Extra level of concern as schools start up

As Rachel Rakunas contemplates her daughter Peyton’s return to school this fall, she worries about masks.

Peyton, who’s deaf and starting first grade, understands what her teachers are saying by reading lips, which aren’t visible behind a face covering.

“My issue is not so much the threat of COVID — although that’s scary, of course — but it’s the masks,” Rakunas said. “Imagine a hearing-impaired person who relies on reading lips — she can have a whole conversation with me when she has no implants on and no sound because she’s so good at reading lips because she depends on that every day.”

The Cy-Fair mom is among many parents in northwest Harris County concerned for their children with special needs as school districts make plans to start school.

Rakunas has decided to keep Peyton home for the beginning of the school year, which starts Sept. 8 at her Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District campus.

In Spring ISD, school starts Monday but will be online for at least a month.

Misty Stevens-Runyon, mother of three students in Spring ISD and a college student, said she chose to keep her children home because she and her youngest son have compromised immune systems. She’s worried about how her children with special needs will adapt to online learning and how her family will manage the process.

Rakunas said that while she owns her own business and can build part of her schedule around helping her daughter, she knows this is not always possible for other parents of children with disabilities who may have chosen to send them to school. Rakunas has set up a workspace for her daughter within her home in the meantime.

She said she has yet to have questions answered about how exactly virtual education will work for her daughter’s disability.

“Hopefully they’ll be able to work fairly independently, that’s my understanding,” she said.

Cy-Fair ISD parents can opt to switch their student to either in-person learning or virtual learning every grading period, but Rakunas said she is not sure whether she will choose to send her daughter to school until she gets more information.

Angela Bickford, a former special education teacher for Cy-Fair ISD and a freelance writer, said she is sending her two special needs students to school for the sake of their education.

Bickford said she and her mother have been advocating for safer precautions and more care taken for special education students, who she said have less success learning virtually.

Bickford began crafting a workspace for both of her children before COVID-19 came to the Houston area, preparing for the multiple times they would already be learning from home, sometimes for weeks during a semester, because of how easily they get sick.

She said her daughter, who is in the LIFE Skills program (Learning in Functional Environments) at Cy-Fair, did not understand that school was stopped because of COVID-19 in the spring, nor does she understand working from home.

“To her, we were still on spring break and she hasn’t been able to realize that this is home and we have school here now,” Bickford said. “It’s not just helping them a little bit extra with their work or modifying it to make it a little easier. When you have a child in LIFE Skills, it’s a completely different ballgame.”

Bickford said she also feels privileged to be able to help her children while she works from home, though she knows that shecannot be a full-time teacher for both of her children.

“I may have been a special education teacher, but that does not mean I can teach my daughter,” she said.

More than anything, Rakunas said she wants more information so she can help her child ahead of time rather than on time.

“All parents are confused right now, but when you add in some special need, it’s very overwhelming,” she said. “I have the ability to keep her home, too, so there are parents that have to send their kid back and just hope for the best, and I feel for them.” chevall.pryce@chron.com