Advocating For Continued Access to Education Through Remote Learning: One Family’s Experience
All families have had to make tough decisions about their children’s educational setting as they are returning to school this fall. Not only have they had to consider their academic needs, but also their social and emotional well-being and their health and safety. For families of children with disabilities these are ongoing concerns, but in the past there were very limited options. One mom shared her perspective on how the pandemic expanded access to educational opportunities through remote learning for both of her children. Lori Ann Dotson posted this letter on her local education Facebook community page with the intent of broadening the discussion to include children with disabilities:
I am the parent of two beautiful kiddos, too young for vaccination. My youngest is immunocompromised (requires weekly IG infusions), has around the clock home nursing, and is trach/ventilator dependent. We pulled both our kids from school at the start of the COVID-19 reports – a couple of weeks before things went virtual in March 2020, not knowing the consequence to their placements. We made the decision because we recognized that given our involvement and commitment to their education, their eventual school success was assured (at a magnet or our local school) – but that they wouldn’t be available for those opportunities if their health was compromised.
It was amazing to me to see the many things that were not available to kids prior to COVID-19 (namely virtual access to the classroom) spring into being as families of typically developing kids demanded them. While disappointed that the range of options during COVID-19 hadn’t been available during other times we requested (during long hospitalizations, for example), it was exciting to see the ways in which the system, albeit imperfectly, could stretch, and opportunities for equity, inclusion and belonging that were previously out of reach, were now at hand. Both kids received remote support (to varying degrees of success) until the last couple of weeks of the year – when at the urging of their pediatrician (who manages some of the most medically complex patients at local children’s hospital, our oldest returned to live instruction at his home school. We took to calling my son’s virtual teacher Saint, a moniker that later carried over to his site-based teacher. All that is to say – neither situation was ideal, but empathizing with their limitations as decision makers – we felt supported and heard by the kids’ teachers and admin.
This year we have decided to have our child who is ventilator dependent participate in home hospital school (an option for some medically complex kids, that I have not seen discussed in these forums) and at least as of today, our son will return to the site-based instruction at his local school. My husband and I will continue to evaluate how best to keep our kids safe daily – which we did long before the pandemic, and if our luck holds, will have the opportunity to do long after.
As a parent who navigates a world that presents never ending threats to my kid’s safety every day, I hope those that are feeling a similar urgency now will join me in advocating for choice and access after typically developing kids are no longer at risk.
Thank you to Lori Ann Dotson, Ph.D., proud mother of daughter, Phin, seven years old, and her brother, Atticus, ten years old. She reported that responses to her Facebook post were invariably positive. Her post shifted the tenor of the conversation to be more empathetic to everyone involved in these challenging times in education during the pandemic.