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Monday, March 23, 2020, was the first official day of remote learning in New York City public schools, although some individual teachers had begun sending out material the week before.

In a city with more than 1 million students, 1,700 public schools and 75,000 teachers, it鈥檚 impossible for everyone to have the same remote learning experience. (It is also impossible for everyone to have the same in-school learning experience, but those of us who write about education are chastised for saying so. All schools and all teachers are equally excellent. How else could 97 percent of NYC teachers be rated effective or highly effective?)

Based on what I鈥檓 hearing from my own kids (a seventh-grader and a 10th-grader), as well as from fellow parents, families and teachers are responding to remote learning in three distinct ways.

Families are:

• Diligently tracking all online meeting times, supervising homework assignments, communicating with teachers, helping their children with any work they don鈥檛 understand or hiring tutors.
• Allowing kids to set their own schedules and turn in their work independently.
• Ignoring online learning completely.

Teachers are:

• Scheduling live classes during which they lecture, call on students and facilitate 鈥渢urn and talk鈥� live discussions.
• Putting up learning materials and assigning homework due dates, directing students to YouTube or other outside websites for help with the actual learning part.
• Throwing content up on an online platform, then disappearing (my son has one such teacher; there have been no communication or assignments since the material went up; and, yes, this is a Regents subject class at , the one that is supposedly so terrific that Chancellor Richard Carranza has made to it his top priority).

Student reaction to the new normal has varied.

As my son :

Having the freedom to work at your own pace and with your own timing makes everything easier. Being able to go to the bathroom, grab snacks and water, and take naps whenever I feel like it makes school so much easier. …

Having other students in a classroom with you doesn鈥檛 exactly breed focus. When you鈥檙e working on a Google Classroom assignment at home, the class clowns and their tomfoolery are kept far away from you. Nobody is going to randomly drop a metal water bottle, or if someone does, it was probably your fault. Nobody is going to hold up the entire class because they鈥檙e trying to explain the extremely plausible chain of events which led to them not having their homework with them鈥�

Online learning, for anybody with a fast internet connection, is so much better than in-school learning that I doubt anybody except the most devout extravert would choose to return to in-school learning anytime soon.

His sister actually is a devout extravert.

She misses her friends. She misses the in-school time spent hanging out and goofing off. She misses lunch, free periods and extracurriculars.

But she鈥檚 enjoying the flexibility of remote learning. She鈥檚 not the passionate student her brother is. But even she told me she prefers having fewer classes a day that run longer, so they can go into depth on a subject, and, as she says, 鈥淚f the class goes off topic, we have more time to get back on and still learn something.鈥�

She鈥檚 also getting a kick out of teachers who 鈥渄on鈥檛 know how to turn on the grid feature, so they only see a couple of students on their screen and they call on those same kids over and over.鈥�

Parents, overall, seem to be enjoying the experience less. I鈥檓 one of the hands-off moms. I鈥檓 letting my kids row their own boats. They鈥檒l either do the work or they won’t, but I鈥檓 not going to check up on them.

Then again, my kids aren鈥檛 in elementary school.

One mother of an elementary school remote learner declared on Facebook that she feels like the personal assistant of the world鈥檚 busiest, tiniest CEO.

As , the sheer quantity has been overwhelming 鈥� 鈥渓inks, passwords, Google classroom, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. It鈥檚 too much: We get messages from their music teachers, their art teachers, librarians, even their gym teachers. They take attendance strictly.鈥�

I鈥檓 not overwhelmed because I鈥檓 ignoring them. But that鈥檚 my approach offline, as well.

When remote learning ends, kids are going to return to school having mastered varying amounts of material in varying ways. That鈥檚 no different than how kids enter real-world school buildings every day.

Denying it is what leads to so many of New York City鈥檚 issues.

But those of us who write about education are chastised for saying so.

Alina Adams is a New York Times best-selling romance and mystery writer, the author of Getting Into NYC Kindergarten and Getting Into NYC High School, a blogger at and mother of three. She believes you can’t have true school choice until all parents know all their school choices 鈥� and how to get them. Visit her website, .

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