Despite having to share a room with sisters, which requires Ventura to plan her schedule precisely to minimize the disruptions, she chose online learning because it balanced her family responsibilities, gave her more options for dual-enrollment courses, and calmed her social anxiety.
“The main reason I decided to stay home was because I don’t like socializing and having bad connections with people at school. It’s just like everybody looks at you and hates you,” she said. “That’s not how I like to be, like always watching my back there, and I found it more comfortable coming online.”
Five years ago, the pandemic forced unprepared school districts across the country to shift to online learning and Fresno students spent more than a year studying remotely. While the vast majority of kids eagerly returned to campuses, some never returned to in-person classrooms.
Rather, they chose to continue their studies online.
Fresno Unified had only 40 students enrolled in its online eLearn Academy before 2020. Now, the district of 70,000 pupils enrolls more than 800 students from kindergarten through 12th grade at the rebranded Farber School of Online Learning, which has become one of the largest online programs in California.
“Fresno Unified had a vision to continue supporting our students, who, for whatever reason, decided to stay home and learn from home,” said Tony Flori, a literacy coach at Farber Online.
Besides facing a screen at home alone, remote learning students have the exact same schedule as those taught offline. For each lesson, teachers take attendance and leave homework. In the P.E. class, kids practice jumping jacks and push-ups in the driveway and backyard with their cameras on. In the chemistry class, they grab Oreo cookies and other basic household supplies from the cupboard to create a lab situation.
Students can take Advanced Placement classes and dual-enrollment classes through Fresno City College, and participate in 15 school clubs.
Farber Online’s teacher-student ratio is slightly lower than in-person classrooms, with each teacher supervising about 20 students, Flori said. At the elementary level, class sizes are smaller. The student population begins to increase in the fifth and sixth grades, and the middle school has the largest number of students, with more than 25 and even reaching 30 students in each class. Some students will go back to in-person instruction in high school.
A veteran educator with 25 years of teaching experience, Flori said he realized there is no one-size-fits-all solution for learning, especially as students become more proficient learning through technology. The aim of public education should be to provide children with the best fit and help them to achieve the most success, he said.
Ventura, a recent graduate of Farber Online, used to juggling her own routines as well as her five siblings, who attend different schools with their individual extracurricular activities and commute schedules. One of her sisters was diagnosed with autism, Ventura said, and the therapy takes a lot of her mom’s time and attention.
“I set a time frame from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., I have this time to finish this amount of work, and I’m always going up and down the house. I have five sisters and they each come at a different time,” she said. “I was helping my mom with my sisters. It’s just a lot of going to therapy each day, and when she comes home and I can see she’s stressed, so I take over half the time.”
Nevertheless, Ventura took two dual-enrollment classes — her comprehensive site, Roosevelt High School, offers only one dual-enrollment course — and this fall, she’ll enter Fresno State with 10 college credits.
“I like Farber because after being online for two years, I learned to be more responsible,” Ventura said. “I have to get up and motivate myself to get the assignments done and turn them in. I definitely have grown as a person, both mentally and academically.”
The purpose of online learning is not to get the kids back to the comprehensive campuses, but to provide an option to meet the needs of the students, Flori said.
Traditionally, online courses have been considered as an alternative form of learning for students who are unable to physically be on campus for a variety of reasons. Prior to the pandemic, there were students enrolled in eLearn Academy because their parents were traveling nurses or had to take on the responsibility of caring for sick family members, said Rachael Maciel, executive officer of Credit Attainment at Farber Educational Campus.
From three dozen attendees to nearly 900, educators witnessed how the pandemic reshaped students’ learning experiences.
“Some kids are here because of social anxiety, that’s been a common theme. We do see a lot of kids who have struggled at the comprehensive sites with anxiety,” Flori said. “You’re probably not going to encourage them to go back, unless you really feel like they have the confidence in themselves and their parents have seen a change that’s going to be a good fit for them to go back.”
Maria Orozco Serna, a junior student who has severe social anxiety, said she enjoys online learning because she doesn’t have to socialize with a big crowd, which in the past has always put her in drama, and now she’s able to focus on self-growth and taking care of her elderly family members.
“It’s a really good school. It’s challenging and great, just as challenging as it would be in person,” she said. “We have to learn how to do it and know what works for us.”
Orozco Serna said being online saves her time on commuting, but the challenge is time management and fighting procrastination. When she finds herself distracted, Orozco Serna fiddles with a little white fidget on her desk to stay focused.
Another student, junior Brandon Araiza, said he has been doing school online for five years because his mom was deeply concerned about the high school culture with “endless drugs, fights, violence and inappropriate behaviors,” and the family pleasantly embraced the transition to remote learning when the pandemic hit in Araiza’s sixth grade.
Being diagnosed with autism, Araiza said he used to be bullied a lot in elementary school. The switch to remote learning not only helped to improve his academic performance but also his social skills.
“It makes interacting easier because you’re not around two dozen different students, and your social anxiety is just up and up and you just feel like, I don’t know any of these people, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do,” Araiza said. “For online class, for people who have social struggles or troubles like myself, it makes communicating my voice more digestible, more convenient, more comfortable.”
Cyndi Mello, a high school English teacher at Farber, said Araiza made huge progress in socializing and became one of the students who is very good at unmuting himself in class and interacting with peers.
“I’ve been teaching online for four years now, and the way you just worded that moved me to tears, because what you just said affirms that what we’re doing is best for students,” Mello told Araiza on the other side of the screen.
Over the years, teaching online courses evolved from distributing digital materials to mirroring a regular comprehensive campus, Flori said.
“I think teachers have gotten much better at the ability to use educational technology tools to engage kids in different ways, as opposed to the traditional ‘stand and deliver,’ throw the presentation up and I just kind of talk,” Flori said. “They’re in a room sitting by themselves, so what’s engaging these kids? What’s getting these kids locked into what’s going on here and with my classmates? So that’s been a huge focus for us the last three years.”
Some teachers use breakout rooms with regularity, assigning students to the same discussion partners. It helps students to know each other, and come out of their shells and feel more comfortable to participate in the class, he said.
Ventura said some of her instructors use Nearpod, an interactive desktop application that provides formative assessments, 3-D simulations, and even virtual reality, to make the classes more enjoyable.
Farber teachers also found that while students prefer to sit alone in front of the screen for much of their educational journey, they are still eager to establish connections.
A significant portion of Mello’s workload is acting as a counselor, she said. On any given day, she messages 15 to 35 students and parents, following up with assignments or a simple greeting, “Hey, how are you doing today?” helps to understand the needs of the families. Oftentimes, she’s also the first to notice when students are struggling with emotions and experiencing difficulties, and she connects them to the school’s counseling team.
“They’re very willing to open up to you, but you have to build those relationships. It’s about sharing your life with them too,” she said. “Every time I go on a vacation or do whatever with family, I share pictures with them.”
It’s about building trust and being a listener to the students, Mello said.
“Physics is my favorite, the teacher is a very goofy guy. He’s very funny, rambling in the class for 10 to 20 minutes every day,” Araiza said. “It’s very comfortable being in that class because, hey, there’s someone who’s actually relatable, someone who likes to tell us about personal stuff.”
Orozco Serna said she appreciates Mello’s high standards and encouragement.
“I think you were probably one of my teachers who gave me the most assignments. They were challenging, and they would have me stressing all night,” said Orozco Serna. “But I was looking back at my test scores, and I scored way higher in English than ever.”
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