Transitioning to a New Environment

Our daughter was in her school for 6 months before it was shut down due to the pandemic. We were told that learning would be in-person starting in August, and we wanted to see the new environment our daughter would be entering as we did when she started at her school. The policy is that you are allowed to observe the environment your child will be in, regardless of COVID. When we were told we could not observe the new environment, we had to be the ones to say we were entitled to see the space and we were allowed to observe.

We asked a lot of questions and were able to get a lot of details - how many students in the cafeteria, status of adult supervision, etc. We didn’t think our daughter would be safe with the protocols in place, especially around lunchtime, so we began exploring a remote learning option, but we were told there were none.

We attended every DESE webinar, reviewed every document, etc and started to think about how kids who can’t go to school learn from home. We found the key to success is to stop and really think about what your child needs, not what you wish you had for your child - in our case, our daughter needed to be safe, so what exactly does she need to stay safe? We asked ourselves questions to decide if an environment was safe: Can she wear a mask? How will she be successful in mask-wearing? If that can’t happen in school, where can it happen?

We eventually tracked down a COVID contingency plan through the Home Hospital Department of BPS that allows students who can’t attend school to learn from home under Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). We were able to keep out daughter home until it was safe for her to return to school.

Tip: When your student is entering a new school environment, go ahead of time to observe the school before they arrive and observe your student in the new environment.