Amber Smith and her fourth-graders at Finch Elementary were midway through their first week of distance learning when the coronavirus hit home.

A week earlier, Gov. Jay Inslee had ordered the closure of all schools in the state. Now Smith and her students were on opposite sides of computer screens.

The first two days of this new routine were tolerable enough.

“I just kept my happy face on as I saw their faces,” Smith said.

Then she lost it.

Hurriedly, Smith waved goodbye, signed off and started bawling.

The era of social distancing is difficult, emotional and even heart-wrenching for teachers, who must “be there” for their own families as well as their students.

“We’re finding different ways to make this work,” Smith said. “There really is no other choice.”

A steep learning curve

While everyone talks about “flattening the infection curve” of COVID-19, teachers in Spokane and the rest of the country are facing a learning curve so steep they can’t yet glimpse the top.

However, educators are certain of what they’ll see on the other side: a substantial learning slide that will require more work even as school districts emerge with severely constrained budgets from the pandemic’s financial fallout.

“There is going to be a lot of lost information, and we’re going to have to fill in the gaps,” said Megan McLean, who teaches calculus at Lewis and Clark High School.

The size of those gaps will depend on many factors: the tech-savviness of each teacher; the ability and inclination of parents to help their children; and the fortitude of each child – even if circumstances force them to share a school-issued laptop with three siblings and drive to a parking lot to snag a Wi-Fi connection.

“Those are the kids I worry about the most,” Smith said of her students at Finch, where more than half of the students receive free and reduced-price meals.

In the meantime, the shift to distance learning has proven more difficult than most anticipated. Parents who expected a quick transition are frustrated with the measured approach taken by Spokane Public Schools and most other districts.

Now they share the front lines with teachers, many of whom are home with school-aged children of their own. Most are muddling their way through new online platforms – Zoom, ClassDojo and Microsoft Teams, to name a few – which they hadn’t heard of before schools were closed.

By the second week of March, school closures were a distinct possibility, and Inslee made it official with his announcement on March 13 that schools would shut down three days later.

But for how long?

Joanna O’Neil, an algebra teacher at North Central High School, recalls leaving her classroom on March 16 with feelings of sadness and uncertainty.

“My initial feeling was just wondering how I was going to maintain those relationships with kids,” O’Neil said. “It was really sad walking out, that this could be the last time.”

Across the state, districts hedged their bets. Mindful that many students lacked laptops and wireless connections, teachers across the state assembled packets filled with paper lessons.

Online materials were included, but because of equity concerns they were labeled as “enrichment” materials and thus not required.

Then came Inslee’s order on April 6 to close schools through the end of the year, forcing a more comprehensive approach to distance learning. By then, everyone was on spring break. When everyone returned, Spokane and other districts continued to fine-tune plans, with an expectation for a full rollout this week.

“That’s a big adjustment and a significant shift for staff,” Associate Superintendent Adam Swinyard told the Spokane Public Schools board of directors last week. “It’s a lot like adjusting from driving a car to a boat – it takes some time to learn the intricacies.”

Experts agree. Typically, it takes three months or more to develop an online course, according to David Cillay, chancellor of Washington State University’s distance-learning program, WSU Global Campus.

“Faculty work with designers, animators and a team of designers who envision what their online course would look like,” Cillay said.

Teachers don’t have that luxury.

A new routine

Derek Sarfino, a fifth-grade teacher at Wilson Elementary, admits he has it better than most, even with two kids of his own at home.

For one thing, Wilson is located in a solid middle-class neighborhood on the South Hill, where nearly all students have laptops and “parents are on top of things,” Sarfino said.

For another, Sarfino team-teaches with a colleague; she handles language arts while he covers math and science.

“We get to divide and conquer,” said Sarfino, who employs MS Teams to give out assignments and link with students.

However, it’s not the same thing. “We can’t see the frustration on the kids’ faces,” Sarfino said.

That’s doubly true in McLean’s Advanced Placement calculus class. The students are “eager learners,” McLean said, but prefer face-to-face time.

“That’s one of the best parts of being a teacher,” McLean said.

McLean holds live sessions with MS Teams, but that, too, is less than perfect. “Kids show up to the lessons and are present, but they’re reluctant to actually participate,” she said.

At North Central, O’Neil also employs MS Teams to post worksheets and “chat about specific questions.”

“My biggest priority when we went on extended break was consistently reaching out to kids, so I can dialogue with you,” said O’Neil, who tries to keep things upbeat.

“Each Monday I give them a fun discussion topic,” O’Neil said. “We’re also building community, getting them used to conversing with their peers.”

Technology helps, to a point

Leandra Myers is an instructional facilitator at Shaw Middle School. That means she handles many of the technical challenges faced by teachers at the northeast Spokane school.

Some have bordered on the ridiculous.

Myers scoffed when she heard that the district had placed autonomous hotspots in the parking lots of several schools. But when she needed to download programs requested by teachers, Myers learned that some websites were being blocked by the district Wi-Fi filter.

“So I took my laptop out to the parking lot and started downloading,” Myers said.“There’s definitely been more of the technology piece.”

Fortunately, Shaw has been using the online Summit Learning platform, “so students know how to access resources and use self-directed learning,” Myers said

Laptops and connectivity are the biggest issue at Shaw, where six out of every seven students receive free and reduced-price meals.

Across the city the district has checked out more than 5,000 laptops – one per family – to those who request them.

Teachers are parents, too

Few teachers have more on their plate than Smith. In addition to her classroom, she is the technology integration specialist at Finch.

“I’m a very popular person right now,” said Smith, who also has three children at home.

“The thing I reiterate to parents is that social-emotional health comes first,” Smith said. “You do the best you can because you’ve been thrown into this – take care of your wellness first, then take care of your academic issues.”

Sometimes they’re inseparable. Just as she was neck-deep in her burgeoning duties as Shaw’s tech czar, Myers got a call from her day care.

“They said not to bring my 2-year old,” Myers said. “And I’m hearing that this could last into the fall.”

Meanwhile, Sarfino is trying to balance the needs of two dozen Wilson fifth-graders with his own two elementary-age children.

“It’s challenging,” Sarfino said. “You really have to work on the relationship with your own kids. You also have to trust your child while holding them accountable.”

A cloudy crystal ball

Already, educators are looking ahead to the fall, or whenever teachers and students will gather again under the same roof.

“All the good teachers are already thinking about that,” Smith said.

That there will be learning loss – a “summer slide” of historic proportions, some fear – is uncontested.

At Lewis and Clark, McLean worries about retention. “Math is so sequential,” she said. “I think that for the kids who are in Algebra I and geometry, there is going to be a lot of lost information.”

“We’re going to have to fill in the gaps,” McLean said.

Those gaps are certain to be larger for children in lower-income neighborhoods.

“I’m optimistic for Wilson,” said Sarfino, who estimates that his class had already covered “80 to 85%” of the year’s material by the time schools were shut down.

But at Arlington Elementary, where he worked for seven years earlier in his career, Sarfino said “We needed every day of the school year” to get through the curriculum.

“And the ones who didn’t work in the classroom are the ones who aren’t going to work at home,” Sarfino said.

Those thoughts keep Smith awake at night.

“I’m a realist,” she said. “The reality is that everyone is going to be a little bit behind, and my biggest concern is those who we have a tough time reaching.”