Our family’s experience with online education in the Salt Lake City School District is very different from the picture painted by Michelle Quist in her Oct. 29 column. For our family, online education works just fine and we are grateful every day that our district superintendent and our school board had the courage to commit to the online model and then the wisdom to ensure the district’s people and technology were prepared to deliver an effective online experience.
We check in often with our daughter, a third grader, and we frequently listen in during her lessons. What we hear is a highly engaged class that is participating, contributing and respectful of each other’s voices. We hear learning. Two months ago our daughter did not know how to multiply. Now she does. Two months ago she didn’t know about predicates or transition words or the Liberty Bell. Now she does. Two months ago she didn’t have a personal relationship with her teacher. Now she does, even via a 13-inch screen and an internet connection.
We understand the online learning model is not working as smoothly for all students in the district. We overhear other families' challenges in the background when our daughter’s classmates speak up. But our shared reality is that Utah’s and Salt Lake County’s key COVID-19 metrics continue to rise away from the targets that will allow a responsible return to classrooms. Surely we as a community can work to better understand what is working and what is not working in the online learning model and then apply community and school district resources to resolve the remaining challenges so online learning works as well as possible for everyone.
As our daughter’s music teacher likes to say: “We can do hard things.”
Briana Terry and Lee Lesburg, Salt Lake City