Sudbury mothers reflect on realities of children learning from home

A couple of Sudbury mothers are talking about what it's like to suddenly have their children back home to learn, after two schools shut down in response to COVID-19 infections.

Lindsey Richer is self-isolating at home with her newborn and her five-year-old daughter, whose class at École St.-Denis had a case of COVID-19 crop up.

Richer says she's coping, but says it is difficult to assist a five-year-old with online learning while taking care of a small baby. And she's also a bit worried about when her daughter goes back.

"The thought of her ending up with COVID, plus me, plus the baby, is unsettling," Richer said.

Both École St.-Denis and St. David's of Sudbury are the first two elementary schools in the northeast to close since the pandemic began. Students have been sent home until Jan. 29.

Richer says she's rattled at times.

"Living between being frantic about being home alone with two small kids and trying to isolate a five-year-old is next to impossible. The second you tell her something's wrong, she wants to cling to mom even more."

Richer says her daughter would much rather go to school than learn online.

Sabrina Carter's son is in Grade 6 at St. David's, and has been distance learning while she works from home. To her knowledge, no one in her son's class has the virus.

"So hopefully it stays that way. The classes [affected] are SK-Grade 1, and then another full-day kindergarten class. And at this point, I don't know if there's any siblings in those classes yet or not. But as of right now, that's what it is." 

She says her son is not showing any symptoms of COVID, but she's keeping an eye on him. She says he's feeling a bit restless staying at home.

"My biggest struggle is to get him to learn at home. That's the fight. He doesn't like learning that way. He wants to be in class. He wants to be with his friends," Carter said.

"Getting him to actually try to get on his iPad — and the school provided iPads instantly, which was great for them. But the biggest challenge is getting him to do it and to get on there, because he just doesn't like it."

Both Richer and Carter say they are looking forward to the return to in-class learning, even though they worry about what surprises the pandemic will bring.

"They do their hand hygiene and you kind of just hope for the best and hope that they listen to you and they listen to their teachers and they do what they're supposed to do," Richer said.

"I'm pleased that they are doing the masks at this point as well. I just hope the kids don't share them. She came home with a mask the other day, and I was so alarmed. It turns out that she had two masks in her backpack that day and she needed a third. So the school had some to provide. So we launder them and return them and I'm assuming they launder them again."

Carter says her son is understandably pushing to go back to school.

"And I get it. He just turned 12 and it's his last year there. Also, he's been there since JK. So he really wants to be with his friends as much as possible," she said.

"So I'm going to let him go back. He keeps his mask on, they even have them on during gym class. The only time they take it off is to eat. And even when they're outside, they are to keep [their masks] on — unless they are not around anyone else, then they can take it off."