My 5-year-old refused to participate on Zoom. For many young children, virtual learning just doesn’t work.

We’re sending our son back to school in NYC. Here’s what factored into our decision. 

First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others thinking and writing about public education.

My 5-year-old son, ZZ, has taken to adding “when coronavirus is over” to a lot of statements these days. We will travel when coronavirus is over. We will go to church, we will eat out, and, most importantly, he and his friends will go back to school.

Saratu Ghartey (Courtesy photo)

My son’s kindergarten year was interrupted by the pandemic. Every day last spring I took my morning coffee at the dining table, ZZ’s makeshift classroom, and read through Google Classroom to make a list of the day’s assignments. We spent long days moving him through his lessons, despite tears and tantrums. My son’s teacher made a valiant effort with the virtual curriculum.  She taught live nearly every day, loaded engaging content, and did everything in her power to ensure daily attendance. She reviewed the children’s work and provided feedback. But ZZ, a typically outgoing child, didn’t want to turn on his Zoom camera or microphone. He told us that he did not know his teacher anymore. He didn’t participate, and we were not sure what, if anything, he was gaining in front of that screen.

For lots of young children like mine, virtual school just does not work. In these early grades he is expected to learn reading, writing and how to behave himself in a group. We did not see much of that happening over Zoom. That’s why we are anxiously hopeful about returning to school in New York City, even if this year promises to be anything but normal. 

When last school year wrapped, my parent-friends and I were relieved to have our minds off what our children were supposed to be (but weren’t necessarily) learning. But August came quickly and with it the heat of the school reopening debate. On local listservs and on social media, everyone seemed to be losing their calm and their manners. If you wanted your child in school, you didn’t care about teachers’ lives. If you wanted schools to stay closed, if you opted for remote only, or organized an exclusive pod, your privilege had blinded you to the plight of the families who rely on schools for nutrition, social services, and child care. 

As Black Americans, my husband and I are acutely aware that the pandemic has disproportionately impacted our communities. Many of our friends are extremely worried about any in-person learning absent a vaccine. We carefully considered the risks and benefits of returning to the physical school, ultimately deciding that the benefits outweigh the risks. It is a personal decision that took into account low local infection rates, the confidence we have in our school administration, the hybrid model that allows for small class sizes and social distancing, and — importantly — the fact that we don’t have high-risk family members living with us. 

Other families will make other calculations, other choices, no more or less valid.

Among my fellow Brooklyn moms, many of whom have kids at the same public school my son attends, there has been a pretty solid consensus that children needed to return to the classroom. For all of our efforts and for all of our resources many of us have — high-speed internet, computers, printers, books, games, art supplies, and even in-home childcare — school could not be recreated at home. 

Our kids weren’t learning what they needed to learn; they weren’t thriving and neither were we. Some of us have jobs in essential fields. Others have very demanding schedules that make working while educating a child impossible. All of us are worn out and overextended. Reliance on extended family strained relationships; babysitters and nannies did not cut it. We have mostly remained uncommitted to tutors or expensive pods; although one mom told me her child was offered a spot in a pod for $1,200 a week! Instead we held our breath to see what our schools would offer.  

We all consumed reopening news hungrily. When the education department’s parent survey came out late in the summer, showing the majority of parents wanted in-person classes, I felt more confident that our preference would become a reality. Then came announcements that parochial schools and some private schools would open fully; I was both encouraged and envious. 

When we finally received details about class assignments, I tried to be upbeat as I shared with my son his teacher’s name and two-day-a-week in-person schedule. I did not have the heart to get into the details about mask-wearing or quiet classroom lunches. I did not want to tell him that there will be no field trips or school performances. Or that a return to school does not mean coronavirus is over. 

Our school recently organized a Zoom about campus reopening plans. More than 400 parents logged on. The principal walked us through numerous slides detailing reopening protocols. It went on for over two hours, covering arrival and dismissal, sanitizing procedures, and mask requirements. Families are responsible for taking their children’s temperatures every day; the school will do only random temperature checks. They impressed upon us all the responsibility we have to protect each other. We were told classes could be as large as 15 students, more than I was hoping for. All the while I was texting furiously with my mom friends. One of them, still on the fence about in-person learning, found the litany of safety measures overwhelming. Another took screen shots of the slides to review later. We all saw clearly that this was not a school year we could have imagined, and we wondered how our kids would adjust. 

We can only hope that ZZ and his peers will have a few weeks of in-person classes before another shutdown. That way the children get used to their new teachers and classmates and have a chance to feel like they are in a new grade. The children need each other, their teachers, and the community of school. My husband and I waited for two years to get our son into his current school because we felt it was the right fit for him. It has a diverse student body, a strong academic reputation, and, importantly, is run by highly capable African American administrators who understand little black boys like our son. It is our unicorn school — high achieving, majority black, mixed income, with many beloved teachers and an active community of parents. 

As eager as we are to have ZZ back in school, my husband and I are genuinely upset that he is being robbed of the full experience. But we have learned from the shortcomings of the spring and, thankfully, our family is well positioned to fill in the gaps. Many families, though, are struggling to cope with all that this pandemic has brought, with illness or loss, with dwindling resources, and insufficient child care. On top of all that, they must learn to navigate a new remote world heavily reliant on costly hardware and high-speed internet. When I think about what school will look like this strange year, I worry that the options available will not be enough to support all of New York City’s children. 

Saratu Ghartey, an attorney and government administrator, is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and of Boston University. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and young son.