Mother and daughter create this tool to gather information about distance classes in LA
At the beginning of the spring semester, Evelyn Aleman was comfortable knowing that her daughters – one in college and one in high school – were working hard for their education, allowing her to focus more on her work.
Little did he imagine, like thousands of parents, that classes would change from physical to virtual overnight due to the coronavirus pandemic.
To make the family’s situation worse, Alemán says that she fell ill and although she assures that she was tested for COVID-19 twice and it came back negative, all her symptoms were those of the virus.
In order not to put her family at risk, she decided to isolate herself in her bedroom for a period of eight weeks, during which time her daughter, who is in high school, was affected in her education.
“I asked LAUSD for help to advise my daughter and they did not help me,” said the San Fernando Valley resident. “They only sent me two e-mails with links for her to look for information but there was no call from anyone – teachers or the director – to see how I was doing.”
Alemán and his daughter decided to send a letter with their concerns to the representative member of their School District, Scott Schmerelson; as well as LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner.
Indicates that they did not receive the desired response either. Again, they just sent them links to search for information on their own.
If Alemán, who is a professional with knowledge of technology and English, had so little help with her daughter’s virtual education, she wondered how parents who do not know about technology and have language problems would be managing it .
“I got so upset about how they treat children that I decided to do something to include the voices of students and parents,” this mom said.
After the frustrating experience, she decided to create, together with her daughter, the Facebook page “Our Voice: Communities for Quality Education”, to invite parents and educators to share their questions and concerns regarding their children’s education in these areas. pandemic moments.
Shared concerns
One of the first active members to support him was Pedro Tot, who has two children. In the spring, his oldest daughter was in his last year of high school and his youngest son was in his fifth grade.
He said that when they were told about virtual classes for him it was like a bucket of cold water since no one knew how to navigate the new system, not teachers, not students, and much less parents.
He mentioned that his children were given electronic devices to take home and they had no problems with the internet because they already had it at home, but that he did see that several parents did not have the same luck to obtain electronic devices for their children.
“Besides many parents do not know how to use technology or hot spots [conexión a Internet] they give them are very slow, ”Tot explained.
So he also decided to support Evelyn Alemán’s group more directly.
Now he says that whenever he sees important information for the community, like where there are food banks or where free virtual classes are offered, he shares the information with others.
Alemán commented that in just two weeks he has already surpassed 150 members and that he is impressed to know that people from as far away as San Francisco, California, the state of Texas and even Mexico have become members of the page.
There are also many stakeholders from Ventura County’s indigenous and farming communities.
“I always try that the information is in Spanish and English and free because many parents cannot afford to pay subscriptions,” said Alemán.
He added that he is concerned to see that during this time of pandemic and with limited technology in several cases, parents who have children who are English learners, with intellectual or physical disabilities and / or low-income parents, face barriers to advance.
Through the page he created he said he hopes that more people can join and continue collaborating with vital information to improve the education of students inside and outside the country.
After all, he says, it has been a worldwide virus that has brought all parents, teachers and students together in virtual classroom learning.
To learn more about the group visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1176163479411915
