The best kept secret about online K-12 education is that there’s really no such thing.
At each level of schooling — elementary, middle and high — remote learning means very different things. The types of instruction offered, and the challenges faced by educators and families, vary dramatically for students in the different age groups.
Elementary school children struggle without the guidance of a parent or sibling. Middle school students, who are maturing in so many ways, may need incentives to stay focused and exert effort. High school teens face extraordinary academic stress and miss the camaraderie of their friends and teachers.
Parents are having to learn to motivate, soothe and teach their children differently, depending on each student's level of maturity, academic capabilities and ability to handle stress.
Ellen Sledge lives in Hastings-on-Hudson. She owns Penny Lick Ice Cream, and is doing her best to keep it afloat. She has three children: One each in elementary, middle and high school.
“I'd say it's equally hard on them, but for three very different reasons,” Sledge said. “My oldest needs instruction. She's taking academically heavy courses. My youngest needs the support team that would be in a collaborative classroom. My middle schooler has all of the ambition and academic drive of a middle schooler.”
Sledge and her husband, a portfolio manager who works around the clock with international clients, are doing their best to help each child. Like so many families, they aren’t finding it easy.
“I've got three kids all over the board, all over the place,” Sledge said. “I'm just like, I can't stare at the three of you and make sure that you're doing this. People want ice cream.”
Elementary School
Sledge’s youngest child, Adelaide, is in the fourth grade at Hillside Elementary School. Adelaide struggles the most with being separated from her classroom environment.
“She is too clever for her own good, but she does have dyslexia and ADHD," Sledge said. "She usually gets extra support, and so there's more than one human on her at any given time. She needs super-structure. It's been a little hard to keep her engaged.”
That’s the major challenge of elementary school at home: It requires parents to keep their children on task, hour to hour and lesson to lesson.
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“The younger the child is, the more support they need from a parent to keep them focused or on task,” said Jesimae Ossorio, principal of Post Road Elementary School in White Plains.
Many younger students went through what Ossorio called a “honeymoon phase,” when they were excited to do school at home with mom or dad. She’s hearing from families that the honeymoon phase is over.
“'My kid doesn't want to work. I don't know how to encourage them. I don't know how to motivate them. I don't know how to help them.' Those are genuine concerns that come up,” Ossorio said.
Most districts are giving elementary school students about two hours of work a day.
Not every parent can help a second- or third-grader with academics. When it comes to sentence diagrams or Common Core math, a parent may be just as confused as their child. At some schools in diverse neighborhoods, like Post Road School, many parents have limited English proficiency and some are functionally illiterate.
“We have to overcome and find another way," Ossorio said. "We don't make the parents feel bad. We say the best way you can support is provide the conditions and let the teacher talk to your child directly.”
“Live” classes on Zoom or Google Meet are less common for younger students with limited attention spans. Post Road isn’t requiring teachers to provide video instruction to teach new material, but most are in some form.
“What teachers are doing successfully in live formats is bringing in small groups of children,” Ossorio said. “Say, we're going to have five kids, and we're going to read this book together, or we're going to do this one math problem. But having 20 kids is too difficult to manage, I think, with little guys.”
Elementary education has the largest swath of apps and programs at its disposal. DreamBox for math, RAZ Kids for reading, and BrainPop for everything are some of the most popular.
Ossario said that the youngest students can be expected to do about 15 minutes of independent work at a time and that 20 minutes is pushing it.
Older elementary students can usually make it through a 30-minute block of work before needing a break.
At the elementary level, feedback from teachers is more important than grades.
White Plains, like many districts, is working on a grading policy for the final quarter of the school year.
“We could give feedback on level of participation, and we could give feedback on what we perceive as their level of effort and trying their best,” Ossorio said. “These are the things that we feel are realistic.”
Middle School
Middle school is tough, in person or online. It’s the stage of acne, orthodontia and angst.
Motivation and self-direction can be hardest to find for middle-schoolers during normal times. Remote learning requires both.
“Middle school is, I believe, the roughest years,” said Maria Paese, principal of Pearl River Middle School.
Districts are divided on how they provide instruction to middle schoolers. Some treat them like older elementary school students, sending them posted assignments in their core subjects. Others treat them more like high schoolers and expect them to attend live video classes.
