From a Distance

In 1Hood Media and Urbankind Institute's weekly virtual hall focusing on the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on black Pittsburghers, the panel opted to explore the impact distance learning has had on parents, students, and how the district will respond.

As if the move from the classroom to instructional packets and zoom weren’t daunting enough for students like Cecil Price, student body president and student at Pittsburgh Obama Academy, the losses to come with remote learning have been “unexplainable.”

Aside from mourning the loss of events like graduation and prom, an added source of discontent for Price and his peers was the lack of communication from the district.

“I believe the whole thing could’ve been done better, we got the official announcement that we’d be stopping school on March 13 and the school didn’t really reach out to us until they had a concrete plan,” Price recalled. “We were just waiting and waiting to see what would be our next steps.”

Price explained that much of the information regarding the shift to distance learning had been posted on social media, the problem was not every student could access it. Due to the disconnect Price recalled his classmates reaching out to him for information. In addition to communication issues, Price reminded panelists that distance learning wasn’t effective for every student.

“I can’t talk about everyone’s experience, but what I’ve been hearing essentially is that this isn’t the way that everyone can learn,” Price FROM A DISTANCE 1HOOD, URBANKIND TOWN HALL FOCUSES ON DISTANCE

LWEARNING AT PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS BY ATIYA IRVIN-MITCHELL - PITTSBURGH CURRENT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

INFO@PITTSBURGHCURRENT.COM

said. “Most people are able to learn through face to face interaction with their teachers. I know growing up I learned best by having in-person interaction with my teachers, I'm not a virtual learner.”

Price added that for some students having lengthy packets to turn in at the end of the week could be a struggle.

“There’s this big disconnect in how best to learn especially in this education system,” Price said.

As a parent Khamil Scantling, founder of Cocaprener Pgh, admitted that some days implementing distance learning are rougher than others. Sometimes this means getting her 3-year-old to stay focused on the screen. Other times it means grappling with her 6-year-old daughter’s sadness over not having friends around. But Scantling stressed and encouraged parents to cut themselves slack during this challenging time.

“I think people really need to give themselves grace and space and just not expect perfection,” Scantling said. “My schedule literally says rough schedule.”

Due to many demands of distance-learning, Scantling explained many of her usual endeavors have had to take a backseat. Thinking of the variety of roles parents are forced to fill during the pandemic, Scantling worried that parenting and ultimately learning this way wasn’t tenable long-term.

“There’s a part of me that worries how much of this they’re even retaining,” Scantling said. “As a

Screen capture from 1Hood and Urbankind Town hall.

college student doing online courses I could only do one or two of those a semester. For them being children, it’s not sustainable.”

While the future remains uncertain for recently sworn in Devon Taliaferro, a board member for Pittsburgh Public Schools, the objectives remain the same: ensuring that the students receive an education. However, with the district’s technology survey showing that roughly 41 percent of responding families reported that not every child had access to a device, for some students that’s easier said than done. Taliaferro admitted that due to the unprecedented nature of the pandemic and other constraints the transition into remote learning hadn't gone seamlessly.

“This approach to remote learning has not been easy for the district and very early on wanting to make sure we had the time to put something together that would meet the needs of our children and especially children who might have special education needs,” Taliaferro said.

In the beginning, Taliaferro explained, it became clear that the district lacked the resources to ensure that every student who needed a device could be given one. Therefore the focus went on gauging the need and prioritizing seniors.

“We really wanted to make sure we started with our seniors first because they don’t have a chance to go back and re-learn, so this is kind of it for them,” Taliaferro stated.

The district was working toward distributing technology devices to the 9-11 grade levels by May 1.

“Making sure we’re not penalizing students for not having the resources they need to be able to learn from home,” Taliaferro said. “There’s no perfect way to do any of this and a lot of it is learning as we go but, we’re making sure our most vulnerable students are protected because they’re usually the first to be forgotten.”

When asked about the district’s plans for those students, Taliaferro declined to answer due to the constantly changing nature of the pandemic. Yet, she stated that conversations were happening to confront learning loss for students who lacked the materials to distance learn.

EDITOR'S NOTE

This story was made possible through a grant from the Facebook Journalism Project, the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Local Media