Gyms offer help for Whatcom families grappling with distance learning
A fitness center will offer a service starting this week for parents who are juggling work while their school-age children are starting the school year at home with distance learning.
Called BAC 2 School, it will be at Bellingham Athletic Club’s space on Meridian Street starting Tuesday, Sept. 15.
It will offer supervised class sessions, homework, recess and physical education for the school day or on an hourly basis.
“We’re just trying to help our members,” said Cathy Buckley, owner of Bellingham Athletic Club.
The service, which is also open to non-members, is meant to help reduce the angst between parent and child, she said.
“A stranger can say, ‘Johnny, stay focused on your homework,’ ” while mom can say the same thing and the outcomes can be very different, Buckley said.
The idea grew from Buckley’s experiences last spring. That was when Gov. Jay Inslee closed schools and told most people to work from home in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. Buckley’s daughter and son-in-law both had full-time jobs and were at home while their two young children also were there.
Her daughter found it “extremely difficult to juggle a full-time workload, children, homework and Zoom calls,” Buckley said.
“They’re working. They’re not available to help. So I took the kids for a number of weeks,” she said of her grandchildren, who were then 8 and 6 years old and living in Seattle.
That also was when both locations of Bellingham Athletic Club, like other gyms and studios in Washington state, were closed by Inslee because of the pandemic. Buckley took her grandchildren to the 37,000-square-foot club on Meridian Street, where she facilitated their school work, set them up for their Zoom sessions with their teachers, and let them play in the empty gym during recess and PE.
That experience formed the basis for BAC 2 School, she said.
Fitness centers have since been allowed to reopen on a limited basis under Inslee’s “Safe Start” reopening plan.
Here’s how BAC 2 School will work at the Meridian Street location:
▪ School children will be with an instructor in small groups of five or fewer children. The groups will not mingle with each other. “That’s just good protocol,” Buckley said.
▪ Buckley said there will be health and safety protocols for the children and staff that will include strict enforcement of social distancing, wearing masks, having their temperature taken, disinfecting their hands and acknowledging that they don’t have COVID-19 symptoms.
▪ The children will be at desks in the club’s gym, six racquetball courts or exercise studio, depending on the size of the group.
Buckley expects to serve a maximum of 15 children.
“One of the things about being so small is that we can be very nimble and so we will react to what parents’ needs are,” she said.
▪ Instructors will make sure students don’t have technology problems as they sign on for virtual learning with their teachers and will help students stay on task.
▪ The program runs 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. A full day costs $40 for a member and $50 for non-members. There are also different rates for siblings, and per hour rates start at $8 an hour for members. Additional details are at 360-676-1800.
BAC 2 School is one of the programs that is popping up to help working parents with kids who are learning online. Another one is from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County, which has created distance learning centers in some of its spaces for kindergarten through sixth-grade students.
Free internet for families
To help students who may be struggling to access online learning because of weak or non-existent Wi-Fi, the Whatcom Family YMCA is offering free internet access to families this fall.
The YMCA said it wanted to “help lessen the burden for families during these already stressful times.”
It has turned the women’s locker room — now unused for such purposes because of state COVID-19 restrictions — on the second floor of the YMCA in downtown Bellingham, 1256 N. State St., into what’s being called “Y-Fi Zones.”
The area, which has physically distanced work stations, can accommodate up to six families at a time. It also has restrooms and sinks, according to a YMCA news release.
Each station has a table, chairs, power and access to high-speed internet.
Families can reserve a 1-hour-45-minute spot at a station. A YMCA membership isn’t required.
To use one of the stations, people must:
▪ Wear masks and practice social distancing.
▪ Have their temperature taken when entering the building.
▪ Show a photo ID for all who are 16 years and older.
▪ Be with their children at the work station the whole time.
▪ Must bring their own devices and headphones for their students.
Reserve a spot by going online to whatcomymca.org, or by calling 360-733-8630.
