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As Fresno Unified officials scramble to pass out thousands of computers to students, many parents have expressed frustration with a process they say is fraught with confusion and delays.

That frustration has spilled over to the school board. Three trustees recently said they’ve heard from multiple families who haven’t been contacted by any of their children’s teachers more than a month since campuses closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trustee Carol Mills called the issue “concerning” and said teachers are expected to connect with students weekly.

“I can understand there is an adjustment period,” Mills said, “but after five weeks, I think families expected to have some contact.” Superintendent Bob Nelson told trustees he would follow up with staff to make sure teachers are connecting with students.

Some district leaders have acknowledged a communication breakdown between dozens of parents — who said they spent months before the pandemic asking for help with technology tools — and district officials, who said they’ve tried to pass out free computers since 2018, only to have many families turn them down.

Much of the problem has been attributed to language barriers and the use of emails and websites to advertise a free technology program to people who don’t have Internet access or computers.

“We are finding through our feedback that there are some equity issues,” Assistant Superintendent of English Learner Services Sandra Toscano said at a meeting earlier this month. “We are trying so many different ways to reach our families, and that’s still one of our big challenges.”

District staffers said they are working on plans to make interpreters and translations more accessible. Nelson also said plans are in the works for a new technology-support call center, expected to open later this month.

“Thank you to our families for your patience at this time,” Nelson said.

But while a life-halting global pandemic wasn’t on any school official’s radar before 2020, parents who spoke to The Bee said the district, in the years before the outbreak, should have communicated better about its technology programs with families, particularly with parents of English-learning students.

“The district had time and money to move, they are not a victim,” said Alis Aleman, a bilingual parent who leads the community group Familias Empoderadas (Empowered Families.)

Lingering frustrations

While some school officials have acknowledged setbacks and shortcomings with the online education rollout, they’ve also been quick to note successes and pushed back against some criticism.

Nikki Henry, a district spokesperson, noted that pandemic-related school closures are “unprecedented” and said district teams have worked hard “to completely overhaul our traditional education system overnight.”

“We are incredibly proud of our teams and how they’ve stepped up in this crisis,” she said.

The issue, officials have said, is not unique to Fresno.

And, according to a recent survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, only about 40% of districts in the nation are trying to ensure students have at least some devices and web access.

Tony Thurmond, California superintendent of public instruction, announced on Thursday a new task force seeking to “close the digital divide.”

“ COVID-19 is a public health crisis in California and all around the world, but it’s also revealed other crises like the technology gap that has persisted for too long, leading to opportunity and achievement gaps for California’s students,” Thurmond said in a statement.

The process of passing out more than 70,000 devices — and in many cases, WiFi Internet access — to thousands of Fresno students across an 80-square-mile district is made even slower and more cumbersome in an era of social distancing.

While the district officials haven’t said when they expect to complete the long process of handing out devices, Henry said they would work at it “for as long as we need to” to ensure equal access.

District officials, including Trustee Veva Islas, who agreed with at least some of the criticism from parents, have said they want to focus more on the present crisis and less on recent history.

“I don’t think it serves us to try to spend to much time in thinking about why it didn’t happen because the real important thing is that it happened now,” Islas said.

The coronavirus, they note, changed everything.

But Aleman said many parents she’s spoken with feel the push to change the conversation is disingenuous and doesn’t address what they say are long-standing failures that bred mistrust between English-language learners and Fresno schools.

“They say all schools are in the same boat, I’m sorry, but that’s not the case for Fresno because that funding for technology was already approved” (in 2018),” Aleman said.

Aleman said these inequities and breakdowns in communication already existed, but coronavirus “uncovered it all.”

Nelson has said the district’s plan to put a device in each student’s home is an effort to address at least some of those inequities and challenges. Those same issues are also the reason he ended mandatory student assignments for the year and eased grading standards.

“Demanding anything or insisting, unilaterally, that kids complete certain assignments when they may or may not have the technology to do that, that would create inequities,” Nelson said earlier this month in an interview with The Bee.

Islas said district leaders need to focus on the future.

“It’s the new plan. It’s about how we’re going to make it now. That’s what I would really like to focus in on.”

The new plan

The district in 2018 earmarked more than $2 million for computers and devices to distribute to students who needed them. While some parents have criticized the district’s communication strategy in connection with those devices, school officials handed out more than 20,000 devices before the outbreak and thousands more since, according to Henry.

The new plan includes providing tablets to students in third grade and below and laptops to all other students, district officials said.

Devices are being deployed at each school. FUSD has released an online calendar detailing distribution. Staff is contacting parents directly through the contact information in their ATLAS parent portal, which parents can read in English, Spanish, or Hmong. Parents should make sure their contact information in the portal is up to date, officials said.

“Since school closures, school sites are reaching out to students and families directly to distribute devices,” Henry said. “Tablets still require parent permission, while students have registered for computers directly through phone calls or an online survey tool made available through their school site.”

Aleman said she’s heard from parents who say the devices they’ve received don’t work correctly.

“We are finding out the types of tablets they are giving don’t support some of FUSD’s programs, including Zoom, which is one of the platforms teachers are using to communicate with students,” she said. “We’ve also heard it from teachers.”

District spokesperson Vanessa Ramirez said all the devices are equipped to operate Zoom and encouraged anyone struggling with laptops or devices or with the ATLAS login to contact the district’s COVID-19 center, 559-457-3395.

Islas said language barriers and access issues remain significant challenges for the district to overcome. She said the district needs to continue developing a variety of strategies to reach each family. Adding multiple languages to a few communications channels is helpful, she said, but doesn’t completely solve the problem.

“Certainly, think about the language needs of our families but also think about the limitations in communication channels. We need to be maximizing our text service, phone call service, and emails,” Islas said. “Not every single one of our parents access information in the same way.”

It’s not just about grades

Nelson recently announced that, in the wake of school closures, students could finish the year with the same grades they earned during the third quarter, or they can work to improve upon those grades.

While Nelson and others have worked hard to reassure students about the shutdown’s effect on academic credit and grades, some parents said they’re more concerned seniors will graduate with an “incomplete” education.

“Those high school kids, if they are not finishing at the appropriate level, they will be without resources in the future. Graduating doesn’t guarantee the entrance to a university,” Aleman said.

Blanca Contreras is a Spanish speaking parent. Her son is in the English Learning program. She said he’s a sixth-grader who reads at a third-grade level.

Contreras said she’s been asking the district for years to give her son more help, instead of the “bare minimum,” so that he can graduate from the program and become fully bilingual.

“He is about to graduate to go to another school, and with this epidemic, I am even more worried because he is already very behind. What are they going to do with my son? Will he be held back? Will they pass him with low grades,” Contreras said.

She said she worries about his ability to access education, but also about the quality of the lessons he can receive in a new, unfamiliar system.

“I’m worried because I am wondering what’s going to happen? Are they going to work with students who are currently behind?” she said. “Are they going to focus on them 100%, or is it going to stay the same?”

Monica Velez contributed reporting.

The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Learn about The Bee’s Education Lab on our website.

This story was originally published April 19, 2020 at 9:35 AM.