Before Peter Lang and his wife, Carmen, leave in the morning for their jobs, they play the roles of teacher, principal, and school administrator.

Over breakfast with their twin boys, Matthew and William, who are in second grade at Cedar Hill Elementary School, the family watches the morning introduction video from the boys’ teacher. Once the dishes are cleared, the dining room becomes a makeshift classroom. Then it’s time for a walk around the block to get the wiggles out before two to three hours of screen time. The night before, Peter and his wife were up late trying to fix the technology issues that their sons experienced during the school day.

“This isn’t the routine we want,” said Peter in an interview. “Between the dog barking when the mailman shows up, politicians knocking at the door, and sitting next to your twin brother, the distractions are everywhere.”

Across the city, the Goff family is also tackling distance learning. Jen Goff, a high school teacher from a different district, sees both sides to the distance-learning story.

“Distance learning is not suiting his needs,” she says of her son, Bryce. Goff says the need for support is the number one challenge to distance learning. Bryce is unable to do a lot of the work independently, and requires the support of an adult in the house. Goff is worried about her son’s social skills. To help with her son’s shyness, Goff cites peer interaction in school as a big part of his social well-being. “It’s very hard to build relationships through the screen. It’s intimidating to raise your hand when you’re looking at blank boxes.”

Parents throughout the city are concerned about the COVID gap: the academic and social knowledge lost due to the pandemic and the shift from in-person to distance learning. Able to see their child’s performance on assessments and other assignments, parents are alarmed their children may not be on the grade level they should be. Lang cites the one on one interaction with the teacher as the main reason for his kids’ slip in performance. “How long will we let the gap go on? How will our kids make it up?”

Now that elementary school has begun to return to in-person learning via a hybrid model, parents are voicing their concerns about middle school and high school students.

Marguerite Belisle, a parent of two students at Pilgrim High School, says she’s not seeing the same push among parents for secondary to return to the classroom. Belisle is particularly concerned about her daughter, a senior in the midst of the college application process. In an interview, Belisle said she wants a return to the classroom so her daughter can better prepare for college. “There’s no help from the guidance counselors, and virtual tours just don’t cut it. I’m worried about her transition to college.”

William McCaffrey, Director of Secondary Schools, had little to say about the ways in which Warwick is helping high school seniors prepare for college. In an interview, he reiterated that guidance counselors are always available to help, but did not elaborate. When asked about the disparity between pushing for elementary and secondary return to schools, he denied hearing comments from concerned parents, stating that he’s “only received a few emails and calls.”

Henry Whitford, an administrator on the Parents for Better Warwick Schools Facebook page, has repeatedly asked parents and families to write, email, and call the school committee and administrators with their experiences of distance learning.

“We need to let them know that we aren’t playing games when it comes to our children’s education,” Whitford posted in late September. Since then, the school committee has received a number of letters, emails, and calls from Warwick families.

Peter Lang even extended an invitation to the school committee to join him and his family for a day of distance learning. “I invite all of you to stop by our house any morning (we will all wear masks) to observe my 7 year olds trying to get some sort of education for a few hours,” he wrote in a public comment. The school committee declined the invite.

While 80 percent of Warwick families want a return to full in-person learning, according to a survey sent out by the school department, not everyone is on board. The Goldman family has decided that their 10th grader, Emily, will stay at home and do distance learning through the end of the school year. When asked about the COVID risk outweighing the pitfalls of distance learning, Anne Goldman, a volunteer in Warwick schools, has learned that “kids can be jerks and don’t always follow the rules. Parents send their kids to school sick all the time, and I don’t see how this would be any different.”

WIGGLES OUT:  Bryce has time during his distance learning day to get the wiggles out with interactive videos from his teacher, designed to get students out of their seats and moving around.