MOSES LAKE — Parents and families are preparing children as the school year nears. Parents of children dealing with special needs face a number of challenges as they seek the best option for this fall.

Kerry Aronsohn is a founding board member of the Down Syndrome Society of Grant County (DSSGC) and recently stepped down as president after serving for six years. Aronsohn said she has three school-age children getting set to go back this fall, including her 11-year-old Gevin, who has Down syndrome.

She said she and her husband elected to have all three go with online learning this fall after listening in on school board meetings. Expecting that a few COVID-19 cases would mean the schools would shut down, she said she didn’t want to risk her children going back and forth between different formats.

“Rather than deal with all the change, we’d rather start out online instead of having our kids go from one thing to the next and get caught up in that mess,” Aronsohn said. “We thought we’d just start with what would eventually happen.” Her son’s compromised immune system also led to the decision of having Gevin start the year from home.

A big concern in not having her son at school are the peer relations and face-to-face interaction he’s missing out on, Aronsohn said.

After a few months of virtual learning in the spring, she said she felt like her son was starting to shut down a bit, which was concerning.

“I do feel like that is a major part of education, and it will definitely be missed,” Aronsohn said. “For me personally, I’m planning on engaging him in other social situations where he’s going to have peer interaction, and things like that, but it’s definitely a concern.”

Aronsohn said she is brainstorming ways she might be able to meet some of the needs for the social interactions her son is missing out on and hopefully have more of a routine at home for him to get accustomed to.

Being a board member of the DSSGC, she said it’s beneficial to have that network of people to interact with and to discuss ideas or concerns.

“I think it can play a crucial role in networking and definitely in being able to reach out to people with those relationships that you form with other people,” Aronsohn said.

While there’s always stress facing the unknown, Aronsohn said she feels like she and her husband will get more comfortable as things go along. She said she is trying to keep a positive outlook, but added there is always the concern of how her children will cope with and respond to the learning at home.

Denise Ketola, of Ephrata, is the current president of the DSSGC and is preparing for her daughter, Benita, to return to school for her junior year. Ketola said she feels very fortunate that the special education program in Ephrata will be able to have her daughter in person to begin the fall.

“She is going to start half-day afternoon in person,” Ketola said. “She’s going to be picked up by the bus, and she’ll be there for three hours. That is just our dream at this time in our life where everyone else is virtual.”

She said her daughter’s eyes lit up when she heard she’d be riding the bus again soon. Ketola said she’s thankful for the teachers in her district fighting to make this option available.

The past few months have been tough on her daughter, Ketola said, especially socially. She said Benita misses her friends a lot, many of whom she has been in school with since she was three. While she has been able to see some of them on Google Classroom or Google Meets, Ketola said it’s not the same.

Ketola said she listened in on a Zoom meeting where parents from some of the bigger Washington school districts discussed some of the issues they were facing with their own children with special needs. After hearing how little was done for the students in larger districts, such as Seattle or Spokane, she said she’s thankful for the situation they’re in.

“I’m so thankful that we’re in a small district where the teachers really care about the kids, and care that they’re getting their education,” Ketola said. “They went to bat for these kids.”

With schools restarting soon, Ketola said she is thankful to be a part of a group like the DSSGC where there is a large network of parents and families to discuss, often, a lot of the same concerns.

“I think emotionally for us as parents, it’s a big thing because we’re going to be talking to people who are actually going through the same thing as we are,” Ketola said.

Brianne Heslop is a paraeducator at Sage Point Elementary School in Moses Lake. Heslop also has a daughter, Lindsay, heading into third grade who has autism and cerebral palsy. She said they are in a unique situation going into fall because her husband is also immunocompromised due to a congenital heart defect.

Heslop said she’s still unsure if she will be teaching in person this fall but elected to keep her daughter at home after speaking with her husband’s cardiologist about the decision. She said there are still a lot of unknowns right now.

Speaking solely as a parent, she said virtual learning seemed like the only reasonable solution for their situation.

“For me and parents I’ve talked to, parents with kids with those higher risk factors, or family members with those factors, right now, there’s no better option than to keep the kids at home, whether to protect them or to protect a family member,” Heslop said.

Being in front of a computer for an extended time every day is tough for her daughter, she said. She said her daughter can’t handle that, and added she’ll need to get creative in finding ways to get her the information she needs in other ways.

“I think a lot of parents are at that point where they’re going to have to get creative with how their children access that information,” Heslop said.

She said she’s looking into weekly science or social studies projects that she might be able to set up with other parents who have children learning from home to help provide the best option for their children.