A Return to In-Person Learning Isn't Enough for Students of Color

Selena A. Carrión

In-person learning debates have reached a fever pitch in the past several months. Vocal groups of parents from California to Chicago want their children back in school instead of in hybrid or remote learning models, with teachers' unions arguing over returns. A March 2021 Gallup poll reports 79 percent of parents favor an in-person return, even as one in three students still learn at home.

But the reality is much more complex. Recent data shows that there is a racial divide between the parents who want in-person learning and those who prefer remote learning. Nationwide numbers suggest that many parents of color, including Black and Latino families, prefer remote learning over white families. Only 46 percent of Black families and 50 percent of Latino families felt comfortable sending their children back into school buildings, according to a CDC study published in December 2020. For white families, that was closer to 62 percent. Black and Latino families reported feelings of distrust about whether schools were being honest about their abilities to reopen, some based on collective past experiences of discrimination.

And in New York City, where I teach, at least half of parents citywide opted in for remote learning this year. Though white families make up the minority in city schools, they represent the largest group of families who chose in-person learning. Many of my own parents of color chose at two separate points to keep their children remote.

Parents of color, are, of course, not a monolith—some do see schools as failing their students by not going back to in-person instruction and have been campaigning for a return. But looking at preference patterns along racial lines reveal important truths we can no longer ignore.

A History of Pain

The reasons why Black families, in particular, do not feel comfortable with in-person learning go beyond fears of infection. Fear of what renowned scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings calls "a special kind of violence" contributes to parents' discomfort with sending students back to school. According to a recent post on her blog, Ladson-Billings writes that "Black families are keenly aware that school was not the haven of comfort and safety that some professionals try to pretend they are. Yes, some children live in unsafe and unstable homes, but rather than solve their problems, some students find that school exacerbates their problems." Black families who spoke to Mother Jones in March echoed those same fears, citing a "long history of racism in public schooling" and systemic racism in the medical field.

For many students from marginalized communities, classrooms are the cause of pain and trauma, not the antidote. Students of color have often experienced compliance, discrimination, and microaggressions at school, such as being harshly punished for the way they dress, style their hair, or speak. Students of color often do not have access to culturally responsive curriculum, forcing them to engage with Eurocentric content that erases their culture and identity. In schools that don't approach instruction from a trauma-informed lens, students who struggle with housing or food insecurity may be misunderstood when they do not participate in expected ways. Further, many students with disabilities or those learning English for the first time face structural barriers like tracking, lack of appropriate curriculum, and proper supports that prevent them from feeling like a real part of the school community. For many of these students, being back in person may mean more of the same issues.

My own 4th and 5th grade students have told me that their feelings about returning to school are complicated. Janelle expressed that she was happy at home: "I'm shy and I feel like I always got bullied in my last class. Online, everyone is nice and my friends and I talk on Google Chat." Jacob shared with the class, to my disbelief, "I used to get in trouble all the time in school, but because of remote learning, I can just focus on getting my work done." During family and teacher conferences, his parents expressed relief that the school wasn't calling them to report his behavior, saying he finally got a fresh start. Another student, Luna, shared that she often felt unsafe in school because of her identity and that she didn't miss feeling unwelcome: "I've gained interest in a lot of things, I've started writing a lot, and made friendships. I've been helping a lot of people online and sharing my art with them!"

Their experiences make clear that we do not meet students' social and emotional learning needs simply by returning to in-person learning. This approach is a Band-Aid on a system that has long ignored the needs of students of color, students with disabilities, English language learners, and children in rural and poor communities. In-person learning may better students' academic chances and offer some needed supports, but what about the ways in which their mental, emotional, and social health are worsened by being in a school building?

Reexamine Curricula

To make in-person learning work for our marginalized students, school leaders must radically rethink their focus. What students need now is to return to schools that are ready to actually care for them and meet their unique emotional and social needs. This means implementing targeted and sustainable changes now.

The first step school leaders need to take is devising and implementing a plan that addresses social and emotional equity with an antiracist lens. This entails examining the social and emotional learning curriculum in the school, if there is one, as well as rethinking daily instructions and interactions, and determining if approaches are trauma-informed and culturally responsive. Many SEL programs are framed through a Euro-centric cultural lens that can be traumatizing for Black and Latino students, such as overpolicing behavior through compliance and control or using "character education" programs that reinforce the idea that Black and Latino students "lack" character.

