Especially Special Needs

Over 55.1 million students had to explore new, online territory due to nationwide school closures in March. This meant teachers, parents, and students would have to navigate new, online schooling methods from the safety of their own homes. While this wasn’t a problem for some states, especially those that experience hard winters and thus already had online programs set up in the case of an inevitable snow day, it was a completely new experience for schools in other, less frosty regions. Many students, especially those in younger grades, struggled not only to understand why they couldn’t go see their friends at school, but also to keep engaged in the online platform.

Nichelle Sheffield started prepping her three-year old daughter, Shiloh, for school by enrolling her in dance classes last fall. When their dance studio had to close and move to online classes, Shiloh had a hard time understanding, especially on the first day.

Sheffield dressed Shiloh in tights and a tutu just like they’d done so many mornings before. But this time, when Shiloh went to run toward the car, Sheffield picked her up and sat her in front of a computer screen. A toddler fit ensued.

“Basically, once she realized she couldn’t go to school, she freaked out and refused to participate online,” Sheffield said. “She just wanted to go to the studio to dance. She was so frustrated and confused as to why she couldn’t go.”

Despite having not known what it was like to go to school all day every day, COVID-19 still had a huge impact on this little girl’s life. Although Shiloh is not showing any signs of having any cognitive disability, her situation helps to highlight how dire the current state of school systems is for students with special needs. If a child with no cognitive ability has a hard time adjusting, imagine an older, perhaps high school student with the cognitive ability of a three year old.

Out of the 55.1 million students affected by COVID-19, over 7.1 million are students with special needs who may be struggling without the in-person support they used to receive every day at school.

Angela Lewis, an assistant teacher at No Limits Academy, has had to go from interacting with her students in the classroom to keeping their attention from a computer screen. Her students’ ages range from as young as six to 21, where they ultimately and unfortunately age out of the system. These students all have some sort of cognitive disability either stemming from a traumatic head injury or cerebral palsy that renders their cognitive function, at times, to that of a two year old despite their actual age.

As a private Christian school, No Limits Academy’s teachers, Lewis included, tried to incorporate as much of their regular routine into the online classroom as possible, starting with reading their morning devotion from their Bibles. Lewis would then ask her students if they had any prayer requests. They’d then move on to a lesson she and the other teachers thought might keep their students engaged. They’d read books about a specific place, like the White House for example and schedule a “field trip” for the end of the week.

“To kind of step out of the box we did virtual field trips,” Lewis said. “I took the kids on a field trip to the White House and they could explore every room of the White House. And we took them to the Smithsonian and Paris, too.”

For the most part, the students were engaged when it came to more interactive activities like those virtual field trips. However, that wasn’t always the case. Most of the time, it was a team effort between teachers like Lewis and the students’ guardian or in-home nurse to keep them engaged. One student in particular, Tori, would regularly fall asleep during class.

Lewis explained that Tori was one of her nonverbal students. It’s clear Tori can understand what she is hearing and looking at, but she can only communicate by nodding her head or making a grunting noise. So, it may be understandable why she’d fall asleep while Lewis read to the class. Most of the time, Lewis would ask Tori’s nurse to wake her up to finish the lesson. Sometimes, though, it was just easier to let her sleep. For a student like Tori, body language is everything. If she can’t see your body language, and the teachers’ can’t see hers, it’s very difficult to interact.

“In a physical classroom, the kids definitely engage better when it’s one-on-one personal in the classroom,” Lewis explained. “You can kind of read the kids a lot easier.”

Lewis said she is hopeful and anxious to go back in late August despite the danger of COVID-19. The school is taking precautions- spreading the desks apart in an effort to social distance, not leaving the classrooms as often, requiring all staff and faculty to wear masks. It’s difficult to abide by all the rules they’d like to follow, though. Masks for example, just don’t stay on the students’ faces. Many don’t understand why they have to wear them, and even if they do, some of the students tend to drool, which could cause other problems underneath their mask.

But, for Lewis, this is enough. The outcome of engaging with her students and giving them the support and routine they need outweighs the risks.

Parents like Abby Frix, however, would rather keep her young children out of school.

One of Frix’s main concerns is not whether or not her kids, Aurora, 9, and Liam, 7, have one-on-one attention­­ — she’s able to give them that much. Her concern is whether or not she is able to teach them at the level they need.

“I’ve tried my best to teach my babies,” Frix said, “but I’m just a mom and haven’t been trained on how to teach them based on their special individual needs.”

Aurora has autism and is nonverbal. Liam, as Frix described, is “just a little hyper and has trouble with reading.” Both are in special needs classes.

Aurora in particular needs more interactive games and learning tools for her to be more successful with digital learning. Like Lewis explained, body language is everything when it comes to nonverbal students. Even when Aurora has video meetings with teachers, Frix will have to continuously explain to the teacher what she is pointing to on the screen in order to complete a lesson.

Another concern for Frix is, understandably, their health. She knows they both miss school and she admits she misses them going to school, but she insists she doesn’t “want them catching or spreading this stuff, so I’ll be doing more digital learning days for the next three months.”

For many who have children or students with special needs, it’s difficult to weigh which is scarier — COVID-19 or the possibility of their child or student falling severely behind, especially when they age out of most of their benefits once they turn 21. Many even describe aging out as “falling off a cliff.” The challenge COVID-19 poses for school systems and students, especially special needs students, has become yet another obstacle among many that families have had to power through.