Denver, Colo., Apr 17, 2020 / 05:12 pm (CNA).- It has been one month since most schools across the US closed their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The solution to shuttered schools may seem simple, on the surface: move curriculum and teachers online. Teach classes on Zoom videos, assign and receive homework through Google Classroom, and send communications and grades via email or an online school portal.
But what happens when students, sent home to learn from their bedrooms or kitchen tables, do not have access to the internet at their house? Or when the whole family is studying or working from home, and the one computer in the household is needed by several people at once?
These are the questions Catholic schools have grappled with after the coronavirus forced the shutdown of schools across the nation, many of them for the rest of the school year.
The Archdiocese of Denver made the decision to close its schools on the night of Thursday, March 12. The following Friday had already been a planned day off for students and a working day for teachers, which was to the schools’ advantage as they figured out how to shift completely to distance learning.
“All Thursday night we figured out, okay, what would have to be true to make distance learning successful in the next two weeks?” Abriana Chilelli, director of curriculum and instruction in the Denver archdiocese, told CNA.
“Certainly, technology rose to the top, but also that children had internet access, that schools were able to get devices out to students. So we put together a think sheet, if you will, about a school’s capability of distance learning,” she said.
Originally, Chilelli said, the Catholic school system was planning for a two-week closure, but with some thought that it could be extended in a more long-term way.
During those two weeks, Chilelli said, some teachers “chose the paper-based route,” sending home packets with two weeks worth of materials with students.
During those initial two weeks, schools worked to get in touch with every family to evaluate their technology and internet needs for a longer-term closure.
“We realized…that we were short about 500 devices for students and 50 for teachers, plus 200 hotspots,” said Carol Nesbitt, director of schools marketing and communications in the Archdiocese of Denver. Those were the numbers after the archdiocese’s schools had already lent out whatever extra laptops and devices they had on hand.
“I heard of a student up in Glenwood Springs at St. Stephen’s school. The principal said he was trying to use his mom’s burner cell phone to get his assignments,” Nesbitt told CNA.
“We’ve heard from other principals who have said that (student’s families) have five people in one house, and mom and dad are both trying to work from home and they have one computer. So the kids can’t get on their Zoom call because mom has a call with her boss and different things,” she said.
The shortage motivated the office of schools to send out two emails, asking Denver Catholics to contribute to an emergency relief fund. So far, Nesbitt said, the fund has received $220,000 in donations, “which I think is incredible.”
It’s enough to start buying more computers and distributing them to families on a lending basis, Nesbitt said.
“The first 50 came yesterday…and we delivered to three schools right away, and the rest are coming in over the next few days. And we’ll turn those around as quickly as possible,” she said. “(It’s) all hands on deck to try to deliver those, of course, using social distancing measures,” she said. Families have also been able to pick up supplies from schools.
Chilelli said she thinks when it came to setting up long-term distance learning, Catholic schools were at an advantage because of their smaller sizes.
“I’m watching these large districts that, still a month later, don’t have contact with such huge percentages of their students. So I just think it’s a huge advantage of Catholic schools that we’re smaller, we can be more nimble and we have this one-on-one relationship with all of our families,” she said.
Dr. Brooke C. Tesche is the chancellor of education for the Diocese of Allentown, which has already announced that its schools will be closed for the remainder of the school year.
Tesche said while they’ve had some students who are lacking computers or tablets on which to do their work, the Catholic school system has been working to accommodate these students any way they can. One way, she said, has been through lending out existing technology at the schools to families.
Two local internet providers are currently offering free services in order to help students continue their education, which has also helped in Allentown.
“So many families who would not have been able to connect, are able to connect,” she said.
Still, Tesche added, there are students who do not have computers on which to complete their homework. For these students, teachers are putting together paper learning packets with two weeks of materials at a time. Parents and students can either pick up their packets in person, or see the packets mailed to students.