My school has found the work of Dena Simmons, the founder of LiberatED, to be particularly helpful in framing our approach to antiracist SEL. We are also implementing approaches to literacy suggested by Gholdy Muhammad in her book Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy. One of our goals is to incorporate the input of students from marginalized communities and their families by creating times and platforms for parents to share their experiences, making sure they are a part of school equity teams, and providing parent associations access and opportunities to share opinions about any new initiatives.

Take Away Testing

Another step that schools can take for students is resisting academic assessment and remediation. This year, the federal government has mandated standardized state exams, even after many states asked to cancel them. State exams can cause deep distress and anxiety for students of all ages. I have personally seen students anxious to the point of physical illness or tears. These exams are not even helpful for teachers in a normal school year, let alone in the middle of the most difficult school year in recent memory.

Schools need to work to find more equitable ways to assess students that are actually beneficial to learning, including assessment practices that illuminate students' brilliance and focus on what they are learning, rather than what they do not know. Currently, my school has been focused on feedback over traditional grading. Instead of falling into the trap of assessing just to grade or using assessments to see what students cannot do, we are instead looking at what growth they have made and what they can do next.

Using digital tools like Pear Deck, Nearpod, and Google Classroom, we have been able to provide students with strategic and targeted support. For instance, within Google Classroom students can annotate a checklist and choose writing goals, and the teacher can provide immediate feedback on a goal and what they can work on next. Our students, in turn, are collaborative partners, learning to self-assess, understand the curriculum standards, and set their own goals.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona currently supports districts' plans for summer school and enrichment programs, but more schooling, with social and emotional wellbeing constantly treated as an afterthought, isn't always what students need. They need a summer of play, joy, and learning that comes from discovery, and educators need to understand the deep emotional and social impact that the past year has had on them. If a child has lost a loved one or is afraid of losing someone (which, due to COVID-19's racial health disparities, is much more likely the case for our Black and Latino students), they cannot learn.

It's also important to address the historical deficit-framed approach to education, which views Black and Latino students as "failing" or "at-risk." This approach often forces Black and Latino students to spend even more time learning traditional academics and curriculum, which is not helpful when a child is traumatized or feels distressed at school. We can begin to focus on an asset-based approach by adopting a culturally responsive curriculum and assessments that nurture the assets and strengths of students of color.

Create a Supportive Climate

Many of the traditional approaches to addressing mental health in schools do not take into consideration the trauma that students face in their day-to-day lived experience, let alone the immense collective trauma of a global pandemic. In New York City, for example, public schools have the largest school police force in the nation (with more than 5,000 school safety officers) and a funding freeze over hiring more school counselors and social workers. An already limited staff serve almost 1 million students. 

Teachers will need to understand the many ways trauma affects children, including what behaviors may signal a student is in crisis, and have access to ongoing resources like support personnel, professional development, and policies that support teacher mental health to make sure students have quality care.

In my building, with the support of our two school counselors, we have worked on rethinking how teachers can better understand trauma. It has been an eye-opening experience to realize that many of our school practices have been harmful, even with the best intentions. For instance, students were required to line up in silent and orderly lines to spend a short amount of time outside under the surveillance of adults. Students perceived as misbehaving had to sit down in silence, often losing outside privileges temporarily, for themselves or their entire class. When schools normalize these prison-like routines, they are inflicting pain in ways that may affect how students' view learning and themselves. Next year, when we return to an in-person learning environment, we hope to reconceptualize aspects of school like recess, which is crucial to a child's social-emotional health.

Without addressing the needs of our most marginalized students, academic success is inconsequential. The global pandemic has affected students in ways that we have yet to understand. Though a return to in-person learning may best support many students academically, we should be thinking about how to address their emotional needs, especially when those needs have long been neglected. If we continue to ignore those needs, the scars that students will hold for the rest of their lives will be emotional ones.

Selena A. Carrión (@SelenaCarrion) is an ELA teacher and library media specialist working in the Bronx. She is a current parent and former student of the NYC Public Schools and is passionate about teaching using multimodal approaches through an anti-racist lens.

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ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 15. Copyright 2021 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.