speaking households. In fact, all the students who were recommended for summer school due to not completing the final quarter successfully were all from non-English speaking households. As if a round of “failure” during the last quarter wasn’t enough, those same parents were now asked to sign up their children in virtual summer school. These immigrant non-English speaking parents were being asked to return to the same medium of online learning for summer school that failed them in the first place. It is important to note that, “Remote schooling poses a special challenge for families who are not fluent in English. About five million American schoolchildren are classified as English-language learners, meaning they lack fluency, and even more come from homes where their parents speak a different language.” The question remains: in an age where we cannot get physically close to the families we serve, how can we reach non-English speaking families who do not have the linguistic or digital literacy to help their child succeed in distant learning?
That is not to say that resources for immigrant families do not exist. In fact, there are many organizations working to provide resources that will help families in need. The Immigrant Learning Center, for example, is an organization that is currently providing resources to immigrants, parents, and educators during Covid-19. Informed Immigrant is another organization providing Covid-19 resources to families and ensuring immigrants know their rights during this crisis. The issue remains the same: these resources are offered digitally and require computer literacy and a navigational understanding of the English language.
My experience as an administrator during school closure and coronavirus crisis has shown me – anecdotally at the very least – that children from immigrant households where the adults do not speak English will suffer most. This topic continues to be a work-in-progress. There are many methods that have been tried, such as reaching out to parents by phone and explaining things to them in their own language. This is not always possible, but it has been effective when a reliable translator has been available. We cannot expect teachers to reteach their lessons for every student and family, however, they may prepare physical packages of work and handouts that the students may do at home (rather than the online platforms). Lastly, it is important for schools to have a list of community resources that can assist immigrant parents in communicating with the school as well as explain to them the school work in a way they can understand. In other words, schools need to redirect these families to advocacy organizations for immigrant families that may assist them in computer literacy as well as assist them in helping their child succeed. These are not perfect solutions, however, it is clear that a gap exists with immigrant non-English speaking families with the access they have to distant learning and schools need to be ready to meet those needs as well.
Work Cited
Rani, Rikha Sharma. “Imagine Online School in a Language You Don’t Understand.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-immigrants-school.html
“Resources for Immigrants, Parents, and Educators for Covid-19 Crisis.” https://www.ilctr.org/covid-help/