DENVER (KDVR) — Parents across Colorado are stressed out. They’re trying to figure out how they will juggle remote learning at home along with full-time jobs.
The concern is growing as more school administrators fear they cannot open school buildings safely in the fall. District administrators and school board members do not have good options available.
Sandy Lueras has four children from kindergarten through high school who are enrolled in Denver Public Schools. She’s a general manger at a restaurant and her husband works full-time too. She doesn’t know how she’ll manage, as required, to keep her younger ones on track through virtual learning.
“I’ve thought about maybe bringing the two younger kids to my office — to my restaurant — and putting them in the back of my restaurant while I’m working,” Lueras said.
At Aurora Public Schools, the concern over viral spread has at least one school board member calling for 100 percent virtual education.
“I don’t think we should be in-person at this stage,” said Marques Ivey, the APS board treasurer. “Unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to go remote.”
Ivey acknowledges the APS board has already approved in-person learning through a cohort model. The model allows up to 30 children to be grouped together in one classroom to make quarantining more manageable. However, Ivey says it’s time to revaluate that idea.
“Thirty [children in one classroom], that’s a problem,” he said. “We don’t have classrooms that big … This cohort [idea], right now, there’s too many holes in that aspect.”
Ivey is also worried that large class sizes will prevent one-on-one attention some kids need. But Lueras says the remote learning is what caused one of her children to fall behind last school year.
While families’ livelihoods are on the line, teacher advocates have been quick to point out that lives are on the line as well. Teachers across the country have taken time this summer to write their own obituaries.