The Harvard Public Schools have announced that they will not be running the Community Education programs this year, and for many parents, that means getting creative with child care plans. For some, the Summer Adventure and other camps run by the town are a source of much-needed day care. For others, they are a fun way for kids to stay connected with their peers during school vacation. Without them, parents face summer days at home with a full house and few outlets for their children’s energy.
Superintendent Linda Dwight was responsible for the decision to cancel the programs. She says she consulted with the Hildreth Elementary School leadership team, but ultimately made the call based on safety concerns and Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision not to reopen schools. Special education services will continue to be offered remotely.
Without summer camps, a major concern for many parents this year is a lack of socialization. In-person classes for Harvard’s public school students ended in March and, since then, most children have had limited personal contact with their peers.
Abby Besse, a mother of four, says socialization is her biggest concern for her children. She is a stay-at-home mom, so she doesn’t rely on summer programs for child care, but her kids are used to spending summer at the town beach, visiting museums, and attending events at the public library. “We’re already seeing impact—negative impact—by being isolated for so long,” said Besse. “Thankfully we have four [children], so they do play with each other, but it’s hard and they are sad and they miss their friends and want to reconnect. We all need that human connection.”
Katharine Covino, who has three children, ages 8, 11, and 13, has similar concerns. She said she jokes about her family coming out of the pandemic weird. “If you’re just hanging out with your family, that’s not ideal for a second-grader, it’s not ideal for a fifth-grader, it’s not ideal for a seventh-grader … a lot of education that happens at school is socioemotional education. That comes from interacting with your peers.”
Covino says that staying home has been especially difficult for her oldest, who has begun to see his friends start to get together again. She knows that decisions around social distancing will vary from family to family, and she isn’t ready to start socializing again, but she worries about her son. “It’s hard to see some families following the guidelines and other families not and, you know, I don’t want my son to feel like he’s missing out, but by the same token, we’re not ready to stop social distancing.”
Falling behind
Covino says she and some other parents in town have concerns about their children falling behind in school and are looking to fill the now-empty summer days with educational enrichment activities. They are looking for science experiments and kits that can be delivered in the mail. The issue is that most of these resources require a lot of work from parents. They may occupy children and help them learn, but they don’t free up parents’ days the way a summer camp would.
Covino has some flexibility in her job. She is a professor at Fitchburg State University and has most of the summer off. Still, she typically relies on camps to keep her kids busy later on in the summer when she is preparing her fall coursework. She said that the nanny she has used in the past reached out to say she is willing to work if Covino needs her toward the end of the summer. As of now, that’s not something Covino feels comfortable with, though she’s not sure how things will change as the summer progresses.
In families where both parents work full time, additional issues arise and time becomes a difficult commodity to manage. Alex Moussouris has two children in elementary school and works as a director at a biotechnology company. She is able to work from home, but her husband, a firefighter and paramedic, is an essential worker.
The past few months have been exhausting for Moussouris, and she worries that the balancing act of working while trying to keep her family safe and healthy through a pandemic isn’t sustainable. “My biggest concerns are how to manage the demands of two full-time jobs and child care while maintaining social distancing and keeping safe. It is a nearly impossible task when both parents are working full time,” she wrote in an email, adding, “I also worry about isolation, lack of activity, and lack of socialization.”
In her email, Moussouris fished for the positive aspects of being at home, but even those were difficult under the stressful atmosphere the pandemic has created for her family. “There are some silver linings, like the lack of a commute and spending more time with the family. But it’s hard to appreciate that sometimes when you are stretched so thin.”
