18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY may 18-24, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com After going back into classrooms post-pandemic, two Salinas school districts and hundreds of students choose to stick with virtual learning. By Celia Jiménez Screen Time In 2020, the change came suddenly. With the Covid-19 virus looming, schools shut down for in-person learning. They closed at first for what officials thought might be a short time, with the Monterey County Office of Education announcing on March 13, 2020 that all K-12 schools would be closed through the end of the month. That, of course, was just the beginning of what became a year-plus immersion in remote learning. At first, it was a scramble—families lined up outside of schools to pick up bagged lunches and Chromebooks. Teachers had in-person lesson plans ready to go, and transitioned to teaching to a screen overnight. Parents had to adapt too, with students of all ages at home for the duration of the school day. Internet connectivity hubs were set up in parking lots for students who needed a place to log in. Months into the remote school experiment, at the beginning of the next academic year in August of 2020, a photo of two girls doing homework outside of Taco Bell in East Salinas made national headlines. The image brought attention to the struggles of low-income families whose parents lacked computer literacy, and students who live in rural areas of Monterey County without high-speed internet at home. Months of heated and politically charged public discourse followed, with parents attending school board meetings—remotely, then in person— demanding a return to the classroom. Remote learning was taking a toll on their children, not just academically, but socially and emotionally as well. Standardized test results showed a decline in academic performance across the country. In California, fourth-graders’ scores dropped 5 percent in English and literature, with just 44.2 percent proficiency in the 2021-22 school year, down from 49.5 percent in 2018-19. Math scores dropped by over 6.5 percent, from 45- to 38.3-percent proficient. Despite the chaotic transition to remote learning followed by political backlash and negative testing outcomes, some parents, teachers, administrators and students came to prefer online learning for certain students. It helped with bullying prevention, provided a better environment for some students with special needs and decreased the chances of getting sick with Covid (or any other virus). For some kids, it was successful. Seeing that success, even as Monterey County schools returned to in-person learning, at least two local districts—Salinas City Elementary and Alisal Union—developed a curriculum to continue offering virtual instruction to students in grades K-6. SCESD started its Salinas City Virtual Academy during the 2021-2022 school year; a year later, AUSD followed with the Alisal Virtual Academy (AVA). Now, as the 2022-23 school year wraps up, virtual learning appears likely to stay, and even expand in the future. Some parents who are now choosing this option are the same parents who Second-grader Kayla Contreras (right) and her brother, fourth-grader Alexander (below), are doing well in virtual school. Kayla’s desk is in the hallway, and she is seen listening to teacher Ana Lucia Vazquez asking the class to describe and write about cats. Alexander is learning adjectives. He prefers online learning because he says he ends up doing more hands-on activities. Daniel Dreifuss Daniel Dreifuss
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