Back to School?

My wife is a 2nd grade teacher in the neighboring school district, not the school district we live in.  My daughter will be starting Kindergarten this year in our home district.  

For our home district, my daughter's school, I just got off a Zoom call for parents.  The official announcement is that in-building instruction will happen 2 days per week with virtual instruction the remaining 3 days.  Children will either attend:

• Tues/Thurs
• Weds/ Fri
• May attend some Mondays for small group additional instruction.  I have taken this to mean time for kids who might be falling behind or need additional services.

Typical class size is 24 students.  To keep distance and less close seating, 12 students will report Tues/Thurs and the other 12 will attend Weds/Fri.

It won't be until Aug 10th that we will know class lists and if we are attending Tues or Weds.  School is planned to start Tues Sept 1st (3 days later than originally planned, pre-covid.)

Masks required for all kids K-12.  

In my wife's school district, all summer they have been working toward a similar "2 in/3 out" schedule, but as of just this week, the administration is pushing for 5 days in with the full population in every day.  Still no answers given to teachers or students of which way they will decide...or when they will decide.  

All of this is very stressful!

What's the plan in your neck of the woods?  

PS: I am in relatively rural Ohio

Our current district has announced no plans. Some are shooting for Monday Tuesday group A in school, Thursday Friday group B in school, with online as filler and Wednesday as a "cleaning" day. Talk of "one way hallways" and keeping the kids in masks all day long just makes me laugh at the absurdity, almost like people making these calls have never dealt with children before. 

How the online component will work with the lack of internet access in a lot of these districts remains to be seen. According to a spring survey when the schools shutdown this year, in the far less rural and slightly wealthier district we used to live in, the only internet access in 70+% of homes was mobile phones.

Other districts, richer districts, are shooting for 5 days in class, with an optional online for people that don't want to go.

I'm really hoping for full time in class instruction. I don't think kindergarten can be successfully taught online, and I need time with kids out of the house to actually work.

South Florida, Palm Beach county (private school)

- Starts in person on August 10. Masks required. My kids bring in lunch so I did not pay attn. but I believe the kitchen is closed. 
- If you don't feel comfortable sending your kids, you can do zoom and keep them home. Not sure until when. 

As of today, my 3 kids would do it through zoom. I will wait until the week before to make the final call. 

My understanding is that you can switch either way. Say you start virtual and want to go to class, you can do that. It works the other way around as well. 

I know that the district my Aunt teaches in is going to be all-remote for the first semester with hopes of having some in-person for second semester. 

Saw something that the governor (Maryland - Hogan) will be having a press conference at 5pm today with the state education superintendent. 

Our kindergarten plan echo's yours almost exactly. 2 days/week in school, active remote learning one day (kids are forced to watch teacher during set times), self-driven remote learning other two days (kids are asked to work on things at their leisure). 

2 things really bug me about it:

1. We split the class into two equal parts and the same teacher teaches both parts - does this cut down exposure significantly? if one of the 12 is exposed, it can be passed to the other 12 and the teacher through the teacher. With a 2-3 week period before you show signs of infection, there will be plenty of days to share. 

2. "Remote learning" for a kindergartner is basically just busy work for the parent. I haven't done it yet and I may be surprised, but I anticipate spending a lot of time doing worksheets with my kid. Not only do I think this will be mostly useless for his learning, but it will actually mean that parents have to spend MORE time on childcare than they would if there was no school at all. 

Luckily we already have an extra computer and a printer and stuff at home too. 

We homeschool (thanks Paul!), so not much change here. Our homeschool co-op has canceled in-person classes, so we are doing Zoom meetings instead. No group field trips (we used to have two a week to various places around the city). We spent a bit more this year to get ready made lesson plans for the kids rather than my wife creating everything.

So far my oldest son (10) planned and built an R/C car track in the back yard, my middle son (8) is recreating "The Spiderwick Chronicles" book world in Minecraft, and my youngest (5) is cataloging bugs in the back yard.

Here in Volusia county, Florida, the plan as of last night was to open school August 31st. They are currently offering three options. The kids can go to school full-time, watch streamed classes from home of the live classroom teaching, or do self-paced online.

Both of my kids have been doing online summer school. The oldest is starting his junior year of high school and will continue with his college dual enrollment.

Our younger child will be starting eighth grade, and we're still considering our options for her. It may be a sort of homeschool group with two other parents. All three parents are educators.

Ultimately, there are no good options for anyone. I don't want my kids in a classroom setting, but it means my wife can't work. A job that she's wanted for ten years is currently open. Still, we are better off than many.

I don't have kids, but I OKCPS has announced pushing back the original start date by 2 weeks and the first 9 weeks will be virtual.

How do parents who don't have the ability to work from home handle this? Even if you can work from home, that has to be a huge distraction. I'm constantly distracted by "Well I could jam on the guitar a little bit, play some PS4, let the dogs out in the backyard and relax under the umbrella while they run around.

In reply to Apexcarver :

You're lucky, your governor's not an idiot. I'm in Florida 

My wife is a pre-k teacher and they are going virtual for the first 9 weeks.

Trying to figure out what do about my wife's maternity leave.

Home school

Also rural Ohio, one building school for k-12. In school, masks mandated for students older than 3rd grade and faculty. There is also some talk of morning and afternoon sessions; another board meeting tonight so everything will be different tomorrow.

Here in Washington our district previously said it would be a hybrid with a few days in person, and a few days online, however I believe that is changing to all online, at least for the beginning of the year.

