Why some parents are opting to keep their kids home this school year
Back-to-school season has always been a time of preparation and excitement for young families. While that feeling is still there this year, the persisting pandemic adds a layer of uncertainty, and raises a tough decision for many parents of Rochester's elementary schoolers: send my child back to school, or keep them at home?
One in five parents have decided on the latter option… and we found some of the reasons why on the latest episode of the Rochester Rundown.
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🎧 As a reminder, new episodes of the Rochester Rundown can also be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and other leading podcast services.Superintendent Michael Muñoz has said the district planned for 20 percent of all elementary students to ‘opt-out,’ with at least 50 elementary teachers (opting out of in-person instruction themselves) slated to teach remotely five days a week.
Kim Woodruff, mother of nine-year-old Judah, is one of hundreds of parents keeping her child at home for the time being. That wasn’t always the plan, however — originally, she and her husband planned to let Judah go back to school at Riverside Central Elementary.
However, after hearing stories from parents in districts like St. Charles, who had to walk back their original plans to open, the family decided it was best to keep their son home — avoiding the potential for another year of cycling between in-person and distance learning.
“The decision was really made to give some consistency to my child,” said Woodruff. “After finding out that the full-time distance learners would still have their own teacher, five days a week, that was it.”
Woodruff works part-time and her husband is self-employed, so they are able to balance their work schedules with Judah’s classwork. The family’s work situation makes them one of the lucky ones; last week, MPR News reported that over 360 RPS elementary schoolers were on a waiting list for essential-worker child care, with hundreds more out of luck after School Age Child Care (SACC) spots ran out at their respective schools.
As a former cafeteria worker in the district, Woodruff has seen the broad role in-person schooling plays in a child’s development — promoting socialization, setting routines, and providing support systems for children that would otherwise not have one.
“We had students that were facing homelessness,” said Woodruff. “School was that place where they had structure, and other adults to help them with any problems they were facing. It’s hugely important, in my opinion, and it’s disappointing that this virus wasn’t taken more seriously early on.”
RPS will allow parents to opt in or out on a quarterly basis, with the next phase of the learning plan expected by the MEA break in mid-October. There is currently no word on what the district’s plans are for Phase 2, but a shift backwards to full-time distance learning for all students seems unlikely at the moment.
(Olmsted County’s Covid-19 numbers have largely stabilized since RPS’s original announcement on August 7 — the latest statistics are available here.)
That means those who have opted out will likely face another decision in a month’s time — but for lots of families concerned for the Woodruff family, it sounds as if the final decision has already been made.
“I think the district is doing all they can, but unfortunately, this is a virus we don’t know much about,” said Woodruff. “We’re learning new things about it every day. I don’t judge any parent who sends their child back, but from my standpoint as a parent, I have the luxury of being able to keep Judah at home, and I think I’ll do that through the end of the year.”
Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.
