‘We don’t know what hotspot means.’ Distance learning struggles mount for Fresno families

For hundreds of Fresno-area parents like Jesus Sierra Lopez, the more things change during the coronavirus pandemic, the more they stay the same for their children in school.

The return to classrooms is only part-time due to social distancing guidelines. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control lowered its social distancing guidance for classrooms from six feet to three, but it remains unclear how that might change things in Fresno schools.

And while thousands of students are headed back to classrooms part-time, many local families are keeping their children at home as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plague communities more than a year since the first cases landed in the central San Joaquin Valley.

For now, at least, the challenges of distance learning seem far from over for Sierra Lopez, regardless of whether his daughter goes back to campus.

He said he’s frustrated that he hasn’t been able to help his children with their schoolwork throughout the pandemic.

“We, the parents, don’t understand,” Sierra Lopez said. “We were supposed to take classes in May (last year) to learn digital literacy, but those plans were canceled because of the pandemic.”

But, he said, he knows he’s far from the only local parent struggling with online education challenges.

Many Fresno-area families have struggled with technology issues during the pandemic, including connectivity and access challenges. But even when such problems have been addressed with schools providing computers and WiFi hotspots, many parents don’t understand how to use those tools, according to Linda Gleason from Cradle to Career, an organization working to help families become more digitally literate.

“We have parents who don’t know how to get on the platforms. It’s not only an education issue,” Gleason said. “It’s the social justice issue of our time.”

Fresno families struggling with Internet and digital literacy challenges

Last fall, the Parent Institute for Quality Education surveyed Californians in English and Spanish and reported that nearly 30% of respondents across the central San Joaquin Valley didn’t even have an email address.

Patricia Chavez, policy director at PIQE, said her organization has been helping families struggling with technology barriers and digital literacy hurdles.

“In the beginning of April, families were telling us ‘we don’t know what hotspot means. The school sent us this hotspot, but what is it?’ Or ‘I’ve heard of WiFi, but what is a URL?’ We were working with families and really providing them knowledge about how to get access, what that means, and explaining ‘this is what a modem is,’” Chavez said in an interview with The Bee’s Education Lab.

Chavez said sending hotspots and digital tools without taking the time to explain what it is and how it works is like “driving a car with three wheels.”

Sierra Lopez said his struggles helping his children are compounded by internet connectivity problems at his home in rural Fresno County. As recently as 2019, about 25% of Fresno County homes didn’t have internet service, The Bee has reported.

Sierra Lopez is hoping to start taking digital literacy classes in the spring. In the meantime, he and his wife rely on their eldest daughter to help his younger children connect and use the tools given to them by the district.

Can this problem help Fresno families?

When the coronavirus shut down Fresno-area schools last year, Elmer Blanco feared his daughters would fall behind taking all their classes online.

“All last year, I was afraid that my daughters wouldn’t learn much,” Blanco said.

Blanco and his wife do not speak English, and their daughters are English Learner students. And while many daily challenges persist, Blanco said things seemed to improve significantly after his wife took a digital literacy class from PIQE.

“She took all of PIQE classes and is now always checking on my daughter’s work step-by-step,” Blanco said.

It’s difficult to gauge the effectiveness of such classes since the group is still collecting data, but parents like Blanco said his daughter’s grades were better after his wife took the course.

Since last year, PIQE has been working with families one-on-one.

Sade Williams, PIQE’s community engagement specialist, said educating parents is a crucial part of fixing the myriad problems associated with the so-called “digital divide.”

“They need one-on-one support to understand and learn the platforms,” Williams told The Bee. “Our families are humble. They need the time also to learn not just how to access it but how to use it.”

In one survey of more than 500 parents who took PIQE classes last year, about 55% said they were not comfortable using digital platforms like Zoom.

After attending the digital literacy class, 41% of parents said they felt they knew “pretty well” how to use digital platforms like zoom.

Of the parents who responded, PIQE also found 41% were English Learner parents, and 22% had only an Elementary-level education.

“Our families are struggling,” Williams said. “They have so many different burdens as well as the barriers they are facing, so the gap is extremely real, and it wasn’t just manifested right when COVID hit, but it really shined a light on the issue.”

How parents can get help

With the distribution of vaccines, schools in the Central Valley are slowly opening their doors, bringing students back on campus for hybrid learning.

But even with hybrid learning, not all parents are as inclined to send their kids to school. Parents like Sierra Lopez would prefer to continue distance learning until there is a vaccine available for children.

The issues of the digital divide and digital literacy will not go away once COVID-19 is at bay. Chavez and Williams say PIQE is working towards finding out what the new digital needs are.

“We are partnering with the various groups as we work on mapping out and understanding the need,” Chevez said. “At the moment, we are conducting surveys and speaking to organizations internally and externally.”

PIQE is continuing to offer digital literacy courses and webinars on their website.

Additionally, Fresno State’s Parent University offers digital literacy classes which teach parents how to use technology tools such as laptops and tablets properly.

“Knowledge is power. Sharing knowledge to our families and empowering them, coming together and providing that know-how, and addressing it; this is systemic change. Looking deeper at this digital divide that we’ve been talking about for years,” Chavez said.

This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.