Haley Campbell was eager for her two older children, ages 11 and 6, to start school in the fall.
He imagined what his first day would be like: special outfits, an encouraging talk, and parting kisses before leaving them for sixth grade and kindergarten, respectively.
But two weeks ago, after receiving a letter from the school describing its COVID-19 protocols, which included isolated lunches, staggered schedules, and the possibility that remote learning could return at any time, Campbell felt it was not worth sending. their children to school.
Instead, he decided to educate his children at home this coming school year and quit his full-time job as an insulin pump technician to fully commit to it. He also took his 2-year-old son out of daycare.
“Children need a safe space to be comfortable learning and what the school described to me is not good enough for my children,” said Campbell, 29, who lives outside of Boise, Idaho. “They need to be able to focus on learning and not worry about what they can and cannot touch, stay apart and not be able to play with their best friend.”
After being in “survival mode” with remote learning, you no longer want to be at the discretion of the school. “I know they are doing the best they can, but I can no longer trust the school, I need to be in control and have the ball on my court,” he said.
While there is no comprehensive data on how many parents plan home school in the fall, several states, including Texas, Utah, and Washington, have reported sharp increases in interest.
Over the past month, calls and emails from parents asking about home schooling “exploded,” said J. Allen Weston, executive director of the National Association of Homeschooling.
Public schools across the country have begun to reveal what a return to the classroom might be like amid the pandemic, but many parents have chosen not to return and plan to go to school at home, a decision experts say is a great task that parents should be well prepared to
“Many parents were disappointed in what they saw in the past 120 days,” said Luis Huerta, professor of education and public policy at Teachers College at Columbia University. “They felt that the level of instruction was not up to par and that the schools dropped the ball during the transition. That led many parents to reconsider, at least temporarily, that they need to take control of their children’s education. “
Although parents have every right to that decision, they have to consider how prepared they are and have the skills to carry it out, he said.
Some families may have the ability to do well and even better than their local school, but others will struggle, she said.
“It will be a mixed bag based on the wealth of diverse experiences parents have experienced in recent months.”
Huerta added that if parents are exploring the idea of switching to homeschooling, they should be very aware of the challenges and rigor of doing it well, and should be able to quickly tap into the many resources that can support them in that regard. transition.
think beyond
Jessica Bates, a Nashville-based mother of two, has already started preparations with curriculum research based on input from two of her sisters who are public school teachers. Your child will start kindergarten in the fall.
“I am very pro-school and very pro-public and I never thought I would be thinking about homeschooling,” said Bates, a freelance writer. “But with the expansion of COVID-19 and the opening of my state as cases increase, we are concerned that my son is going to school.”
Bates said social interaction was the main reason to send her son to school, but with the possibility of still high remote learning, she felt it was better to teach her herself.
“COVID-19 has helped people see that there are other educational options that they have never seriously considered before,” said Michael Hansen, principal investigator for the Brookings Institution and director of the Brown Center on Educational Policy. “It allowed people to see flexibility and think innovatively about what schooling means and how it works best for their children.”
Despite the fact that most students who receive homeschooling during the pandemic will return to a traditional school setting once the public health crisis is over, 1 or 2 percent of them may end up sticking because it worked well, he said. Hansen.
Lara Miller, who lives with her immunocompromised mother, will not be sending her third and fifth grade son to school in the fall and is also researching homeschool options.
Despite school precautions, she said she still doesn’t feel comfortable exposing her children to other children.
“It was a difficult decision, but as a family we decided that it was better for me to keep them at home and at school,” he said. Self-employed Miller said she will have to step back to work and depend solely on her husband’s income for the next year.
New demands, new perspectives
Parents are trying to decide what’s best for them during a time of unprecedented crisis, which is not easy, said Kevin Welner, director of the National Center for Educational Policy and professor at the University of Colorado at the School of Education at Boulder.
But what is important to recognize is that what parents did with remote learning was not home schooling but an “emergency response that involved testing school at home,” he said. “Homeschooling is very different. It is very demanding and requires a lot of hard work, preparation and time.”
Parents need not only have the knowledge of the subject area but also the knowledge of how to teach, and since that often requires a great deal of commitment from at least one parent to be successful, it doesn’t work in all situations, Welner added.
“It is not for everyone and even those who think it could be for them right now may find out that it is not,” he said.
But Haley Campbell is optimistic and wants to keep an open mind for the next year.
“No one has ever raised during this, so I just have to be flexible and adaptable,” he said. “It is difficult because you are responsible for these little lives, but I feel like I am doing the right thing for my children.”
