Dont tell my 11-year-old son Im holed up in my room, pondering whether people are hoarding Ding-Dongs and reclaiming my laptop from his desk. Its a common theme during this COVID-19 pandemic: adults told to work from home are losing their minds as they fight for devices and bandwidth while helping their children learn remotely. At last count, at least 124,000 K-12 public and private schools in the U.S. were closed for in-person schooling, affecting more than 55 million students.

As many have said, this isnt home schooling, where parents prepare ahead of time to teach their children. We talk about virtual learning, said Celeste M. Malone, coordinator of the school psychology program at the Howard University School of Education in Washington D.C., but this is emergency distance education.

How families feel about this upending of school rhythms depends on many things their job situation; the impact of the virus on their circle of loved ones; the content their school is providing; the time and tools they have for online learning; and even how many kids they have and their ages and learning needs. Its one thing to comfort a 16-year-old who is self-directed. Its quite another to help multiple children under 10. Then there are people whose children have special learning needs and often need more intensive support, like my son, who has Down syndrome.

This has prompted the expected outpouring of internet memes and horror stories about stepping out of the shower just as your child comes running with the iPad featuring his entire class on Zoom.

There is another line of thinking, though, that Ive seen circulating on social media or blogs that doesnt sit right with me. It goes something like: This is too much, for families and for schools, and Im not participating in online learning. People will emphasize how much learning and wonder can take place simply by cooking together or doing crafts and art. This is true, as long as parents have time for that. And no one can argue with a familys decision to put less emphasis on academics to focus on survival, especially in the midst of job losses or health concerns.

But underneath some of these arguments is the implication that public schooling is like a sour-tasting medicine being thrust upon us by overzealous educators, when in fact it is one of our most precious civil rights. We owe it to all children, but especially to students of color, those living in poverty or students with disabilities, to hold schools to high standards and look at how educators are making remote learning work.

No one knows yet what distance learning approaches might lead to the best student outcomes, but the research arm of the Department of Education is synthesizing data from families, educators and researchers. In the meantime, schools need to address equity of access first. A Pew Research study from 2018 found that about 15% of U.S. households lacked high-speed internet access, with disparities more pronounced for those with low incomes or who are black or Hispanic. Schools have made major efforts to get students connected, but heartbreaking stories still abound: eager students who have devices but no internet, or others who painstakingly type out assignments on smartphones because thats all they have.

Everything were saying is an issue has always been an issue, said Malone. Ive had longstanding issues with schools doing heavily online communication or using the web to submit work just because this is the wave of the future and people need to keep up. Now were seeing there are real issues and parents arent just being oppositional.

Some districts took weeks to implement formal distance learning, providing printed review packets until they were able to figure out how to supply food to families who qualify, and then how to distribute tens of thousands of loaner devices or get children connected to Wi-Fi.

Offers of free Internet service from local providers dont work for families whose living situation is fluid or who live in rural areas, so many districts are focusing on mobile hot spots, setting up Wi-Fi inside school buses or encouraging people to use school parking lots. In addition, districts including Los Angeles Unified, the countrys second largest, and Dallas ISD have partnerships with PBS stations to livestream programming and communication.

At Baltimore County Public Schools, where almost half the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Ryan Imbriale is the executive director for learning technology. He said his district was able to hit the ground running because theyve had a learning management system in place for seven years, along with continual professional development. The district is also mailing out paper packets to those who need them. When we come out on the other side, he said, we want to know that all of our kids are engaged.

In the meantime, he said, the focus on technology is paying off. (Students in grades 6 to 12 already had school-issued laptops.) When you get all of these middle school kids in a virtual room together, Imbriale said, its really powerful to see the connection they have with each other and their teacher."

An emphasis on professional development is key, said Joseph South, the chief learning officer for the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE. One of my big concerns, he said, is that were going to establish a baseline of what remote learning looks like that reflects essentially one or two days of educator learning.

Thats not what it could or should be, he said. The educators I know are trying to come up to speed, learning three or four systems, translating face-to-face teaching to online, learning how to communicate and then send assignments its a crushing workload, he said.