“So it’s definitely a challenge right now, but (teachers are) responding and using I think as many options as possible to make sure that the kids continue to move forward,” she said.
Tesche emphasized that schools are moving forward in their curriculum – rather than providing students with busy work or enrichment activities, teachers are working to prepare their students to be ready for the next grade level, whether schools will resume in-person in the fall or not.
The Diocese of Allentown is also unique in that it has the only Catholic high school for students in recovery from substance addiction, Kolbe Academy.
The school is in its first full year of operation, and so while it is “unfortunate” that the coronavirus closed the school’s doors in its first year, Tesche said those students have been able to move their instruction, and their counseling and therapy, completely online.
“We just had a student this week celebrate 100 days clean and sober,” she said. “I’m really proud of that. They are doing really good work.”
Additionally, the school system has also partnered with Catholic Charities at this time in order to be able to address any mental health or social-emotional needs that families might have, Tesche said.
“We’re just dovetailing really nicely to make sure they have support of Catholic Charities,” she said.
In Ontario, the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board said in a meeting this week that the district has been accommodating students without access to technology by providing them with weekly paper packets. Teachers have adjusted instruction so that each week is planned out in advance, and students can complete the weekly work at their own pace.
“…(the students) enjoy having the freedom to complete their work (on their own schedule)…they can do all their Monday and Tuesday work on Monday. I’ve heard nothing but good things about the work. Surprisingly, no complaints,” Anthony DeLorenzi, an H-SCDSB student representative, said during a board meeting this week, according to local news source SOOTODAY.com.
Rose Burton Spohn, H-SCDSB director of education, told the board that about 70 students in the district were lacking either computers or access to the internet, and that the packets were being delivered to students on an ongoing basis. Teachers have also made themselves available via phone calls to students who lack internet access, she said.
Catherine Thompson is the Superintendent of Catholic Schools for Diocese of Las Vegas. Thompson told CNA that while the district has had some students who lacked access to computers at home, educators were able to fill those needs with what the schools had on hand.
Thompson said that the schools prepared for the impending closures as they watched the development of the pandemic, and particularly how it was affecting some harder-hit states on the East Coast.
Part of that preparation included a couple of surveys sent to parents, asking them about their technological needs as well as what they would like to see out of the distance learning experience.
“(What) we needed to know was what type of devices would be available – iPads, tablets, are they Windows people, are they Mac people. So they provided us with that,” Thompson said.
“Then the next thing we wanted to know was their shared access amongst the entire family. Then we were looking at what is your internet access like? Was it excellent? Like would you rate it as reliable or average, it’s mostly reliable or very, very low quality or very limited? We needed to know if they had a printer, we needed to know if they had a scanner. Then we also wanted to know were they comfortable with us using things like YouTube with the children,” Thompson said.
She added that they also asked about access to non-technology materials, such as paper, pens, or markers. Another part of the preparation included training teachers as well as some parents on how to use platforms such as Zoom or Google Classroom.
Thompson said the teachers and schools also focused on how to make distance learning most effective without students having to spend every moment of their day in front of a screen.
“There are a lot of different pieces that you can do both online and offline,” she said. Some teachers have instruction time and then offline time for students to work.
Other teachers are getting creative and assigning things like “exercise or a drawing a picture or recording something, or just make a tent and go inside and read, little things that they could do both inside and outside,” she said.
Chilelli, too, added that the Denver Catholic school system has always emphasized that technology should not be used in education for its own sake.
“When we were figuring out what must be true about distance learning, we wanted to make sure that yes, it happened at home, but it was also philosophically aligned with what we believe about education and specifically Catholic education,” she said.
“We would always say that we don’t think that education should happen behind a computer screen, and that children should be engaged with texts, with great texts, they should be engaged in human interaction, and with primary documents. So we always promoted distance learning as being necessarily very simple – that it should not be just attempting to take on a technology just simply because it was out there,” she said.
Chilelli said the shift to distance learning also forced teachers to evaluate what the most essential learning standards were for each subject matter, and to focus their time and lessons on those most essential things.
