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Speaking over Zoom, Ms. Kersey rubbed her temples as she recalled trying to keep her son, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, engaged with online learning. There was one especially difficult period when the two were sharing a single bedroom and living with roommates. At times, the strain of acting as both a parent and a teacher caused so many fights that Ms. Kersey gave up on virtual learning.

“I had to just surrender,” she said.

Unwilling to return to that routine, she enrolled Jonathon in a five-day-per-week learning center at Brookside Community Church, where college students supervise remote school and sports for 14 children.

Jonathon’s regular school is now open five days per week, but Ms. Kersey said she did not want to disrupt her son’s new routine.

In New Orleans, Frederick A. Douglass High School, part of the national KIPP charter school network, first reopened for in-person learning in October, and now offers students four days per week in classrooms. Even so, wooing students back has been a major challenge. In the fall, 50 to 75 of the school’s 600 students were showing up each day; more recently, about half were. Ninety percent of the school’s students are Black and come from low-income families.

Towana Pierre-Floyd, the principal, has taken several steps to convince families to return. Maintaining upbeat on-campus events, like homecoming elections, showed students attending virtually what they were missing out on in the building, she said. In addition, the school began issuing weekly progress reports to families with students’ grades and assessment scores, a practice Ms. Pierre-Floyd said she will continue even after the pandemic ends.