BUFFALO (WBEN) - Representatives from various parent and community groups held a press conference Tuesday morning to call on the Buffalo School District to offer a remote learning option for students this academic year.
"We think adding the remote option is one of the innovations that we can make to change the system to make it better," said parent advocate Sam Radford, who's also a member of the New York Equity Coalition.
Radford pointed to the following excerpt from a July letter from the NYS State Department of Education to all superintendents that encouraged them to develop remote options for students:
"While the Department will not require schools that are open for full-time, in-person instruction to provide online or remote instruction, districts may work with students and families to offer remote options if it is deemed to be in the best educational interest of the student. Districts should consider the value of online capacity developed in response to the pandemic to expand programmatic offerings and to offer remote learning opportunities that are responsive to student needs."
"Some students excelled," Radford continued. "Why would you take a student who excelled - let's say it's 20-30% who excelled in remote instruction - why would you force them back into the classroom where maybe they struggled?"
Parent advocate Duncan Kirkwood says one of his three children is an example of a student who excelled with the remote model, and that parents should have the choice in this matter.
"If remote was working, you should have an option," said Kirkwood. "We have some bright students here who want to go faster, who want to go further, who want to graduate early, or who were behind and finally getting caught up without all the distractions of the classroom."
Several advocates, including Radford and Kirkwood, spoke about an apparent disconnect between the district and parents, and there's a general sense that parents aren't being listened to.
"It's not about me or my children," Kirkwood continued. "It's about parents having choices for what works for their children. We just know that each kid needs something different...We do this thing where (the district) will put out a plan, community leaders react to the plan, and then maybe there's a reconciliation, maybe not. It would be better if they started planning and said, 'Let's bring in real parents, real community leaders, real business leaders, to help us make a plan, so now when we move forward, we have buy-in, we have support, we have people with skin in the game who are vested in the success and fee a part of the success...' And that's what we really got to get to."