“Let’s make sure that everything we’re asking students do is really worthy of their time, which we would always say, but even more importantly now,” she said.
Overall, Thompson said she’s been very impressed with the work both teachers and parents have done to make this new system work.
“I want people to know that our teachers are absolutely amazing. They are the lifeblood of our schools and they have just …the way and the manner in which they have risen to the occasion, the positive feedback that we’ve heard from our parents,” she said.
“They appreciate all the work that we’re doing on behalf of all of our students. Our schools – while our campuses are closed – our schools are very much open,” she said.
“The amazing teachers and principals, they’ve just done an amazing job working on behalf of our students. So I can’t say enough good things. I think that there will be so many more positives to come out of what’s been such a difficult situation.”
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How would this be different from prolife folks being accosted?
Years ago I was praying with members of our church outide a clinic that performed feticides and a man repeatedly threatened us with a large pair of scissors. He would come right up close to us and make stabbing motions. The police said because he didn’t actually stab us there was nothing they could do.
From what you have set forth, the man is guilty of an assault that is against the law, so the police either directly lied to you (likely) or were ignorant of the law (unlikely). In basic legalese, one definition of assault is a seriously threatening action to do unjust physical harm to another, such as in your circumstances. Battery is the actual physical act of unjustly harming another. In common everyday language, the word ‘assault’ is used for physical attacks on people, and so the legal distinction between assault and battery is unknown to many, but not to the police. Perhaps the police deemed that their presence was enough to prevent further incident, but if so, this does not excuse them from wrongly advising you that they could not intervene when anyone is confronted by a legally defined assault against them.
Supplement to my response to mrscracker: in some states, battery is simply included in various kinds of assaults such as ‘simple assault’ and ‘aggravated assault’ without a separate offense known as battery.
Nevertheless, the threat to do bodily harm is indeed an actionable assault in all states if it can be inferred from the manner of the threat that a person or persons so threatened reasonably fear for their bodily safety.
Thank you for sharing that Doc. It happened over 3 decades agi and I remember going to court later as a witness but nothing came of it. I believe civil charges had been filed against the man with the scissors.
It was really disturbing because I had a baby in a stroller when we’d been threatened that way.
Such an upside down world we live in. As I see it the praying man was confronting three people, two mothers ready to murder their children as well as the escort who was their accompanying accomplice. The praying man attempts to stop the murder only to be arrested and threatened to jail, parole and fine. To be objective, the article did not mention if there were other witnesses to prove either way. Since he was released by the judge and declines to comment it is further unclear. Sounds like the judge may have not had enough evidence to prove him guilty since he released him which makes me think that the abortion folks may have lied.
As I understand it, the PP escort repeatedly verbally accosted Houck’s minor son. Also, Houck was never charged by police and the escort never showed at the civil trial. Looks like a non-issue until someone decided to go federal with it. And what a criminal show of force from the FEDS.
You have a lot of incorrect information. Take this as somebody very familiar with the case. Unprovoked attack, nothing to do with his son. Don’t want to say more at the time, except you have bad information.
You have false information. No communication at all about son. Volunteer was just trying to escort women in the building. Also wrong about the trial information. Get better sources. Lots more I could say since I know all the details of the case, but the now 73 year old man doesn’t need to be assaulted again, so please stop spreading false information and victim shaming.
Okay, Bob. Why can’t you say more? Looks like a cop-out. You wouldn’t actually be the “escort” (BL), would you?
In any case, since Mr. Houck has been doing his peaceful protests for years without incident, why should we believe your story that he was not provoked, and that it did not involve his son? According to you, Houck simply lost his cool for the first time and decided to attack a 73-year-old man. Also, what does the age of the “escort” have to do with anything, and how do you know how hold he (or perhaps you) are? Did Mr. Houck know the “escort’s” age, and that’s another reason why you claim he shoved him? Or are you trying to drum up bogus sympathy for such an “escort” because of his age?
