Schools Lack Vital Resources For Virtual Learning

LEXINGTON, Ky.- Circumstances requiring virtual learning due to COVID-19 are leading many schools to combat problems they have never faced before. One main source of these challenges stems from the lack of technological resources available to schools at the beginning of this year, especially student Chromebooks and Wi-Fi hotspots.

“We had about 90 first graders and about 70 kindergarteners who did not have Chromebooks. In addition to that, across the school we had about 110 kids who didn’t have access to the internet, so we were waiting on hotspots from the district,” said Kevin Disney, the principal of Cardinal Valley Elementary School. “We’re a school of about 550, so we had right at 250 kids who couldn’t do what we were doing, almost 40 percent.”

There are many different reasons for this lack of materials, and Fayette County Public Schools are not unique in this struggle.

“I guess we got our order in a little late, but then also, pretty much every district in the country ordered Chromebooks over the summer,” Disney said. “From what I understand, some of the factories that manufacture components for Chromebooks were shut down due to COVID. Not only did they have this big backlog of orders, but they couldn’t get materials.”

Although more resources have become available throughout the first few weeks of teaching, many schools are still in need.

“There’s still, I think, eight or nine thousand Chromebooks that we are waiting for in the district,” Disney said.

Teachers throughout the district have been finding ways to work around this lack of resources by sending workbooks home with their students, posting videos to YouTube, and using virtual resources, such as ClassDojo, to communicate with students and parents via smartphone. Even still, some teachers are struggling to meet the differing needs of their students.

“I do have one extreme case where a student needs a lot of differentiation but, because she comes from a privileged household she already had the technology necessary for me to do one-on-one live lessons,” said Whitney Dargle, a kindergarten teacher at Lansdowne Elementary School. “Then you battle with yourself because of the inequity that you see and you can’t really do anything about. There are students that need me one-on-one and they don’t have the technology for me to do that yet. They might have a smart TV where they can watch YouTube, but they can’t use their mom’s phone to Facetime with me because she’s working a 12-hour shift. It’s just not feasible for me to be face-to-face with them.”

For the few schools that were not severely lacking resources at the beginning of the year, simply maintaining their resources has been difficult.

“About four years ago, our school got a grant through the Kloiber Foundation that helped our school go one-to-one with Chromebooks … So we were in a decent place but … these aren’t really machines that are made to last too terribly long … especially when they’re being used daily by 5 through 10-year-olds,” said Lindsey Patrick, the library media specialist and school technology coordinator at Mary Todd Elementary School. “What we’re running into now is lots of them that are in need of repair. We have currently 115 Chromebooks that are at the warehouse waiting for repair.”

It is evident that the concerns of faculty members do not end with the acquisition of resources.

“Sometimes we do everything right with the technology and it still doesn’t work, so that’s very frustrating,” Patrick said. “The Chromebooks that we have and the Zoom platform are not always super friendly, so our main mode of teaching and reaching our students is not always reliable, which is frustrating all around.”

Despite these challenges, school workers remain optimistic.

“About every three years I kind of reinvent how I teach in the classroom, because if I don’t, I become complacent, and that’s where your behavior starts up and where learning stops happening,” Dargle said. “If nothing else, this has really forced me to reinvent myself and be better because of it. I mean, I’m looking forward to being back in the classroom, but I enjoy the challenge of this as well. It’s not bad, and I get to be with my family all day, so that’s not bad either.”

September 19, 2020 | By Katherine Fish