Tackling the Back-to-School Challenges of Teachers, Parents and Students
By: Shani Dowell
Tags: Education, Startup, Foundertofounder, Founders, Edtech

This year’s back-to-school season comes with immense uncertainty and challenges. After an abrupt shut down in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19 in March, school administrators are still struggling to decide what the best approach is to restart the school year for 56.4 million students.

They aren’t alone; 66 percent of parents are anxious about sending their children back to school and 82 percent of K-12 teachers are worried about returning to the classroom. Our pulse checks found similar uncertainty. Whether students attend school in-person, online, or a hybrid of the two, teachers are faced with a new challenge of how to engage students amid a pandemic, while also supporting their social and emotional wellbeing. There is also a significant challenge in making remote learning equitable in a country with deep economic divides.

As CEO of Possip, a platform that provides real-time education feedback from parents to schools, I’m continuing to hear the challenges both are facing with the uncertainty of if students will be returning to the classroom at some point this year and with distance learning. I was even just awarded $100,000 in cash and support from Google for Startups Black Founders Fund to further help to address this issue.

How Technology is Being Used to Help Ease the Transition to Distance Learning

Due to the quick pivot to a remote learning model, teachers and administrators struggled to figure out the process that best served students and parents — how to deliver lessons, asynchronous or synchronously, in addition to parent and student outreach, assigning and completing assignments, grading, and more.

The quick action from these schools to get the technology-side up and running for remote learning is something to be celebrated. That said, there are still some missing links that both parents and schools need in order to build positive remote-learning structures:

One-stop-shop: Parents are craving a one-stop-shop. I’ve been fortunate that in my own kid’s school, the teachers have figured out how to do that. My kid’s daily schedule is on Google calendars, their homework is assigned via Google forms, and they use Google classrooms to get their assignments and so I can track completion. There is still room for improvement, especially around communication between teachers and parents–I would love to see a daily email to parents of what was due and what was submitted.

Parents are craving a one-stop-shop. I’ve been fortunate that in my own kid’s school, the teachers have figured out how to do that. My kid’s daily schedule is on Google calendars, their homework is assigned via Google forms, and they use Google classrooms to get their assignments and so I can track completion. There is still room for improvement, especially around communication between teachers and parents–I would love to see a daily email to parents of what was due and what was submitted. Communication: In this distance learning era, parents and teachers have switched roles. Parents now have more perspective of what’s working and what’s not, which has increased the need for better, real-time communication between schools and parents. By utilizing communication platforms, schools are able to pinpoint various needs (like food and technology), hear parents’ real-time reactions to decisions and logistics, and make better-informed curriculum decisions in this ever-changing landscape. There are so many platforms schools are using — and parents want to be successful. Parents are trying to use all the technology that schools and districts put in front of them. They tend to love what is easy to use and allows them to support their child. At Possip, we’ve loved helping families get access to their technology, food, or support for their child simply through a text. And with Google translate, parents can share across over 100 languages.

In this distance learning era, parents and teachers have switched roles. Parents now have more perspective of what’s working and what’s not, which has increased the need for better, real-time communication between schools and parents. By utilizing communication platforms, schools are able to pinpoint various needs (like food and technology), hear parents’ real-time reactions to decisions and logistics, and make better-informed curriculum decisions in this ever-changing landscape. There are so many platforms schools are using — and parents want to be successful. Parents are trying to use all the technology that schools and districts put in front of them. They tend to love what is easy to use and allows them to support their child. At Possip, we’ve loved helping families get access to their technology, food, or support for their child simply through a text. And with Google translate, parents can share across over 100 languages. Unreliable equipment: While schools are distributing laptops, Chromebooks and tablets, many parents say that they break down and have tech issues, making it impossible to complete assignments. Ultimately, school districts aren’t set up to support tens of thousands of pieces of equipment.

Ultimately, back to school this year is testing educators and parents, bringing on new challenges and posing questions that we have never had to even consider. While we do not have all the answers to these questions yet, it is important that parents and teachers come together to help navigate as a community. Technology will, and has already, played a huge role in making hybrid and distance learning a possibility. We must come together–parents, teachers, administrators, technology industry–to ensure that students come first and are supported through this difficult time.