Lake Placid High School senior Annie Smith practices oboe at her home in Wilmington in March, shortly after local schools switched to distance learning. (Enterprise photo — Griffin Kelly)

As the state enters day four of all public school closures in response to the novel coronavirus, parents and students face varying difficulties with distance learning.

Older students are suited to take care of themselves and do their homework, while younger students need more supervision and attention. This can be stressful on parents who work full-time jobs. Students are adjusting to life with teachers not being on hand to help them at a moment’s notice.

Lake Placid senior Annie Smith said distance learning hasn’t been a major issue for her these past few days. She said getting in touch with the teachers takes more time.

“I always check my email,” she said. “The communication is a big jump from what I’m used to. Normally, I can just walk into a teacher’s office and say, ‘I need help with this.’ Now there’s a bit of a feedback lag. It can be 10 minutes sometimes.”

Smith said she doesn’t feel like her education is diminishing with distance learning.

“I feel like the teachers are making sure that is not going to happen,” she said. “It’s more muddled, but I’m not afraid that I’m losing my education. It’s nice that they’re trying to keep up with the other subjects, too. I have my oboe at home, so I can practice that here, and all the chorus music is online.”

Smith said going from a school routine to one at home is odd, but she manages.

“I’ve been trying to keep a sense of normalcy,” she said. “I do my main subjects and put in half an hour for each. We have to do gym logs every day, so I might go for a walk throughout the day.”

Vicki Kirchner is a speech-language pathologist at Lake Placid Elementary. She said her students are liking the distance learning via video chats.

“I think they think it’s novel, so it’s been fun for them,” she said. “I’m looking to hold a group session. That could be a lot of fun.

“It’s actually been quite easy to teach. The hardest part is getting appointments set up.”

Kirchner said right now, the school is focusing its speech-language efforts on special needs students and is still working on a plan for speech-improvement students.

“I have two students I see daily,” she said. “The rest are twice per six-day cycle maybe three times for some students.”

This is the first time Kirchner has ever had to teach over the internet.

“I think the parents are being really patient with the whole process,” she said. “Both parents and teachers are doing the best we can.”

Erin Walkow said having her daughters Abigail and Julia in the house gives her the chance to teach them more home economics lessons, which aren’t often featured is schools these days. It’s not uncommon for people to make it all the way to college before they have to learn how to cook for themselves or plan a budget for monthly expenses.

“I’m very fortunate in that I’m able to work from home for my job (at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts),” she said. “I’m looking at it as an opportunity in expanding their education with things like sewing, cleaning laundry, doing the dishes. It’s great that my daughters are stepping up to be part of this family in this unique time that we’re living in.”

While schools are established to provide education, there is a day-care element to them, too. For about 35 hours a week, parents don’t have to worry about looking after their children because they’re in school. With that gone, some parents are finding it difficult to balance working and watching their kids.

Jamie and Dei Laubach aren’t originally from Saranac Lake, so they don’t have any family members to rely on to watch their kids, Jackson and Madeline. Dei is a hospice nurse, and Jamie is a maintenance worker for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Neither can work from home. Jamie said he can call on friends for help, but even that isn’t a guarantee.

“We planned for another family to help us out, but the mother who was going to watch our kids, her son had to go to the hospital to get his appendix taken out,” he said.

He said he appreciates the school’s efforts, but he’s not fully sold on the anxiety people are feeling about the coronavirus.

“I think this is going too far,” he said.

Jackson has autism and Madeline has a development disability. Jamie said he and his wife are not entirely equipped to attend to their children’s special needs when it comes to their education.

“That’s the most stressful thing,” he said. “My wife and I have kind of hit a wall. Our kids both have special programs, and we don’t have the training to deal with the homeschooling side of things.”

Jamie said the first day of distance learning was nothing like a day at school for his children.

“It was more like a Saturday to them,” he said. “The Walkows had people together, so we went over to their place. It wasn’t a school day by any means, but we can’t let them get used to that either.”

Like Erin, Jamie also sees distance learning as an opportunity to teach his children things they might not get in school.

“I’ll probably show them how to change a tire one of these days,” he said.