First, we don’t blame the teachers. They are doing their best with no support from their leadership.
My daughter is in the fourth grade this year. She is a dual-language Chinese immersion student ostensibly enrolled at Southland Elementary in Riverton.
Rather than focus this past summer on building a plan for a majority online school year due to the coronavirus pandemic, Jordan School District decided to plan for three different education plans: in-person, hybrid, and online-only. Following the science and evidence of this dangerous disease, our daughter is online-only.
She receives “live” video-conference classes for a total of 40 minutes per day, Monday through Thursday only, with 20 minutes each of math and reading. The rest she is left to do on her own though workbooks, online-programs, etc. She is one of 80 students for whom her teacher is responsible. We have been waiting since the beginning of September for any curriculum surrounding her Chinese immersion language program. We are still waiting.
Through all of this, we count ourselves among the lucky in that we, her parents, are able to work from home and help our daughter as we can. We have been fortunate enough to have means to supplement her current meager education with tutoring and other online classes. We do not think it a stretch to suggest that many other families are not so fortunate.
With no leadership or assistance from the state, school districts and teachers have been forced to slap together a fragile card-tower of programs that focus on in-person students. Online students are an afterthought. We understand that some students do need in-person classes, but feel most would be safer online-only and, with a focus from state and local leaders on the creation and acceptance of a comprehensive online-only curriculum, student learning would benefit as well.
Justin Griffiths, Riverton
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/letters/2020/10/25/letter-online-students/
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