Teachers are also spending more time communicating with students. A recent survey from EdWeek Research Center found that 74% of all teachers communicated with most of their students either weekly or daily as of April 8, compared with 52% in late March.

Though this is a lot for teachers, its good news for those concerned about students basic needs. A crucial element of feeling emotionally safe is feeling connected with your school community, said John B. King Jr., a former education secretary who now leads The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on educational equity. He said schools in the Phoenix Union District in Arizona started an effort called Every Student, Every Day, where staff connect with every student to identify challenges and offer support.

The relationship between teachers and students is the true core of education, King said, and efforts like holding virtual educator office hours, is another way to get it right. Great teachers and great schools can make all the difference for kids, King said. By the time I was 12 years old, I lost both my parents to illness. And I can unequivocally say that my teachers saved my life.

Sergio Garcia, the principal of Artesia High School in Los Angeles County, is also prioritizing outreach. I reached him through Karin Chenoweth, writer-in-residence at The Education Trust, who is producing a series of podcasts on extraordinary educators during the pandemic. Garcia said every student and parent at the school, which is 80% Latino and had a graduation rate above 98% last year, has his cellphone number, and theyve been checking in often. A lot of districts are doing enrichment activities only, Garcia said last week. We are continuing to educate. Last year, every senior applied to college.

Staff and counselors checking on students have discovered a trick to reaching those who dont respond: Text them after 9 p.m. If you send them a text at that hour, he said, a 30-second response is a long time. During the day, he said, a large majority are caring for siblings or have other responsibilities.

A willingness to meet families where they are is appreciated by parents, especially those lifting mountains to help their kids. Ay-Shia Baldwin-Jacobs works full time as a manager for Chick-fil-A in the Charlotte, N.C., area. Drive-through and delivery business is booming, so shes an essential worker. Shes been taking her 8-year-old daughter, Malene, with her to work, where her shifts sometimes start at 7:45 a.m. and end at 6 p.m. Malene works on a laptop and her mom sets alarms so she can run over to assist her for a few minutes at key times.

Baldwin-Jacobs is happy with how accommodating her daughters second-grade teacher has been. She brought my daughters work to my job one time because I dont have a car, Baldwin-Jacobs said. At first, she was worried her daughter would lose ground but said teachers at the school, part of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system, are very proactive and very involved with all of their students. If Malene cant make it to the classroom Zoom session, the teacher will meet with her another time.

Delivering instruction remotely to very young children presents a unique challenge. They are sometimes pre-literate and it requires a much greater amount of parental involvement, said South of ISTE, which is another equity issue not often discussed. More affluent parents are in a better position to assist their children than lower-income families.

Schools seem to recognize that, and many are either not grading or are using a modified grading or credit system. Malone agrees with that approach, because were not grading based on learning, were grading based on other factors like access and space to work. But teachers should still be giving feedback so children can learn, she said.

The experts I spoke with were also very concerned about students with disabilities falling through the cracks. It isnt easy to deliver certain therapeutic supports online or to connect with students who have language impairments. Im pleased with what our public charter school is doing for my son; he loves being on Zoom with his general education classmates or special education teachers.

But some schools and parents are feeling at a loss. Educating All Learners, a new online resource from a consortium of technology innovators and disability groups, is hoping to be part of the solution. The site curates resources, hosts forums and has practical case studies. Saying, We dont know how, or We cant do this is not an acceptable response to the education of complex learners, said Erin Mote, executive director of InnovateEDU, a founding partner.

As with most things in education, it ultimately falls on individual teachers to save the day. Larry Ferlazzo, a teacher, author and blogger for Ed Week, hosts a series of podcasts about teaching during the pandemic. One of the first episodes featured four teachers from around the country.

They said their students uniformly craved connection and told them they wanted to get back to school. David Sherrin, a social studies teacher at Scarsdale High School in Westchester County, N.Y., found a silver lining: We now know for sure, he said, that the way we were doing school was the best way it could be done. Face-to-face learning, that is where education really happens.

He advised other teachers to focus on bringing joy. The more we can make the work joyful and creative, said Sherrin, who wrote a book about authentic assessments, that will be one of the most meaningful things we can do for them.

Vicki Vila is a freelance editor and writer in Charlotte, N.C. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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