When the world of education was thrust into online learning this past spring as the coronavirus spread, preparation was lacking.

“I remember going to school on a Tuesday,” said Erica Gonzalez, a Santa Ana parent who had two children experience online education in the spring, “and finding out they were going to close the school on the next Friday.”

But she is confident that lessons learned then, and the time spent since examining those lessons, will mean a superior online experience as schools begin opening for the 2020-21 school year.

“We’ve talked with parents about the things that were good, and the things that need to be change,” Capistrano Valley High Principal John Misustin said. “We all acknowledge that we need to make online (instruction) look and feel as much like regular school for the kid in his or her living room.”

Chromebooks, lightweight laptops or tablets that rely heavily upon Google Chrome as their operating system are being widely distributed to students, also, several districts are providing iPads pre-loaded with what students will need. Many districts are also supplying WiFi hotspots – machines about the size of a tin of breath mints – to students who need internet access or a more dependable signal for learning online.

Santa Ana Unified spokesman Fermin Leal said the district spent about $5 million this summer adding to its inventory of Chromebooks. That money came from the district’s day-to-day operating budget and from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, funding it received.

There have certainly been hiccups getting students logged on correctly, overcoming internet delays and having to make adjustments with the programs being used, but districts appear to be getting issues seen so far worked out and families are find their way online.

“There is enough and better technology now,” Corona del Mar High history teacher Dan O’Shea said. “With everything we have, we’re going to make it more like the kids are in their seats in the classroom.”

Saddleback High Principal Edward Bustamante said he is confident students will be better served.

“Because of the sudden closure last school year,” Bustamante said by email, “we were thrown into remote learning without fully having the experience on what that actually looked like, and we didn’t have the resources or tools to be great at it. We did OK, but OK isn’t good enough when we want to do our best for kids.”

Among the changes will be a more regimented schedule for online schooling across the county and attendance is emphasized.

“We couldn’t even take roll (this past spring),” Mission Viejo High history teacher Chad Johnson said. “Now, when we’re on Zoom at 9 a.m. and you’re not there you’re going to be marked as absent.”

Misustin said parents have requested more individual interaction between teachers and students.

“Parents like their kids being ‘live’ with teachers and getting live instruction,” Misustin said, “so there will be more of that.”

Trabuco Hills High on Monday had its first day of instruction for the 2020-21 school year. It was of course an exclusively online day but for senior Ryan Faulks it was superior to the online instruction of this past spring, he said.

“Last time we didn’t have a set schedule,” Faulks said. “We just had stuff assigned to us. But this time everything we do has a set time, like when we meet with teachers.

“Basically it’s more like real school,” he said. “They’re trying to make school more like what it used to be.”

Lindsey Farney, who last week was preparing for her first year as a third-grade teacher at Richman Elementary School in Fullerton, will apply the lessons learned last school year as a student-teacher in the Capistrano Unified School District.

“We have to make it as similar as possible to the classroom,” she said, “and we have to keep lessons – I don’t want to say short – but keep them to the point. Teach kids what they most need to know. We don’t have the time to put in all the frills anymore.”

Gonzalez, having gone through the spring’s online learning with her son, Ethan, who was a senior at Saddleback High and her daughter, Emmeryss, who was a seventh grader at McFadden Intermediate, advocates for as much one-on-one teacher-student interaction and conferencing as possible.

“Instead of 25 kids in a virtual classroom at a time,” she said, “split them up in groups of five or do some one-on-one with a few kids each day. That would be a lot better than always teaching one class of 25 kids at the same time.”