Kansas school closures launch mass homeschool experiment
Kansas school buildings may be closed for the rest of the school year, a state task force announced Thursday, but teaching and learning should continue.
How that happens — online lessons, take-home packets or small in-person classes — will be up to individual districts, the task force said.
But one message was clear during Thursday’s virtual news conference: Kansas parents will have a much larger and more direct role in their children’s education these next several weeks.
Gov. Laura Kelly’s order to close all public and private schools for the rest of the school year will launch Kansas into a sudden and wholesale homeschool experiment. Teachers will continue to guide instruction, set lesson plans and communicate with students, but the bulk of education will happen in homes.
That’s going to be a child care challenge, to say the least, for working parents. And it’s likely to widen the achievement gap between low-income children and their more advantaged peers, whose families may be better equipped to take on teaching responsibilities.
“It’s going to be hard to do this differently, specifically in the places that are a lot bigger,” said Tabatha Rosproy, an early childhood teacher from Winfield who helped draft the state’s learning plan in the wake of school closures.
“When I talk to the families in my classroom, I like them to just think about: Who are the people that you can count on, even outside of family. A friend who’s a stay-at-home mom but has only one or two kids of her own — could she help you a little bit?”
The task force is stressing “less is more” with daily lessons.
“We are not expecting seven hours of content delivery at home,” said Cindy Couchman, assistant superintendent of Buhler schools.
A sample schedule for a kindergartner, for example, calls for 45 total minutes of daily learning time delivered in five- to 10-minute time spans. That time could include reading, online work and handouts, along with time for art, music and physical education.
Middle- and high-school students should get three hours a day of learning time, which could include reading, writing, recorded lectures, handouts or online discussion boards.
The biggest and most immediate challenge for urban districts like Wichita, with nearly 50,000 students of vastly different backgrounds, abilities and economic needs, will be matching families to community resources.
State officials are urging schools to send technology devices such as laptops and iPads home with students, and to partner with local internet providers to get families set up with free or low-cost access at home. That will be a herculean task.
Dyanne Smokorowski, an innovation and technology leader for Andover schools, urged educators not to rely solely on technology. For young children, she said, math work could be smeared in shaving cream on a cookie sheet or written with a stick in the back yard. The point is to be creative and think differently.
Parents will have to be creative to weather this new world of sudden homeschooling. They’ll have to rely on friends and neighbors, communicate more with teachers, and be patient with their children.
There’s going to be a lot to learn — and not just for the kids.
This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 4:57 AM.
