By Candice Richardson, The Seattle Medium
With the fall quarter ending, many special needs students and families who find school challenging in the best of times are facing the reality of the impact that COVID-19 and remote learning are having on their daily lives.
Due to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, school districts throughout the nation are required to continue providing a free and accessible public education (FAPE) to students with disabilities. While this requirement hasn’t gone away with the current pandemic, the way districts are able to enforce it certainly has been affected with recent school closures and remote/distance learning.
It’s just one of the many challenges policymakers, community influencers, and other stakeholders are taking under advisement as they prep for the Winter Quarter.
“I think remote school is very difficult for a lot of kids, and can be particularly difficult for students who are ‘neurodivergent’ or otherwise sensitive to stimuli,” states Washington State Representative Jesse Johnson. “For students who require a one-to-one aide in the classroom, it’s essentially impossible for them to do school without a parent helping them full-time, which obviously isn’t possible for a lot of families.”
“Many families are still working, whether that is still going into work or working from home,” adds Representative Mia Gregerson. “Each has their own unique challenges. In both ways, guardians now have to balance their own jobs with the education and socio-emotional needs of their student(s).”
After the pandemic forced early school closures last Spring, Washington’s Office of Public Instruction (OSPI) had anticipated some of these issues and formed teams to create guidelines for the 2020/2021 school year – especially as it relates to students of color.
“We know every family situation and feeling about the current pandemic, while a shared experience across the globe, are as unique as the needs of the students,” OSPI states in their guidebook, Reopening Washington Schools 2020: Special Education Guidance. “Honoring the fears, challenges, diversities, and preferences of families is critical to the success of students with disabilities in reopening our schools.”
The guidebook goes on to state that districts should take into account the impact of historical oppression, generational trauma, and systemic racism and ableism on families of students with disabilities.
However, as historically with communities of color, that’s easier said rather than done.
Joy Sebe is the Programs Manager for Open Doors for Multicultural Families (ODMS). Her organization specializes in providing resources for African American families as well as immigrants (both documented and undocumented), refugees, and non-English speaking. It is also one of the two Parent Training and Information Centers in the state required under IDEA to help families of kids from birth to the age of 26 who have a disability.
What we’re finding is that there’s this confluence of factors that already existed before COVID. But now they’re really intensified during COVID,” says Sebe, who says those factors include the need for food and rental assistance.
“I remember in July we had served 700-plus families in meeting emergency food and rental assistance…but that number has just been climbing.”
Sebe says because so many families include parents who are essential workers or had jobs at the airport or as independent contractors working for Uber or Lyft their income has been zeroed out or significantly cut.
Adding to the stress is the digital divide. Sebe says while school districts throughout the state have provided digital devices for their students to use at home, access to the hardware is only one part of the problem.
“The big one is digital literacy,” states Sebe. “A lot of schools have given students laptops but the laptops are not very high quality [and can break down]. Then there’s this need to know how to use the computer, know how to use the software to even access the school meeting. And that is a real challenge and it’s keeping students from just accessing their school.”
It’s an issue that can be felt by any student, but is disproportionately affecting students of color, immigrants and those with disabilities. Without an educator in the room, students who are impacted need the support of their family in order to work the equipment.
“Another component is language access,” Sebe says. “So a lot of the schools before weren’t providing information to families in their native language.”
She adds that it takes nine years of formal education in order to become proficient in another language. Adding that to “executive functioning challenges” like utilizing the appropriate software and signing into online accounts to turn in assignments on deadline when not fully being able to understand the instructions is turning remote learning into a non-starter.
Gregerson has personally taken up the digital divide challenge, while her colleague Representative Tina Orwall is working on providing language access through legislation. Both are working with other legislators and OSPI to fill the gaps as best they can through the complexities of serving marginalized communities in various school districts.
“Some districts have students with special needs back in the school building, and OSPI has directed districts to prioritize students for whom remote learning is a challenge because of their IEPs (Individual Education Program),” says Gregerson. “Some school districts are using their bus drivers and already established routes to provide meals to the students along their route. There are school districts that, in coordination with PTA or community-based organizations, are doing food pick-ups throughout the week at different locations within the school district. Others, still, are connecting with local food kitchens and pantries to ensure that there is enough food to meet the needs of our students.”
Community organizations like ODMS who specialize in BIPOC communities are also doing what they can to fill the gaps, but with limited resources. They’re often in the nearly impossible position of being asked to fill the cracks, but doing so in a way that is cost-neutral or cost-saving. It makes the need to prioritize who receives what first a truly difficult and heartbreaking task.
During our conversation, Sebe reads letter after letter detailing the delicate juggling act so many families are facing. It’s a reminder that while we’re all experiencing this pandemic, not everyone is experiencing it equitably.
There’s a letter from a mother who’s out of work after losing clients during COVID-19 who writes about how her son’s learning disability and short attention span makes it difficult for him to sit at the computer for a significant amount of time. She’s trying to figure out how to assist him in school, while also trying to figure out how to keep food on the table and the rent paid.
Another letter outlines the frustration of a couple who both worked at restaurants and now work less than 20 hours a week but have two children at home, one of which who is disabled. They have no computer or stable wi-fi because it is too expensive for them at the moment. They also don’t qualify for federal aid.
The final letter is from a student who has to help their disabled brother login into class because their mother has a hard time with new technology.
“Sometimes I can help him log in to class, but now I’m busy with classes too,” the student writes. “I can’t be there all the time. Even when he can log in it doesn’t mean that he’s learning because of his disability. He needs support and I cannot do it all.”
Sebe says ODMS currently has a feedback form for parents and families to fill out so that they can get a full understanding of the unique challenges facing the communities they serve. The report will be made publicly available on their website by the first week of January and they’ll be sharing their findings with the legislature and other stakeholders.
“People [as in policymakers] understand that you need to develop a really robust communication channel to the families and communities that that the schools are supposed to serve and that includes individual students and families [themselves]; but also there’s a really healthy ecosystem, specifically in King County, of community-based organizations that have our ear to the ground and can give them a lot of guidance. But right now, they don’t have that system in place. And hopefully, they’ll create one,” Sebe says.
“There’s really robust Federal and State laws that protect students with disabilities and their rights to access an education, and they’re just not getting [that education],” she concluded.
