JACKSONVILLE, Ore. — “That’s the only place you can do it… inside a place where it has wifi,” said Brody Felchlin, 6th grader at Ruch Outdoor Community School.
What may look like your neighborhood coffee shop is now a classroom for 6th grader Brody Felchlin and his brother Kai, who’s starting kindergarten.
“There’s a lot of people by all the time. And then there’s sometimes music playing or anything and it kind of disrupts like zoom and stuff,” he said.
The Felchlin family lives near Woodrat Mountain in the Applegate Valley.
It’s a 15 minute commute to Ruch Outdoor Community School and another 15 minute commute to Goodbean Coffee in Jacksonville.
The family says they can’t get good internet access at home.
“We have a little bit of cell phone coverage, but once you drop past our house and go around… nothing. They put their cell phones in their drawers and then they’re done,” said Rachel Felchlin, Brody and Kai’s mother.
The switch to virtual learning this Fall left Brody and Ka’s mother, Rachel, scrambling for a solution.
“I’m going to go to Ruch and sit in the parking lot with my high schooler and my middle schooler for two hours a day. Let them get the first portion done and then we’ll have to get on the road and go [to the coffee shop] for the rest of the day,” said Rachel Felchlin.
Rachel says neighboring families have similar plans but for some, leaving home isn’t an option.
“They don’t know where to take their kids. They run farms. They’re not going to be able to leave their farms from October to November it’s harvest. They can’t leave,” said Rachel Felchlin.
Ruch Outdoor Community School Principal Julie Barry says there’s no easy fix.
“The only way they would be able to do school this year is if we provided materials or we were able to bring them in for face-to-face learning,” said Barry.
Barry says roughly 30 percent of families at the school can’t connect to the internet.
And while the Medford School District is giving out free hot spots for better WIFI access, she says it won’t solve the problem.
“There are still those families that live off grid, so which means they don’t even have cell service. A hot spot wouldn’t even help them,” said Barry.
As for how sustainable the Felchlin’s plan is, only time will tell.
“What about when it starts to snow and it’s freezing cold outside… do we leave the cars running with all the emissions going into the air,” said Rachel Felchlin.
Brody and Kai say schoolwork in a coffee shop is far from easy, but never boring.
Still, the two look forward to the return of in-person classes.
“We really do hope everything goes back to normal soon,” said Brody Felchlin.
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