Katrina McKenzie had a sinking feeling when she found out her son's class was going to remote learning for a week near the end of Term 2.
Ewan is in year one at Isabella Plains Early Childhood School and has not experienced a year without disruptions to learning since he was in preschool.
"Honestly going into remote learning comes with a great deal of dread for me," Mrs McKenzie said.
"When he's the only kid at home, he gets bored and so I'm trying to work from home and be a teacher and a parent and his best buddy and that's difficult."
In Term 2, up to 10 per cent of ACT public schools had some classes in remote learning at any one time due to a severe shortage of staff. Classes have regularly been split up or combined when relief teachers are unavailable to teach the class.
Educators were absent due to COVID and other winter illnesses which compounded a pre-existing shortage of teachers.
With illnesses continuing to circulate in the territory, the situation isn't likely to improve in Term 3.
Mrs McKenzie, who is the P&C president at Isabella Plains, said she was able to work from home when her son was in remote learning, but her work day was spread over 12 hours in order to help supervise her son.
"I'm in a very lucky position but I know there are people who aren't in those lucky positions. If they don't work, they don't get paid."
She questioned the usefulness of the extra pupil free days scheduled for Term 2 and Term 3, which added more stress for working parents.
"I do wonder about the efficacy of them. How does it really help? I mean, I would imagine most teachers have kids for themselves, so what are they doing with their kids on these pupil free days?"
Kate Riley's daughters were sick multiple times during Term 2, which meant she was often working from home while looking after her children.
"I do miss the old days where we weren't allowed to work from home and when my kids were sick, I just took sick leave and looked after them and that's all I had to do," she said.
"Now I'm juggling my general house life, getting everything sorted, groceries, cooking, cleaning, also looking after sick children, also working a nine-to-five job at home."
The single mother thought this year would be a return to normality at school, but it's been quite the opposite.
"I had concerns for where they were at with their learning and was looking forward to this year sort of putting them back where they needed to be and it's been just as disruptive," Ms Riley said.
As the Harrison School P&C communications officer, Ms Riley said many parents were quick to complain about disruptions without understanding the challenges that schools were facing.
"I think everyone's on edge and particularly when the school had to move learning to remote for a couple of weeks for a few different year levels, lots of people were carrying on and they couldn't see the full picture."
ACT public advocate and children and young people's commissioner Jodie Griffiths-Cook said the impacts of the ongoing disruptions on children were not fully understood.
"We need to recognise we're going to be dealing with the fallout for years," she said.
"I know the national children's commissioner is calling for a national pandemic recovery plan specifically on the needs of children and young people and I do think that's something that we need to look at."
As a mother of three, Ms Griffiths-Cook has seen the burdens children have faced this year.
She said children and young people have had to deal with more restrictions and disappointments than adults during the pandemic. High school students were wearing masks for longer than adults were in workplaces while assemblies, sporting events and excursions were cancelled as bars and restaurants were reopening.
Ms Griffiths-Cook said some students would have been more affected than others, including those who were already disadvantaged.
"We've got to take stock of where we are and do some reasonable predicting about what the next couple of years might look like and make sure we're strategising, making sure we are as far as we can creating as much stability in kids lives as possible."
She thinks schools could act as community hubs to bring together various services and programs to support families.
Mrs McKenzie said it was hard to explain to her son that the reptile zoo incursion wasn't going ahead because his class was in remote learning.
Ewan was able to do some worksheets provided by the Education Directorate and log on to see his classmates, but it wasn't the same as being in school.
"The learning is getting disrupted and I do worry about how far behind he's going to be for where he should be," she said.
"The only consistency has been that there has been no consistency."
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