Sorry, Bob. If you can’t elaborate on your remarks with supporting evidence or you simply choose not to do so, your assurances of knowing more about the case is just hearsay on your part that nobody should accept based only on your unconvincing “I know more than you, but I won’t say what” about the case.
By the way, was the case thrown out or dismissed in a civil court? If so, why did this occur if your claims are correct?
If you really had information about what happened instead of only denying what has been reported you could inform us. You are essentially claiming it was an unprovoked attack. But what is your source for that?
Even if I took your word for it that “Lots more I could say since I know all the details of the case,” and I don’t, it wouldn’t matter. It could not justify an early-morning armed raid by a couple dozen agents, screaming and pounding at the door.
How is it that a man who was in a small shoving match could get ten years in prison when those who are murdering people and doing drug deals that kill people on the streets of N.Y, Chicago and in California are all being let back out on to the streets? This is insanity. You only get out if you are a danger to society and are left in prison if you try to defend the unborn. It won’t be long before the Warning comes.
It’s not a shoving match when one person shoves another to the ground while the other doesn’t lay a finger on them. It’s an assault, and given where the assault happened and under the circumstances, it is a more serious offense. Mark should have kept his hands to himself.
Again, Bob, your writing suggests that you may indeed be the ghoulish “escort” identified as BL. You write not as a witness, but one directly involved. For instance, the following are a bit peculiar in your comments spread over a couple of posts:
Bob: “the now 73 year old man doesn’t need….”
Who would emphasize a person’s age change if not the person himself? If you were merely a witness, you would only refer to his age at the time of the incident, which was apparently 72.
A witness probably wouldn’t mention the possible future impact of a rhetorical assault on another person, but a person whining about such being possibly visited upon himself would write in this manner…just as you have done.
And a witness probably wouldn’t write that “Mark should have kept his hands to himself,” but a person shoved by Mr. Houck would write in this manner.
Also, what’s with the first name basis?
Since you work/volunteer for your fellow ghouls of Planned Parenthood, I suspect that Mr. Houck has been known and detested by you et al., and so this whole thing smacks of a set-up on your part with the help of the compliant DOJ to try to stop Mr. Houck from saving lives that you enjoy helping others murder.
Lastly, the cry of “victim shaming” also suggests you are upset with being called out as a ghoul who helps women murder their babies. Anyone who helps a woman murder her unborn child brings shame upon themselves regardless of whether or not they are called out for their shameful behavior.
That’s correct. Regardless of the specifics, if you take a 20,000 foot view of the situation you see the clear discrepancy in the way justice is carried out. Even if the defendant is guilty of assault and wasn’t defending his son, he could’ve been picked up without incident by his local Sheriff’s Dept. Instead, he and his family were SWATted. I mean, you’d swear it was Summer 2020 and the Houcks were in the act of assaulting folks, looting, and burning down buildings or something (hypothetically of course) the way the police made contact with them. Regardless of assault vs self defense) then the way he was apprehended wasn’t about him and the level of risk he posed. No, it was a show of force for the rest of us.
Meant: “Regardless of assault vs self defense, the way he was apprehended wasn’t about him and the level of risk he posed.”
… and we should accept your “account of events” at face value? I guess this is another of those anonymous sources named “Bob”. Keep in mind that if you are an eye witness, you will get your day to tell the truth in court. If not, then you are just guessing about the facts third hand like the rest of us.
There are some facts that are undisputable, however. For instance, Abortionist Powell typically kills 20 people a day at that clinic and no one gets arrested. On the other hand, those protesting those murders get arrested. That my friend, is the definition of insanity.
More Garland gestapo nonsense. First off, the FACE act is strictly designed to chill protest rights at kill mills. Second, the response from “multiple agencies” is grossly unneeded and was clearly designed to embarrass and intimidate others. Sure, charge the guy with assault. This is nuts.