‘A Herculean task.’ Sacramento teachers try to juggle online instruction, parenting

Teachers around the Sacramento region are returning to the virtual classroom once again, rebooting their laptops and logging onto Zoom or Google Classroom.

But just out of their students’ view, often sitting at the same table or within earshot, are more children – their own children.

Some children are old enough to peg away at assignments on their own. Others are young enough to be sitting in their mother or father’s lap.

The reality is that many Sacramento educators are teaching their students and their own children at the same time.

Nearly 11,000 teachers in Yolo, Placer, Sacramento and El Dorado counties – or roughly 40 percent – have at least one child younger than 16 years old living with them, according to the latest census figures, which cover the period from 2014 through 2018. Most of those children are between the ages of 5 and 15, meaning they’re likely spending their days in online learning settings as their parents teach.

Damian Harmony, a Latin teacher in the Sacramento City Unified School District, is a single father of two children, ages 8 and 10. He described distance learning in the spring as “crisis learning.”

Since March, the John F. Kennedy High School teacher gathered his two children at the dining table, where they all work and tune into online classes..

“Just the noise factor alone makes it a Herculean task,” he said.

Harmony worked with his son’s teacher to reduce assignments for his son, who is on the autism spectrum. For every 14 assignments, once he mastered the subject, his son would complete six.

“His teacher and I pared down the lessons, identified the skills we were aiming for,” Harmony said. “Luckily his dad is a teacher.”

The work didn’t stop there; Harmony’s students would often see their class assignments time stamped at midnight.

It’s still summer break for Harmony, as Sacramento City Unified begin later this week. But Harmony said he’s hardly had a summer break, using much of his summer to plan curriculum. He puts in about 11 hours each day to prepare for the school year.

“I am working really, really hard so I only have to work really hard during the school year,” he said.

Harmony recognizes his students face their own challenges. COVID-19 continues to exacerbate inequities between students. Some are caring for their younger siblings during instruction as their parents work outside the home.

“Some of them face trauma at home, and some of my students would come in asking me to help repair their eyeglasses or ask me for some (dried) mangoes,” he said. “They don’t have that anymore.”

It’s unclear when, or if, students will return to classrooms this school year. If Harmony returns back to campus before his children return to Washington Unified in West Sacramento, that would further complicate his schedule.

But Harmony, a historian, says that his “history barometer” tells him his children may be sitting across from him at the dining table for several more months.

“My time is pulled in two different directions,” he said. “I can’t sacrifice these students for my kids, nor can I sacrifice my kids for these students.”

‘Cautiously optimistic’

Kara Synhorst, a Luther Burbank High School teacher and mother of two children, said she is starting the school year “cautiously optimistic.”

Synhorst teaches International Baccalaureate English, a rigorous program designed to offer students a boost in their GPA and college credits if they pass the exams. May exams in the program were canceled. It’s unclear how and when students will take exams this school year.

But Synhorst said her students gain knowledge regardless of the results. A passionate teacher, she said she is filled with excitement when her students pass their IB tests and earn college English credit. In the past, she invested hours helping with SAT test preparation and college applications.

Synhorst wonders where that will fit with her new schedule. Her children are in kindergarten and seventh grade. Her older child is gifted and severely autistic, Synhorst said. Transitioning from one teacher in sixth grade to seven teachers this year was challenging enough.

“(They) find Zoom exhausting,” Synhorst said of her oldest child. “I am very concerned that they will have a lot of synchronous learning that will overlap with mine.”

Sacramento City Unified has not started the 2020-21 school year, but when Synhorst saw the schedule, she said she panicked.

“In April, I had a lot of options for how I presented material,” she said. “I was doing a lot of asynchronous learning, and it was crisis time. A lot of students weren’t as engaged as I wanted them to be.”

But the fall will be different. Synhorst expects students to engage more, and be online everyday.

“I am on my computer three to four hours straight, and I can’t see how I will fix a technological problem,” she said.

It takes a village

Synhorst has some relief. Her partner, an administrator at California State University, Sacramento is also working from home. And Synhorst’s mother lives about a mile away and will help her kindergartner with distance learning.

Other Sacramento-area teachers are paying for childcare.

Katie Anderson, a teacher in the Elk Grove Unified School District and mother of two young children, relies on a daycare facility to help her son Jack do his distance learning. Anderson pays $250 a week for the childcare services, where Jack, 7, sits on Zoom and works on assignments.

“We opted for the support so that Jack has the support he needs, and he does better doing (distance learning) with someone else helping him,” Anderson said. “And I can devote my undivided attention to my students.”

In a survey by the Morning Consult for the Bipartisan Policy Center, more than 70 percent of parents reported that their child care program closed or limited how many students it would serve. The survey also found that 14 percent of child care centers and 8 percent of home-based providers permanently closed across the U.S. Those numbers are expected to climb.

“For business to fully recover and for parents to return to work child care is a critical factor,” said Linda Smith, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Early Childhood Initiative. “To prevent catastrophic loss of child care infrastructure, financial support needs to be predictable and sustainable.”

While many parents seek childcare, nearly 80 percent of U.S. parents surveyed in August said they were concerned their child could increase their exposure to COVID-19.

Harmony shares custody of his children with his ex-wife, a neonatal nurse, an added transition that many families face mid-week. He’s concerned for the teachers who don’t have additional support, and worried that families across the state are pushing schools to reopen sooner than they should.

“We need better leadership that isn’t kicking the ball up to the county and state,” he said. “We don’t have public stewardship.”

One teacher has requested leave to care for a child under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, according to Sacramento City Unified.