#Educators go extra mile to help distance learning absentees

As they chatted, Principal Tayarisha Batchelor picked up on a clue to the question that brought her to the apartment. The boy was not looking up from a smartphone. Twice, she asked what he was doing on it before he confirmed her suspicions: He was playing video games.

“I like playing games,” Batchelor told the boy as his parents looked on, before suggesting he spend more time first on his daily schoolwork. “I want to make sure you’re still learning, OK?”

Nearly a third of her students at Rawson Elementary School in Hartford, Connecticut, have been unplugged from distance learning. On a Friday afternoon, as she visited some of their homes, she saw many of the reasons why: Internet service is unreliable. Parents are away at work. Some are uncomfortable with the technology. Still others think their children are doing fine when they are actually using the devices for other things.

Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, right, announces a student’s name in pizza raffle with Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, center, as Community School Director for The Village for Families and Children Trisila Tirado, left, records a video for students in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, left, Community School Director for The Village for Families and Children Trisila Tirado, and Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, right, listen as student Jamie-Lee Henderson, center, talks about distant learning during a visit to Henderson’s home in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor calls a parent after attempting to reach them at their home to check up on student who is distant learning in Hartford, Connecticut.

AP

Community School Director for The Village for Families and Children Trisila Tirado, left, Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, center, and Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, right, speak to a middle school student and family out on the balcony of their home in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Third-grade student Nevaeh Bernard runs in excitement toward Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, during a visit from Dr. Stone to Nevaeh’s home in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, left, talks with a parent about distant learning during a visit to a home in Hartford, Connecticut.

AP

Fourth-grader Sammiayah Thompson, left, and her brother third-grader Nehemiah Thompson work outside in their yard on laptops provided by their school system for distant learning in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Parent Titilaya Thompson and her son Nehemiah talk with Sarah J. Rawson Elementary School Principal Dr. Tayarisha Batchelor, right, and Community School Director for The Village for Families and Children Trisila Tirado, left, in Hartford, Connecticut.

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As the academic year nears an end, districts around the country have been racing to get large numbers of no-show students back on track. It’s one thing not to participate this spring, when expectations are lower because of the crisis. It will be another if distance learning resumes in the fall, when the stakes are raised by the return of formal grading and attendance tracking.

Students who were struggling before the pandemic are the ones falling farthest behind. Across the Hartford school system, roughly 80% of students are at least partially active in distance learning. Among students considered most at risk because of issues including past absenteeism, disciplinary problems and poor academic performance, less than half are participating at all.

Batchelor made her first stop the home of a student whose mother works late, hoping to catch her. The girl’s older sister, a high school student, often watches her. But there was no answer at the door. Batchelor left a voicemail on the mother’s phone.

“How do we get in touch with the kids? This is it. This is like our last effort before the summer. For me it’s trying to figure out, what exactly is it that we’re missing?” Hartford Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez said. “First of all, are they safe? I just want to know if they are safe.”