SPOKANE, Wash. — As school districts prepare for distance learning, counselors, teachers and administrators are immediately thinking about the kids most at risk in this virtual environment.
Some children are slipping through the cracks with distance learning. They are the lost children. The ones who never logged onto a zoom meeting with their teachers and friends. They were not turning in assignments from home.
KREM 2’s Whitney Ward spoke to Spokane Public Schools Counselor at Grant Elementary Madeline Sells who tracked down every student she was worried about.
Sells: We sat down and built the caseload of kids that might become invisible through this. And we just laid out on an Excel spreadsheet and went through each class and said, 'This kid might, and this kid,' to really kind of target those students and that kind of became my COVID caseload.
Ward: What were some of those red flags that you were worried about?
S: Maybe it's a family that I know might be struggling financially. Families that have open CPS (Child Protective Services) cases, kids who are receiving mental health services through our therapist, kids who are on my behavior intervention caseload, just kids that I know have been acting out, or maybe presenting mental health issues in the building, who are going to be needing more support.
W: How many did you come up with on that list that you considered 'at risk?'
S: Maybe around 50.
W: Are there any that you never were able to establish contact with?
S: Honestly, there was only one family out of Grant that we couldn't contact. So, we made contact with everybody.
W: Was it difficult?
S: Yes, we would have to show up at homes.
W: What were some of the methods that you tried to maintain that, or establish, that contact?
S: We're not allowed to use our personal phones, so I set up a Google Voice. And that was super helpful, because parents could text me, which has never been a thing. But also reaching out to parents and offering things, like, 'Do you guys need toilet paper?' Because when that first happened, a lot of my families also don't even have transportation, so a lot of them couldn't even get, even when they got to the store, they couldn't get the things they needed. I had so many community partners provide things and that kind of got families to engage. If I started, not with an ask, but how can I help you, before trying to get them to engage in academics, they were way more open to hearing from me.
W: Were you worried about these students, since you didn't really know if they were doing okay during that time?
S: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's still kids I'm really, really worried about because this is several months that they won't have seen me in person. And even when I message them, ‘Are you safe? How are things going?’ I know that, possibly, tuning into that interaction. So, I'm hoping in the fall, I can make more home visits, obviously in a social distanced, really safe manner.