PARENT GROUPS QUESTION CPS PACE FOR REMOTE LEARNING by Suzanne Hanney
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students will be learning from home – remotely -- starting September 8, with both online classes and small-group assignments throughout a fully scheduled school day. Attendance will be tracked and assignments will be graded. The school district distributed more than 128,000 computers last spring and will loan out another 36,000 devices to students who still need them before the school year begins. Roughly 100,000 CPS students from limited-income backgrounds also received high-speed internet at no charge thanks to the Chicago Connected initiative; eligible families have been contacted for this year and 35 community groups have been working to get them connected. Guiding principles for this year are a high-quality learning experience for all students despite the changed environment, support in reducing inequities for high-need students, and minimizing anxiety around COVID-19, which has simultaneously revealed historical inequities. CPS officials say they gathered feelings about last spring’s remote learning from 58,000 parents in multiple surveys and 22 focus groups on the South, West and Southwest Sides. “We remain committed to helping every student reach their full potential, even under these unprecedented circumstances, and we are confident that with your support, CPS will remain a school district on the rise,” CPS CEO Janice K. Jackson, EdD and Chief Education Officer LaTanya D. McDade said in an August 18 final reopening framework letter. Not so fast, say Illinois Raise Your Hand and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA). Raise Your Hand conducted its own survey of 1300 parents on remote learning, which was shared by over 50 community-based organizations, elected officials and parent groups. The survey was in six languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Polish and Urdu) and represented 51 percent of CPS schools. Parents of color comprised 60 percent of respondents and parents of students with special needs comprised 40 percent.
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Protesters at August 3 Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) rally calling for remote learning drive creatively decorated cars around the James Thompson Center, with signs saying, "Grades NOT Graves" and "The Plan Is MORE Dead Kids." Another car had a skeleton hanging out the back seat and a sign that said, "We Want to Teach, Not Die." Earlier that day, Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) member Leticia Barrera explained how its parent mentor program would conduct outdoor home visits, with masks and parents present, during remote learning. (Suzanne Hanney Photos)
Two months into the pandemic, 130 parents in the Raise Your Hand survey (10%) still had concerns about the digital divide. “Parents found the process of remote learning disorienting and should not need to sleuth through numerous learning platforms, school websites, emails, parent groups, and social media to piece together what their child needs – this was especially true for parents with students at different schools,” Raise Your Hand said in its recommendations. Special education and English Learners (ELs) were also badly served, according to the Raise Your Hand survey. Nearly 3 out of 4 (69%) of parents who had children with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) or 504 accommodations plans, said they did not receive as much support as they would have liked to help their child reach their goals. Almost 100 parents (14% of those with IEPs surveyed) said they had no contact about their child’s IEP. More than half (55%) of EL parents said they did not receive as much support as they would have liked. During an August 22 Zoom meeting hosted by Raise Your Hand and LSNA that was attended by more than 100 parents, the chat room filled quickly with a variety of complaints about remote learning: • Not enough support for EL teachers • Lack of compassion for working parents • Lack of technology, since not all parents qualified for the Chicago Connected program • Too much screen time and too little activity • No small group sessions • Attendance issues “Back to school isn’t back to normal,” Raise Your Hand cautioned in its survey results. “A complete return to school must include how we are going to repair the harm caused by COVID-19. It is clear that across the country, students are suffering from significant learning losses.” Over 170 parents said they saw a need for more social workers, therapists, counselors and social-emotional learning staff. Another 70 parents said COVID had hurt their child’s ability to socialize. The parents also advocated for “working beyond the school walls”: with CPS offices that support families undergoing housing
