COVID-19 New Canaan
New Canaan Parents Take on ‘Home Schoolteacher’ Role Amid COVID-19 Emergency
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New Canaan resident Jessica Knowles, an HR consultant and mom of three—a kindergartener and third-grader at South School and fifth-grader at Saxe Middle School—has struggled since late last week to stay on top of work.
With the kids home as part of the New Canaan Public Schools’ newly launched remote learning program, Knowles’s ability to get back to people, schedule meetings and otherwise do her part-time job has been pushed into the evenings and become “sporadic,” she said. “I work from home and I am not really working, other than really trying to help my kids navigate this,” she said. Knowles is among the hundreds of New Canaan parents who have taken on a new role as “home schoolteacher” under the district’s e-learning program, launched Friday as an educational stopgap amid the COVID-19 emergency. Public school buildings are closed until at least March 30, officials have said. Conducted through email and web platforms and consisting largely of assignments that generate feedback from teachers, the e-learning program is drawing wide praise from the parent community as a testament to the district’s commitment to education.