Four Rivers to Continue Remote Learning in Semester Two

Remote learning will continue as COVID cases rise, but the system is not without criticism

GREENFIELD, Mass. - Early into the evening of Monday, December 14th, the Four Rivers board of trustees made the decision to continue remote learning as the school year enters the second semester. Hosted via Zoom call, the meeting opened with an opportunity for public comment. This was one of several measures taken by the school in recent weeks, in order to obtain input from the Four Rivers community on remote education. The input has been divided.

Prior to this meeting, surveys about remote learning were sent out to students, parents, and staff. The results for students were as divided as they could be, with 51% of the 80 student responses supporting an increase in in-person learning. There was no space for respondents to specify what kind of increase was wanted, between extra support and a return to fully in-person.

Vivian Goleman, a junior, has been attending the in-person support program since early October. In her view, “if in-person learning couldn’t be expanded, then at least continue it.” Four Rivers has not done anything to indicate a move away from offering support, but few students attend. Goleman says “the most that have been there are four or five other students in the room with me. That was right after student-led conferences when a lot of teachers had recommended it.”

In the student survey, exactly half of the respondents expressed some level of difficulty focusing on assignments. For Goleman, the in-person program has been a game-changer. “It‘s been really beneficial for my focus and my grades,” she says. “Motivation is hard when you’re getting up for school but you’re not going anywhere.”

Similar challenges have been encountered by other students. Maddy Keating, a senior, says that for her, “It feels like the workload is somehow a lot more but also a lot less. I feel very overwhelmed but I know that it could be a lot worse, because it used to be.” Although teachers have reduced the quantity of work, many students struggle to focus, as the survey highlighted. This combination means that for many, school takes up more time than is intended by teachers.

Another senior, Pippin Paulson, says that remote learning is “the best it can be. It’s a terrible system and it’s never going to live up to in-person learning, just because as humans we connect by looking into our faces and by being present with each other.” A lack of connection is a shared feeling in the student survey. Only a quarter expressed a strong connection with their peers in recent times, and only 21% expressed a strong connection with teachers.

Still, both seniors support continuing remote learning. For Keating, it comes down to “the case number currently, not just in the US but in our area.” In her view, while remote learning is challenging, the risks outweigh the benefits. “School in the first place is already really hard, but doing it at home without the structure of a normal school day is way harder. But I’d rather be doing this than be constantly paranoid that I have corona.”

Fear of infection is very real. The majority of Four Rivers families live in Franklin County, where the situation is worsening. Four Rivers has used COVID Act Now for local data on the pandemic. The data paints a clear picture: daily new cases have reached the ‘critical’ zone for the second time in the pandemic.

Of course, the impact of holiday travel is yet to be seen. Unless the cases drop significantly, semester two will start in a far more precarious place than semester one. The difference between January and September is worlds apart.

If any change were to occur, it would likely be a shift to a hybrid model. If this were to occur, the student population would be divided up, only some attending in-person at a time to enable proper social distancing on campus. Students would also likely be able to opt out, and continue to remain remote, at least in the short-term.

Alice Fiddian-Green, MPH, Ph.D, an assistant professor of health promotion at Springfield College, says that reducing the density of a population is one of several key strategies. “If we’re going to be in an indoor space, the best line of defense is mask-wearing, limited concentration of people, and then open windows or filters.” These measures, along with hand sanitizer usage and all-around less contact are to be expected from any in-person experience at Four Rivers.

Although assumptions can be made about future decisions from the school, there are simply too many factors to accurately predict beyond what’s been decided. Our understanding of COVID and what can be done safely can always change. As Dr. Fiddian-Green explained, “The thing with COVID is that the science is still emerging. Right now we’re making the best decisions based on the data we have, but it's not like we have years of what is the safest thing to do.”

For students like Paulson, supporting remote learning is part of supporting community members. “I think it’s really important that people remember there are immunocompromised people in our community. We’re not all as healthy as we seem just because we can’t see someone sick.”

Regardless of the safeguards put in place, some in the student population may not follow safety measures. In the document discussing the factors behind the school’s ultimate decision, it was noted that “students show varied interpretations/abilities when it comes to maintaining 6 feet of distance at all times.” Paulson noted of her peers that “There are some people that are genuinely careful and then there are some people who just don’t think about it [distancing].”

Any return to normal hinges on both mass vaccinations and rigid safety protocols. A vaccine likely won’t be available to the majority of the population in the short term, meaning the debate over remote learning is likely to continue beyond semester two. Any attempt to resume in-person learning too early would carry with it a risk of infection. The infection rate in Franklin County is currently low, but projected to rise.

A return to a pre-COVID activities can’t ignore the pandemic. In the short term, there will always be a danger present in social contact. The path forward has to be based in harm reduction. Dr. Fiddian-Green explained, “we know people are going to sometimes take risks, [such as buying groceries] so we want to give people as much information and skills as possible to reduce the harm when people do take risks.”

In a pandemic, everyday life can feel like dodging car crashes left and right. Right now, everybody needs to be encouraging one another to wear seatbelts.