During a regular meeting of the Three Rivers Community Schools (TRCS) Board of Education on Monday, three public commenters provided criticism of the Lincoln Learning virtual instruction platform adopted as part of the TRCS “Return to Learn” pandemic response plan. All three are parents of TRCS students. Board Member Kevin Hamilton said he heard “three complaints from parents this week” similar to the public commenters’ remarks. Fellow Board Member Anne Riopel also criticized the platform.

Public comments came in the form of written submissions prior to Monday’s meeting and were read aloud by Board President Erin Nowak. The first commenter inquired whether there were options available to improve student and parent support for the platform’s users. The second commenter said support was lacking, the platform was hard to navigate, and “the material is just horrible.” She said her 12-year-old has gotten poor grades because it is not clear how to turn assignments in and she has not gotten responses to help requests. 

The same commenter also said her nine-year-old has had to work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. with few breaks in order to finish his work. “There are assignments that require partners, surveys, poster boards, microscopes, and other ridiculous things for a nine-year-old doing virtual learning,” she said. 

The third commenter said the Lincoln Learning platform “is the worst thing I have ever had my child participate in. My daughter went from loving school to dreading school. The expectation that children should be able to sit in front of a computer screen for six-plus hours a day and do nothing but read is absurd, even with short breaks. How is any elementary child supposed to learn this way?” She said, “to watch my child cry and call herself stupid daily is heartbreaking and infuriating as a parent.”

Hamilton said, “I know we’re just in week three,” but asked TRCS Superintendent Ron Moag whether the schools’ administration was monitoring the Lincoln Learning platform on a daily basis, and whether there was any information available on the platform’s past failure rates. Moag said he could get information to answer Hamilton’s questionS, but didn’t have it in front of him.

Curriculum Director Nikki Nash said the Lincoln Learning platform is “very rigorous,” but much of that rigor comes from the platform’s format and structure rather than its actual content. Although specific instructional material may come out of sequence with what face-to-face and hybrid-option students receive, she said, it is ultimately designed to be the same material. 

TRCS administration members are reaching out to parents to see what support they need, Nash said. She recognized some of the platform’s challenges, saying it is “very different from face-to-face,” and that it requires high parent involvement. “We’re encouraging families to contact us,” she said. “Once we talk to frustrated parents, they say, ‘OK, I get this now.’ Once they have confidence in the system, Nash said, they move through it quickly.

However, Riopel said, “I just want to reemphasize that our teachers are still the best people to be teaching our students. And I’ve asked before, and I still don’t fully understand why we aren’t doing it, instead of spending all this money that we’re spending, but it seems that if we had our teachers live streaming, doing the asynchronous and synchronous learning, as opposed to the Lincoln Learning, we’d be able to address these problems a little bit more readily.” 

Although there is a parents’ support group which has been providing answers and guidance on how to use the platform, Riopel said the board nevertheless “should look at it and reevaluate what is going to be best for our students.”

Board Member Linda Baker said one challenge with providing livestreaming instruction using TRCS teachers is that internet access is inconsistent around the TRCS territory. She said during a Kalamazoo Public Schools meeting she tried to attend online, which lasted one hour and 45 minutes, she “got frozen or kicked off 22 times,” with interruptions lasting up to a minute. “If we had decent internet that would be fine, but it’s not workable,” Baker said.

Regarding Lincoln Learning, Baker said, “we need to work out whatever the problems are there. I hope that parents do speak up, and I’m glad there’s a support group. I didn’t know there was such a thing.” Still, she said, because of the technical challenges of livestreaming in place of face-to-face and hybrid instruction, “I’m hoping in another couple of weeks, we’re going to hear more positive things about Lincoln Learning.” 

A fourth public commenter, Lindsey Bobell, spoke from a different perspective than the parents who spoke. She said, “there is no replacement for the education the teachers at Three Rivers Community Schools provide, and in these difficult times I am honored to be part of the Lincoln Learning team of mentors, tutors and administrators from Three Rivers Community Schools. There have been bumps in the road, but we have been stronger every week due to changes we have made based on the input of our parents and the communication we have been providing.”

Bobell went on to thank the administration staff, parents and students “who have been so supportive as we navigate this uncharted territory. We want nothing but the best for each and every student, whether they work in our physical buildings or from their homes.”

Nash said frustration with the service has led some parents and students to drop the Lincoln Learning platform in favor of other options. Just prior to the start of the platform’s contract in late August, 710 students were signed up to participate in it. There are currently 505 students enrolled in the platform. Most who left the platform did so before school began, Nash said, choosing face-to-face or hybrid instruction options instead. When Riopel asked how many chose homeschooling as an alternative, Nash said that number was “only 10.” 

In response to board member requests for clarification, Moag said the Lincoln Learning contract is through the entire 2020-21 school year, but payment is by the semester, which allows the board to review the platform’s efficacy in December. 

Moag said TRCS “will strive to do better and smooth out those bumps.” He said the district is doing its monthly state reporting, collecting and reviewing information on a daily basis “to make sure we’re meeting the needs of students and staff.”

In other BOE business:

• Members voted to approve the hiring of two teachers. Makayla Craun will be teaching Third Grade at Norton Elementary, and Samantha Meyers will split her time as Music Teacher between Hoppin and Park Elementaries.
• Also approved was the TRCS Extended COVID-19 Learning Plan, which makes TRCS compliant with new state regulations, supplementing its more detailed “Return-to-Learn” plan. It requires pandemic response planning, mandates that virtual learning mentors be certified teachers, and ensures certain educational standards are met during the pandemic. TRCS must report monthly to the BOE on educational progress and post its scores to the St. Joseph Intermediate School District (ISD) three times per year, concurrent with testing schedules in October, February, and at the school year’s end.
• Moag said state revenues for the current year are better than expected earlier in the pandemic, and as a result, he is cautiously optimistic that the TRCS will remain at 2019-20 Fiscal Year grant levels, whereas he previously anticipated a cut.
• Moag also said he has spent a great deal of time in the first two weeks of school visiting various TRCS buildings and said faculty and staff have done an “amazing job” getting students into and out of buildings before and after school, feeding them, and providing instruction.
• In addition to both its monthly work session and its regular monthly meeting, the BOE will conduct two special meetings in November for Moag’s annual performance evaluation. The first meeting will take place on November 5, and the second will take place November 19, with a two-week period between to allow board members to review information about Moag’s work and conduct.

Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.