Whitney DeHerrera’s second-grader Catalina, who attends Lawrence Public Schools in Kansas, was sent home Monday for a 10-day quarantine — along with the other 21 students in her class.

But other than some paper assignments, which DeHerrera plans to spread out over the next several days, she wasn’t given any guidance to keep her daughter on track.

“There was zero planning in how students are being educated when they are being sent home,” she said. “They haven’t offered any virtual learning, even though the teacher has no children for a whole week.”

A state law limiting students to 40 hours of remote instruction for the entire school year — an effort to strongly nudge everyone back to the classroom — is one reason. Many districts around the country are finding themselves similarly caught off-guard. Some chalk it up to an overcorrection on the part of states and districts, under pressure from parents and the Biden administration to get students back in school after previous botched attempts. But the Delta variant has spoiled best-laid plans for a full return. Some districts are struggling to shift back to remote learning and others are leaving families hanging over how their children will stay on track.

“I really can’t believe our schools are as unprepared for remote learning as they seem to be,” said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. “It’s been clear for months that remote options would be necessary, at least as long as kids remain unvaccinated. Everyone had their heads in the sand, and kids will pay the price."

The Center’s ongoing analysis of districts’ reopening plans shows that 38 out of 100 provide information on how they’ll continue learning for quarantined students, and of those, 16 say they will provide instruction or support.

Read the full article about the bumpy return to remote learning by Linda Jacobson at The 74.