Bibb County parents voice concerns over online learning as school year begins Tuesday
At age 51, Ronald Francis is going back to kindergarten.
Like scores of parents and grandparents with children who are this fall attending school online because of the new coronavirus restrictions, Francis will himself become a student and a teacher.
He isn’t sure what to expect when classes in Bibb County resume Tuesday as his kindergartner grandson and fifth-grader granddaughter begin virtual learning.
Francis, who is at home during the day, plans to help his daughter’s children as best he can. Even if they may be more tech-savvy than he is.
“The fifth-grader pretty well knows what’s going on because of how it went last year,” he said.
“These kids today tend to know more about things (on computers) than I do. But if I can get them started and read what the assignment are, I can help them. ... But things like cellphones today, I didn’t even know how to turn my flash on my cellphone on and the 6-year-old had to say, ‘Here you go, Papa.’”
‘A real struggle’
Francis and his wife, Sandra, last week were among the more than 1,000 people to receive WiFi hotspot devices from the Bibb County School District to help ensure internet service needed for online learning. The district has also held training sessions on virtual learning for parents and guardians and will deploy 25 WiFi-equipped buses throughout the county for students that don’t have internet access.
But even with assistance from the district, jobs and limited space can get in the way.
“It is a real struggle,” Sandra Francis said. “My daughter is a single mom. ... She’s trying to work a full-time job. I work two full-time jobs and I’m trying to help her with the kids.”
The Francis house is being converted to a schoolhouse, with the kindergartner set up in the kitchen and the fifth-grader in a bedroom.
“So they’re not interfering with each other or talking,” Ronald Francis said.
A juggling act
Antionette Thomas, who works as a personal care aide, will have three children at home taking online classes. Her husband works at night and will be there with them while the children — an eighth-grader and two third-graders — receive virtual instruction.
“It’s really hard on parents,” Thomas said, “because some parents have to work.”
Her children each have laptop computers, but she said a friend of hers has five kids who are, at least to begin school, somehow sharing a single laptop.
Thomas said for many parents the first couple of months of the school year will be a juggling act. Bibb schools are planning to offer online-only classes for at least the first two months.
Thomas said she was worried about how the virtual instruction will go.
“I really don’t think it’s gonna work,” she said.
Thomas said the virtual world will not offer the interpersonal connections that the social aspects of in-person school offer. Kindergartners just starting out, she said, “can’t really experience that kindergarten feel.”
Even so, she said, her children will be at their kitchen table, earphones in, “in their own little world” as classes start.
Adapting to online school
Macon parent Andrill Veal works as a hotel housekeeping supervisor. Some days she can find a babysitter for her son, a first-grader, but some days she can’t. So she takes him to work with her.
But with the first day of virtual classes looming, she wasn’t sure how she would manage.
“I might not be able to work,” she said, “if I have to stay home with him.”
Veal hadn’t had internet service at her house until she picked up one of the hotspot devices from the school system last week. She also has received a tablet computer for her son to use.
“I’ll have him in the kitchen at the table with everything set up,” Veal said. “I’m just gonna see how it goes when school starts to see how we adapt.”
This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 7:00 AM.