In Pearl River, which educates fifth, sixth and seventh grades, teachers are posting lessons Monday through Thursday. Friday is a catch-up day, when teachers host office hours, meet with students individually or in small groups for instruction and help, and students can drop in with a question.
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By fifth grade, students are usually able to manage long-term assignments. Paese said many of her teachers are focusing on project-based work while students are home. The Pearl River school district hasn’t made a firm decision about how grading will be handled.
“The grade is important,” Paese said. “But right now, we just want the kids to learn.”
Ellen Sledge’s middle child, Sebastian, is in seventh grade at Farragut Middle School, and is less than enthusiastic about online school.
“He's a seventh-grader, and he refers to me as bro, and he doesn't understand why he needs to put in a lot of effort, when the bare minimum would totally suffice,” Sledge said. “He’s just not into it.”
It's true, Paese said, that middle-schoolers may be inclined to do the bare minimum, a bad habit to develop before high school. When teachers are physically separated from students, it limits how they can intervene.
“When we're in the building, we can sort of run after (those students) and say, ‘Hey, come to homework club, come during lunch and we'll help you with this,’” Paese said. “During this remote learning time, there's only so much running after that you can do. That's the frustration.”
The ironic benefit in this situation is that it’s almost a baptism by fire in middle school’s whole point: Helping students bridge the gap between the hand-holding of elementary school to the independence that will be expected in high school.
Still, if middle-schoolers stay the course, learn to advocate for themselves and take charge of their education, they will be better for it down the road, Paese said.
“The silver lining for me is the middle school kids understanding that, yes, this is a challenge,” she said. “However, with the help of your parents and teachers, look at how you can overcome challenges and be successful.”
High School
The academic stress of high school, one of the most talked about subjects in the Lower Hudson Valley, has moved online.
Ellen Sledge’s older daughter, Madeline, is a junior at Hastings High School. Junior year is the big one, particularly for students applying to competitive colleges. It's normally the year of college entrance exams, college visits, and building an application with impressive courses and extracurriculars.
Madeline has three Advanced Placement classes. She’s writing English papers and working on chemistry and calculus. Last week, she gave a presentation in French.
"It's very overwhelming. It's almost as if there's more schoolwork now that there is no school," Madeline said. "Then because my mom needs help at the shop...I can be helping out until midnight. It's pretty crazy."
Sledge said the canceling of Regents exams didn’t ease the stress her daughter’s friends and classmates seem to be feeling. They’re worried that losing that metric will hurt their college applications.
“Teenagers these days have a tremendous amount more anxiety than I ever did,” Sledge said. “I think that taking the structure away from them gives them anxiety that they were not prepared for in the least.”
The mental aspect of isolation is rough on teenagers. Many high school students report feeling anxious, lethargic and depressed as academic uncertainty, social isolation and disappointment over losing sports and the prom take their toll.
The academic challenges are clear. There are no animated videos or games that teach physics or Shakespeare. Teaching is key. Many classes build on one another, and some are known to be especially tough, so there isn't much room for an online learning curve.
The big advantage high schoolers have is that they are used to navigating the digital world, said Keith Schenker, principal of Westlake High School in Mount Pleasant.
At Westlake, teachers are required to give video instruction, either live or recorded, every day. It helps that the school is small and well-connected, Schenker said.
“From what I'm seeing so far, we probably have 85% of the students staying on with their work, doing their assignments and connecting with the teachers,” he said.
At larger schools with fewer resources, there are bound to be larger cracks that students can fall through. If a student's 10th-grade education is seriously disrupted during this period of remote learning, it can have dire implications for the rest of high school.
High school grades have serious implications. For Schenker, it’s important to give his students grades beyond pass and fail.
Westlake High is using a modified grading scale ranging from "no progress" to "mastery." Third- and fourth-quarter grades will be combined for June report cards.
“At the end of this year, we need to be able to honestly evaluate and validate the students’ experience,” Schenker said.
For high school students, remote learning is forcing them to quickly master a skill, self-management, that is usually developed in college or the workforce.
Ellen Sledge and her husband insist their oldest child start her schoolwork by 10 a.m. Beyond that, there isn’t much they can force a teenager to do.
“Managing yourself and getting yourself into a routine is hard for a 40-year-old,” Schenker said. “We're asking 15-year-olds to do it.”
Sophie Grosserode covers education. Click here for her latest stories. Follow her on Twitter @sdgrosserode. Check out our latest subscription offers here.
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