Inga Cotton believes in school choice. Especially these days, parents should have the right to choose online education for their children. Some families feel safer educating their children at home until there is a vaccine or a treatment for COVID-19. For some children, online education is a better fit than on-campus education.
Inga wrote a commentary in support of offering parents the choice of online education, and it will publish in the newspaper on Saturday. It was in response to this May 22 piece by Cameron Vickrey of Pastors for Texas Children:
https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/c…
Remote education has been a positive experience for Inga’s kids. Her family has a lot of factors in their favor: internet access, devices, tech-savvy parents who work from home. She misses the influence of her kids’ teachers on their lives, but has noticed her autistic son is less stressed out. As a matter of equity, all students should have devices and internet access at home.
We are working to keep families informed about what back to school will be like—at their neighborhood public school, charter school, private school, etc. That’s why we are doing a recurring survey to ask parents about their back to school plans, and encourage them to advocate to their schools about what they think back to school should be like. Take the survey here: https://forms.gle/2RhAtoC6ef6pjaiF8
Online school should be one of the options that parents can choose this fall. It’s not the right fit for every child, but for some us it helps us feel more safe. That’s a decision for families to make.