I'm not sure I can take another round of helping/pestering 3 kids with online school while my wife and I both try to work from home.

I have no dog in this fight, and I hope that this will be long over by the time that kiddo is in Kindergarten (4 months old now)... But I am foolishly hopeful that this results in the 21st century equivalent of the Rural Electrification Act from the 1930s. The "Everywhere High speed Internet" Act of 2021. And maybe make it affordable everywhere, because we already gave the berkeleying telecom companies $800B.

If I did have to make a decision today... Man, this is a hard one. I'd want a kindergartner to get socialization. I wouldn't want them in a social setting. We'd probably be looking hard at homeschooling, and bugging SvRex for information on it. 

z31maniac said:

How do parents who don't have the ability to work from home handle this? Even if you can work from home, that has to be a huge distraction. I'm constantly distracted by "Well I could jam on the guitar a little bit, play some PS4, let the dogs out in the backyard and relax under the umbrella while they run around.

They will continue to need to choose between working and keeping their house or taking care of their kids, as they have since the shutdowns started.

Homeschool for us.

For the public school kids in our county, the answer is way more complex:

https://kiddingaroundgreenville.com/greenville-county-schools-final-plan

z31maniac said:

How do parents who don't have the ability to work from home handle this? Even if you can work from home, that has to be a huge distraction. I'm constantly distracted by "Well I could jam on the guitar a little bit, play some PS4, let the dogs out in the backyard and relax under the umbrella while they run around.

Its not easy and every kid is different. 

I have three, ages 7, 10 and 13. The oldest and youngest have always been great, the middle is a pita. When they started doing the online thing in March, the middle one took to it very well. The youngest became a problem and fought it hard, mostly because he wears glasses and could not see half of what the teacher was writing. After talking to the teacher and asking for her to use a different color pen from pink he started doing better. 

I am quite lucky in that my kids are quite independent and my wife can stay home with them, but I can see how it can be diffcult for other parents. 

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

"Socialization" is a myth.  Kids learn how to be people before they hit school.  My kids know how to play with other kids just fine, and can have conversations with anyone about anything and they've never stepped foot in a school 

I my part of Ohio it will be, for now, in-school 3 days a week.  The classes will be split in two and the A and B parts will alternate Wednesdays.  There is also a full time online option.  Not really looking forward to this mess again at all.

Son should be starting kindergarten.  First 9 weeks are virtual here.

I understand the decision.  I don't think there is a right answer.  

But also this sucks.  I don't think 5 year olds learn well remotely, and I agree with Robbie's comments that this is a ton of busy work for the parent.  Thankfully I am in a position where I can survive this (although it will be mega stressful), but a lot of kids and/or parents are really going to suffer :(

I'm really ashamed of school systems/states/federal education dept. this year.  We could all see this coming a mile away, and the preparations seem to range from zero, to mildly half-assed.  Would have been a good summer to pool some resources across counties, states, or federal (because who cares what your address is when you are learning remotely) and come up with some better options.

We are delayed until Sept 4 (to let the rest of you figure things out) and after that we have the option of 5 day a week school or remote instruction for the first 9 weeks. We've decided to do the remote thing. Everyone in the house agrees that the kids want to go back to school and it would in general be good for them, but they're both exceptional students and they've done well with remote learning. Other kids need in person instruction more than they do and they need fewer students to make that happen safely. 

Both of my bigger kids are heading off to college to live in the dorms as scheduled. 

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

"Socialization" is a myth.  Kids learn how to be people before they hit school.  My kids know how to play with other kids just fine, and can have conversations with anyone about anything and they've never stepped foot in a school 

There's still a need to be around people their own age that they can play with. The 5 year old, aside from her birthday party and a few park trips where it wasn't 100F or raining, has been stuck with me, Dana, and the 12 year old for almost 5 months now.

She NEEDS to be around other kids her age, playing and running and being a kid, and that's not really something she can get outside of school in our rural, older, community.

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

"Socialization" is a myth.  Kids learn how to be people before they hit school.  My kids know how to play with other kids just fine, and can have conversations with anyone about anything and they've never stepped foot in a school 

Depends on the kid and their upbringing. I promise there are kids in my wife's class (Title 1 school) that need the socialization.

We don't have kids. Our county in central Georgia is delaying by 2 days. No virtual. School board says masks will be required only if you are closer than 6 feet to someone, but our governor is also trying to make it illegal for anyone government group to require masks  no idea how that will shake out. 
 

so basically, everyone back to school and if you die, you die. 
 

once again I'm glad I don't have kids, plus I will be distancing from everyone I can. 

I finished reviewing the 83 page plan our school district put out this morning. We're doing something similar.

Monday & Tuesday in person for A - L then online the other 3 days. M - Z in person Thursday and Friday online the other 3 days. 

Masks and face shields are required.

There's a lot of other stuff in there about cleaning schedules, staggering class changes, online only parent teacher meetings, etc

There's 2 things that concern me though.

1. The school is allowing a 503 exemption of masks. I want to know how they plan on vetting those exemptions. The exemption is abused a lot by the anti-vax crowd.

2. There's mention of contact tracing but there's no mention of who is responsible for that work or how the information is going to be disseminated.

There's going to be a townhall in a few days, hoping to get some answers then.

The school is also offering enrollment in the Cyber Academy in the event that parents want to have the kids taught online only. We may go this route depending upon how my wife is doing with her treatment.

The infection rate for my county currently stands at .87, so we're doing ok. The adjacent counties are still above 1 however.