MACON, Ga. — Governor Brian Kemp closed all of Georgia's public schools until March 31 to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Shella Norrell is a single mother with four boys.
Three of them are now home full-time because of the closing. She's learning all she can to keep them on track.
"My first thing was, 'oh now, how am I going to prepare them like their teacher does? How am I going to do this, and them not fall behind?'" she said.
Bibb County Schools this week made the transition to electronic learning for all of their students, briefing parents on what they need to know to help kids get their education at home.
"The packet came home. Yesterday, a lot of my worries and anxieties went away, it was very well organized. The boys, we sat down, they logged everything in. They looked at everything. They knew where to find everything," Norrell said.
Heritage Elementary third-grade teacher Kristie Garnett gave a tutorial on how to navigate eLearning.
"If you're on the Bibb County web page, if you go to parents, go down to class link. It's going to open to this screen, sometimes it's a blue background. You're going to login with your first name, and students it's first name dot last name and their graduation year," Garnett said.
All Bibb County students from third grade to 12th grade have login credentials to get into Microsoft Office and access all the apps, like TEAMS where they'll complete their work.
"TEAMS is a platform that we can use to upload assignments to, we can upload video too," Garnett said.
Garnett says all the lessons and assignments are already in the eLearning system. Parents just need to help students stay on top of their work.
"You have to maintain that focus. To everything there is a season, and this season too shall pass," Garnett said.
So parents make sure you have a quiet space for your students to work. Make sure they have the right credentials to log into eLearning and keep track of their assignments and deadlines through the TEAM app.
Bibb County teachers are available to live chat and message from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and then again from 2 to 4 p.m., which are the recommended hours for students to do their schoolwork at home.
Houston, Dublin, Peach and Monroe Counties are also using alternate, distance or electronic learning during the school closings.
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