Last week, when 14-year-old Karl got a glimpse of the work his teacher had uploaded to the online learning platform Canvas, his mother said he had a bit of a panic attack.

“He freaked out and didn’t know how he was going to get it all done,” says Christine Schofield of Sebastian, Florida. “But we just emailed his teacher, and she replied with: no deadline, no penalties for late work, and that the parents and teachers and students are all learning this together.” Soon her now-calmed-down son could refocus and get back to his algebra and Spanish.

Over the past few weeks, many schools have implemented some semblance of formal online learning in order to get kids “back to school.” But parents