Mom shares her struggles with home schooling

Ordinances that resulted in the early closure of schools statewide have caused unusual challenges for some Houston County parents. According to one local mom, it has forced her to take on a role that she has not been properly equipped to carry out. Kim Helm insists that no plans were put into place to prepare parents, teachers, or students for this major transformation.

“They just kind of haphazardly threw it together and hoped that it worked,” Helm said. “Nobody even told us how to use the three platforms that they have given us (Google Classroom, Zoom, and IXL). Nobody told us how to switch back and forth. You’ve got to go to one platform to do the work, and then you’ve got to go to another platform to submit it, and then another platform to make sure that it’s gone through.”

Due to special circumstances, Helm and her husband are the not only the parents of Kaylani and Carleigh, but their grandparents as well. They adopted the nine- and 10-year-olds as their own because the girls’ biological mother (Helm’s daughter) was unable to care for them. “My fourth grader, who loves school and loves learning, is now at the point where she’s feeling overwhelmed because of the amount of work that they’re sending out.” Helm went on to say that the lessons are generally sent to the children Monday, and it all has to be completed by Friday regardless of the workload. “The amount they send out is unreasonable; especially for elementary school students,” she stated.

Having to switch from one platform to another is another stress point for Helm and her daughters. She detailed that sometimes the computer platforms work properly, and other times they do not. “This morning, we got a message from her teacher saying he didn’t receive any of her work [from last week]. None. She spent all week—a full eight hours a day, including Saturday and Sunday—doing all of this work.” Helm mentioned that the system didn’t successfully transmit the work, nor did it save the work. Therefore, her daughter has to do it all over again. “She just cried when I told her,” Helm said.

The level of frustration isn’t lowered when the teachers hound them unnecessarily, Helm pointed out. A full list of assignments was sent to her nine-year-old with a due date of April 25. However, Helm said, “He keeps sending us reminders saying he hasn’t received this yet, and he hasn’t received that yet. And I’m like—dude … it’s not due yet! Can you call me on the April 26 and say you don’t have it yet?”

Helm said initially, she thought it was just something that was being experienced by parents with children on the elementary level. However, a friend of hers who has a sixth grader and two high school students expressed similar annoyances. “She said her kids’ teachers called her on Easter Sunday and they send her messages at midnight,” Helm reported.

Once schools were closed, Helm believes key administrators, along with the Houston County Superintendent of Schools should have taken a week or so to sit down and determine collectively how they were going to streamline the process so that it made sense for the teachers, the students, and the parents while not overwhelming the children. “They’re sending us more work to our home to do with the kids inside of a week than they give trained teachers to do inside of a week in the classroom.” Helm said her fourth grader only gets a 30-minute lunch break during her home schooling. “Then she goes right back to the computer,” her mom confirmed. “She’s very diligent about it, but it’s just too much. It’s overwhelming.”

What concerns Helm most, she said, is that she is watching her child go from loving school and hating when school is out to now hearing her say that she hates school. Helm’s children attend Lake Joy Primary, but the problems are not specific to that school only. “I have a Facebook friend whose teenager posted that she had received lessons that included a 70-page PowerPoint, 20 pages of notes, two quizzes and a test—and all of it had to be done within the week. She said if she’d gotten that amount of work at school, they would have given more time to complete it than what they were giving her at home. She said she felt like she was drowning.”

Helm feels that parents have now been thrust in an unfair position. “What we parents are frustrated about at this point is we are not allowed to be parents right now, we have to be education czars. Home is not home anymore, and we were not properly prepared for this. They gave us no training and no fair notice,” she went on to express. “They’ll give us a phone call if a bus is running late. They’ll give us a phone call when there’s a PTA meeting. But they didn’t give any phone call or email information of any kind on how they were going to roll this out or how to use the online platforms. There was no information given whatsoever.”

Based on Helm’s account, there was never a name or number given to parents as a contact point where they could reach out and voice their concerns. “The teachers will answer questions as much as they can,” she clarified, “but that’s not helping with the amount of work that they’re giving us.”

Last Thursday, Helm documented some of her concerns on a post she placed on her Facebook page, and she also reached out to an administrator that she knows. “She said she did not like my comments because I was blaming the administration and her boss, and I told her that that’s exactly who I’m blaming.” Helm said her contact brought up the fact that the school district gave Chromebooks out to the students who needed them. “That’s great for those who need them,” Helm said, “but that still doesn’t do anything about the massive amount of school work we’re being sent. I know a dad who spent five hours helping his kindergartner finish their work. That’s ridiculous.”

Long term, Helm fears that the work overload is going to have a negative affect on the children. “My two are already saying that they hate school, and I’m afraid that all this is going to make them develop an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. I usually give them work over the summer that they’re glad to do between school years, but they’re so overloaded now that I’m not going to do that this year. I’m afraid it’ll make things worse.” Outside of the school work itself, Helm says she’s worried about the level of mental stress the home schooling process is having on her kids. “I’m concerned about their anxiety. I’m concerned about them feeling overwhelmed.”

Most of all, Helm is distressed about how this is affecting the family unit in her household as well as in the homes of other parents. We’re our children’s moms and dad’s,” she said. “We’re not getting the chance to play with our kids and just do mom and dad things with our children anymore because of this. That’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to us,” she stated. “It’s just not fair.”

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