Fall River public schools make the switch to at-home learning during coronavirus crisis

FALL RIVER — Matthew J. Kuss Middle School Vice Principal Jason Souza wore a baseball cap and yellow surgical mask. With gloved hands, he passed a manilla folder through the passenger-side window of a car idling outside the school.

Behind the wheel sat one the many parents and caregivers who drove by the school this week to pick up the second round worksheets and reading materials for students, as they and their peers across the state near their third week out of school.

“How’s she doing?” Souza’s colleague, Kuss Principal and recently appointed Assistant Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer Maria Pontes asked the mother from several feet away.

It’s the anxiety, Pontes hears back, that’s throttling her child, a middle school student whom Ponte knows well from the time they spent working through stress and other issues together in the weeks before schools closed.

“You tell her I’m going to give her a call, I’m going to do a hangout and check in with her,” Pontes replied, offering assurances of a Google Hangout meeting on the way. “It’s about staying connected, right? Tell her not to stress.”

For many, the virus brought new sources of stress, as businesses close to stem transmission and unemployment rises, while infection rates revised upward each day. With schools opening no earlier than early May, even children who swore they didn’t like school are telling Souza they miss it now, he said.

“This virtual stuff, while it’s interesting, there’s no beating face-to-face, hands-on learning with the kids. Everybody’s a little lost. I know I am,” he said.

The district is distributing enrichment materials to students in an effort to keep students engaged with learning, and Pontes said children aren’t being asked to learn new skills or information while schools are closed.

On Tuesday, the district began distributing packets for “phase two” of its remote learning plan from school buildings citywide. The materials are consistent across grade levels, with some exceptions for high school courses, containing activities students are advised to complete on a schedule.

At Silvia Elementary School on Wednesday morning, a message on a whiteboard outside the entrance to the building directed people to several big bottles of hand sanitizer set out on a table, imploring parents to sanitize before grabbing a packet nearby.

When Vanessa Geller stopped by to pick up packets for her two daughters, she said she appreciates how the school is trying to ease the burden of the closure on parents.

One of her children’s teachers offered to drop off packets at her home last month, and Geller said her daughters erupted with joy when they saw her arrive, but could only wave through the window as she dropped off the materials outside.

Geller said she fired a text message off to the teacher, “You’re like Taylor Swift in my house right now!”

“I’m single mom with three kids, my oldest is autistic, routine is everything for us,” she said. “I commend them for trying to make it easier for us at home, because it’s not easy.”

Geller, an a undergraduate student at Bridgewater State University whose classes have moved online, said she knows many parents who are more overwhelmed right now than she is.

Pontes acknowledged the difficulty inherent in asking parents to oversee their students’ work, when educators don’t always know what each and every family is going through.

“We have to make sure everybody’s healthy mentally and physically, because it’s very hard to say, ‘Oh, you have to do this packet,’ when we don’t know if there’s families where they have members who are sick, or have been affected in different ways,” she said.

The top priority is staying in contact with students and keeping them connected to educators, while emphasizing that transitioning back to school if and when it reopens parents.

“Reality is setting in, our kids are feeling it, our adults are feeling it, all of the sudden were expecting parents to become teachers. They’re not teachers, but they’re doing the best that they can,” she said.

Teachers are reaching out to students in a variety of ways, via email, on Zoom calls, pre-recorded videos and telephone calls. “The staff has been amazing, district-wide,” said Pontes.

A task force of educators, coaches and administrators developed the packets that are supplemented by online components, said Patrick Lenz, principal of Silvia elementary. Beginning next week and through May 4, packets for students in kindergarten through 8th grade will be distributed from all 10 grab-and-go meal distribution sites in the city, Pontes said.

“We’re an urban district, the reality is we have to be innovative in how we’re going to reach our kids. Not everybody has the same access that a suburban community might. They might have a 1-1 [technology] initiative, so a lot of that work might be done online. We know that not every one of our students has that accessibility, so we have to figure out how to bring school to the home,” she said.

Lenz said that last week he moved all the copy machines in the school downstairs last week, and kept them running three hours a day as he and his secretary printed and copied worksheets.

He commended his staff of teachers, social emotional specialists and the Student Resource Officers, who he said are doing direct outreach to students. He said that being an educator during the pandemic, after he saw students off their last day in March, is surreal.

“That feeling when the buses left that last Monday was such an empty and sad feeling, because that’s why we do it, to connect with our students,” he said. “This is a place where a lot of kids get their counseling, it’s where they get their social emotional learning, their structure, their food, where they build relationships.”

“And we’re aware of all that, and my staff has done an awesome job making sure those things are still in place, as much as possible,” he added.