Back To School: An Impossible Decision For Arizona's Working Families

By Katie Campbell
Published: Friday, September 4, 2020 - 5:05am
Updated: Sunday, September 6, 2020 - 9:00am

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Ethan Pollett learning from home
Danielle Pollett
Ethan Pollett learning from home.

The debate around whether to send students of all ages back to school has taken on political connotations.

If you believe students should return to campuses, your political leanings may be presumed to go in one direction, and vice versa. But there are Arizona families for whom the choice may not be a choice at all.

Ask any number of parents whether their students should go back to classrooms and you’re likely to get as many different answers.

“Making that decision before you’ve even reached that point, I think, is disrespectful to teachers," says Josh Miller, a parent who has advocated for the delayed reopening of Great Hearts Academies in the Phoenix area.

"If parents aren’t satisfied with what the district is doing, that family and that student has to be given the opportunity to go someplace else," Matt Beienburg told KJZZ's "The Show." Beienburg is the education policy director for the Goldwater Institute.

"Like, we are doing pretty much the same exact education we would," high school freshman Ethan Pollett insists. "Just, this is the safer way to do it. 

His mother, Danielle Pollett, is just trying to be flexible: "I’m comfortable just rolling with it honestly.”

Jemeille Ackourey
Jemeille Ackourey
Jemeille Ackourey

But as more people are called back to work, particularly in service industries, some parents may not have a choice.

“When we talk to those families, they need the schools open," says Jemeille Ackourey, a family counselor. "And it’s not that they’re ignoring the fact that there’s a greater risk. The more that their child is around, the more risk with COVID. However, what’s the alternative? That’s what they’re left looking at.”

Ackourey has been a single mother herself. She gave this example: Consider a single mother of a 6-year-old. The mother is called back to her waitress job. She doesn’t have anyone to turn to who can help her child with school. And she has to decide: Leave the child at home to do school online, or send him to a physical location in the district. 

For kids like this hypothetical — but somewhere, very real — mother, the decision is not just a matter of educational opportunity.

“They get their breakfast there. They get their lunch there. They get a safe environment. They get socialization. They get the caring adults involved in their life. And they get education," says Ackourey.

The partnership between family and school was always meant to be hand-in-glove, but the glove has been pulled away. Single-parent and working-class families need the glove back. They need schools open, she says. 

Lynette Stant teaches third grade on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community reservation. She started distance learning on Aug. 3, and she’s seen firsthand the inequities in the system. 

Lynette Stant
Arizona Educational Foundation
Lynette Stant

“I, too, was a single mom. And I’ve really been reflective during this time of what would I have done if this was me in the midst of a pandemic," she says. "You know, we are really trying to work with those families and create individual opportunities for them. And that requires us to be very flexible.”

Some nights, that means staying up until midnight to work with families and offer any help she can, particularly for working parents. 

“They’re not able to connect their students online during the day and monitor what they’re doing," she explains. "So, we are working with those families individually to comprise a program that works for them. And so, that might look like us working one-on-one with a student in the evening or calling a parent in the evening to see how they are doing.”

But many issues may be out of her hands, namely connectivity: “Broadband service on the reservation is nonexistent, to be quite honest. And, you know, when you have five kids all trying to get online, that poses a big problem."

Some parents have turned to their local Boys and Girls Club. The clubs have been open in some capacity throughout the pandemic, first taking care of the children of first responders and essential workers exclusively. Now, some clubs are open to students with nowhere else to go. 

Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottsdale member
Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottsdale
Five Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottsdale locations are offering a service for students who need a place to do their schoolwork while school buildings remain closed and their parents are at work.

Marcia Mintz is the CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Phoenix. She told “The Show” demand for space has doubled. But the effort to help those kids has come at a cost — about $100,000 more each month to cover the cost of additional staff and equipment to keep their spaces clean. 

“In general, our fees have never covered our true operating costs, because we’re really focusing on working families who can contribute but cannot pay the full cost," Mintz says. "Right now, our fees are anywhere between $60 to $100 a week, depending on the location that you’re at.”

And the reduced cost is not the only perk for families: “I do not have to manage having hundreds or thousands of kids pass in a hallway. You know, we don’t have a small classroom with 30 kids. We have large facilities with a manageable number of kids,” Mintz said.

The bottom line is this: Parents want an answer, an irrefutably correct and appropriate response.

But Ackourey says that one right answer doesn’t exist: “You know, I don’t know if anybody really has the right answer or the best answer. For most children that are coming from environments where school provides so much for them, for the child, we could say it’s the best answer. What about for the 64-year-old teacher who has pre-existing health conditions? There’s so much we have to look at.”

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