ROUGH LANDING
On R.I. students’ first day of tapping into school from home, some connections are smooth, some not so much. In the end, two families find, they smoothed out the wrinkles and are grateful that learning will go on — and that they have unexpected family time.
By Linda Borg and Madeleine List Journal Staff Writers
Sofia Vasconcelos, a student at the International Charter School in Pawtucket, works her way through an ICS language lesson on her computer after having trouble getting logged into the system. On the wall above the screen of her Chromebook is a photo of her classmates and teacher. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL PHOTOS / KRIS CRAIG]
Cathryn Vasconcelos checks in with her kindergartner, Sofia, as her husband, Henrique, assists their third-grader, Lydia, in her lessons via computer on Monday.
International Charter School third-grader Lydia Vasconcelos works on her schoolwork by computer on Monday. [THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / KRIS CRAIG]
EAST PROVIDENCE — To say that the first morning of distance learning didn’t go smoothly for the Vasconcelos family would be an understatement.
The parents, Cathryn and Henrique, couldn’t log their youngest daughter into Google classroom, despite the fact that mom works at her daughter’s school, the International Charter School, and dad is an electrician and computer-savvy.
Lydia, the third-grader, had no trouble jumping online, but her 6-year-old sister, Sofia, couldn’t. Henrique tried everything, including disabling the parental-control buttons. Nothing.
Cathryn was having a meltdown:
“I was screaming at my kids and sweating so badly. I’m a diabetic and my blood pressure was dropping. It was a two-hour process.”
The Pawtucket charter school teaches students in English and Portuguese and English and Spanish. Although Henrique is fluent in Portuguese, he couldn’t figure out where on the lesson plan Lydia was supposed to type in her answers.
Downstairs, the family’s two dogs, a mutt and a pint-sized designer dog, were squabbling, and Cathryn’s colleagues, some of them equally as frustrated, were blowing up her phone.
Finally, Cathryn texted her daughter’s teacher and got a password to the site.
Cathryn was so busy helping her daughter, she wound up being two hours late for work.
As a social worker, she is supposed to set up meetings with children with special needs, an intensive, one-on-one process. Now, she has to do that remotely, a big shift because it involves working closely with families, some of whom have complex needs.
Lydia and Sofia, a kindergartner, were the calmest people in the household. Monday morning, Lydia sat quietly at her turquoise desk. Sofia was curled up on a fluffy white pillow, laptop in hand.
Lydia was working on an assignment in Portuguese, something called “open inquiry.” Her morning was supposed to begin with a video from her teacher, something about butterflies dancing, but she couldn’t connect.
One of her first assignments called for Lydia’s classmate to say hello in Portuguese.
“This day 23 of March 2020” each of the students posted.
“I’m happy today because there is no school,” one boy wrote.
To which his teacher wrote, “Good morning, Matthew. There is going to be school today. It’s virtual.”
Lydia is fine with distance learning because she doesn’t have to leave the house. Heck, she doesn’t have to get dressed.
“And I don’t have to eat disgusting school food,” she said, adding, “I miss seeing my friends, but I have Messenger Kid so I’m catching up with Julie and Ann online. Yesterday I almost cried. My second favorite place in the whole world is school.”
But Henrique, who was laid off three weeks ago, sees a silver lining amidst the turmoil.
“We’ll find a rhythm,” he said. “This is a time in our lives we’ll never get back. All of this family time, it’s a big blessing.”
The morning went a little more smoothly for Tanisha Dennis and her daughter, Saige, a fifth-grader at the Lillian Feinstein Elementary School at Sackett Street in Providence.
Saige joined a Zoom meeting with her teacher at 8 a.m., but Dennis noticed that her daughter was one of only nine students in attendance out of a class of about 24.
The teacher spoke to the students for a short while and mentioned that she would call the parents of the students who weren’t logged on, Dennis said. Afterwards, her daughter worked on a few assignments through Google Classroom and spent some time using a math program called Zearn.
Dennis said she was OK with her daughter’s remote-learning setup, as long as it was temporary. She said she hoped that the ordeal would inspire a newfound appreciation among parents for their children’s teachers.
“Of course I feel as though nothing replaces instructional time in the class, but this is really good for what we’re going through,” she said. “When we do go back to school, I cannot wait to send her teachers some flowers and some goodies and say, ‘Thank you.’” mlist@ providencejournal.com
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