Our district has given us the following options.
1. Online schooling with little to no teacher interaction.
2. Blended schooling with online classes taught by and guided by teachers.
3. Back to school with masks, smaller classes, and plexiglass partitions separating the desks.
My youngest is 16. He did very poorly with online schooling through the end of last year. I gave him the the choice as to which option he wanted and he choose to go back to school. They are starting back August 17th.
As someone who worked from home much of the time even before the pandemic started, my big fear of this fall semester is that it teaches employers that "work from home" really does mean "taking care of kids and not working".
For a couple months, it was "we're all in this together" and it was a boon to show employers that people can work effectively from home. People with kids put in extraordinary effort to both care for kids and work. Effort levels that are probably not sustainable.
But now it's going to become "regular" that people are more focused on childcare than work. My fear is that many employers will quickly swing the other way as soon as work from home = childcare from home becomes the norm.
Suburban Pittsburgh - Our kids have the option to go 100% cyber-charter school if they get in by a deadline. For the rest, if we are in the red, it will be 100% online for all kids. In the Yellow, we will go to the 2-3 schedule with 1/2 on Mon-Tues, 1/2 on Wed-Thurs. If we are in the green, it will be on-prem for all students with 6 foot distances for desks, wear masks with scheduled breaks, modified lunch and activity schedules. We are lucky that we have smaller class sizes and lots of room to spread out. They will implement one-way hallways and other measures to maintain social distancing as best as possible, and enhanced sanitizing procedures. There are still many questions and concerns, ranging from the reasonable (bus schedules, school lunch programs) to the tin-foil hat variety (really Karen? get off the internet)
Some information that might aid decision making for any parents on the fence:
The Chief of Infectious Disease @ UC davis Children's Hospital says:
Children are less likely — by half — to be infected if they are exposed, less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have a severe case if they do get sick, Blumberg said.
“They appear to be less likely to infect others,” he said. “This is different from other infections like the flu when they are carriers. This appears to be much more of an adult disease. But children can still get sick and can still transmit it to others, so it’s important to be as hygienical with them as their development allows.”
So, some perspective is important. Where we are is currently at 11-ish cumulative cases over 14 days, per 100,000 population. (the US as a whole is at 280 CC14D/100,000pop... I'm not going to do the math on a state/county level. Europe is using this metric to track required 'stay at home' orders for travel within the Schengen Area... over 20 or 25 requires 2 week stay at home after visiting).
Sleepykid#2 is actually attending their first week of "summer camp" pre-school this week. We pay for 3 weeks, but we're only doing one. Afaik, there's no masks during class, but temp checks on the way in... with social distancing of parents at the front gate. They're effectively relying on contact tracing on top of the temp check. Sleepykid#2 will go back to regular pre-school at the end of August. Despite barely doing the pre-school virtual stuff, and mainly participating with sleepykid#1's lessons... sleepykid#2 is apparently good to move up a level in the preschool.
Sleepykid#1 will go back to school at the end of August. Elementary school will be 'socially isolated' within the school from the 8th-High School (the school teaches pre-K to 12th on a campus the size of a 600person high school around DC). There'll be no masks, except the teachers if they have to go between the HS/ES cohorts. There's pool testing, I forget on what frequency. I expect there will be 'virtual option' anytime a kid has to stay home.
I'm stay-at-home, so... other than the challenge of if I have to pick up a Sleepykid#1 from campus... dealing with virtual/stay-at-home-student should be relatively unimpacted.
Our mostly developed suburban county recently announced a virtual format for the first nine weeks. Earlier noises seemed to indicate a 2-in school, 2-at home model was the tentative plan. I am concerned that my children's education has essentially been halted. The "online learning" they cobbled together in the Spring was a sad joke. They claim the program in the Fall will be better. We shall see.
Economic implications aside, the pandemic response has unleashed the death of public education in this country.
Gwinnett County, Georgia here. The school board had initially offered parents the choice of in-school or online classes. They just sent word Monday that in-school classes are suspended indefinitely.
I don't think my son is going to do very well trying to learn lessons in front of a computer from 8 to 3 all day, and my wife stays at home with the kids already. We've made the decision to take our kids out of public school and homeschool them. (Note - I would be interested in hearing from anyone who's taken this route. We're currently planning on using the All In One Homeschool curriculum, but it's been tough figuring this out on such short notice.)
Right now, we are planning to shove our kids into the classroom. The wife and I both work fulltime and with 3 of the 4 in school, it is tough to get the time to try to teach them.
Is it a good reason? Prolly not, its just a reason.
Also, this is assuming that we get to put the kids into school. With all the changes, I am not sure we will get a choice. If we are doing the same as the end of last year, that will leave a lot to be desired. It was thrown together, I get it, but again. 3 kids, in school. I guess we would need to just buy more computers or something to make it happen....
The big problem is the schools are in a damned if you do damned if don't situation. If you open and a student or teacher dies, they will never hear the end of it. Also it may push a lot of older teachers to go ahead and retire which isn't good when you consider the teacher shortage we already face. If you don't open, parents are stuck figuring out what to do with kids which is problematic at best.
93EXCivic said:The big problem is the schools are in a damned if you do damned if don't situation. If you open and a student or teacher dies, they will never hear the end of it. Also it may push a lot of older teachers to go ahead and retire which isn't good when you consider the teacher shortage we already face. If you don't open, parents are stuck figuring out what to do with kids which is problematic at best.
Agreed! At some point we're going to have to take a more assured stance and realize that whatever the costs may be, they are worth it to preserve a nation's economy and ensure the education of its children.
Someone famous once said: "The only thing to fear is fear itself." Never more appropriate than now.
1988RedT2 said:Our mostly developed suburban county recently announced a virtual format for the first nine weeks. Earlier noises seemed to indicate a 2-in school, 2-at home model was the tentative plan. I am concerned that my children's education has essentially been halted. The "online learning" they cobbled together in the Spring was a sad joke. They claim the program in the Fall will be better. We shall see.
Economic implications aside, the pandemic response has unleashed the death of public education in this country.
I can tell you that it is different here. The wife, a SpEd teacher with a self contained classroom is trying to figure out how she's going to get 35 hours of education in each day. The DoE wisely thought they would lump SpEd in with everyone else for requirements and that means 410 minutes of education per child per day if that is what is in the IEP. Never mind that she would typically have 2-3 assistants in her room working with the kids and be able to actually work with them. 2 will be in daycare/childcare all day and will not have access or assistance to work.
It's, like everything else about this situation, idiotic. There is nothing but stress in my house right now.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:As someone who worked from home much of the time even before the pandemic started, my big fear of this fall semester is that it teaches employers that "work from home" really does mean "taking care of kids and not working".
For a couple months, it was "we're all in this together" and it was a boon to show employers that people can work effectively from home. People with kids put in extraordinary effort to both care for kids and work. Effort levels that are probably not sustainable.
But now it's going to become "regular" that people are more focused on childcare than work. My fear is that many employers will quickly swing the other way as soon as work from home = childcare from home becomes the norm.
As someone who went to work the entire time because their local internet options suck, the first month was fine. From mid april on it's been a cluster and those in the office get to do more and more work as those from home are pre-occupied with other things.
1988RedT2 said:93EXCivic said:The big problem is the schools are in a damned if you do damned if don't situation. If you open and a student or teacher dies, they will never hear the end of it. Also it may push a lot of older teachers to go ahead and retire which isn't good when you consider the teacher shortage we already face. If you don't open, parents are stuck figuring out what to do with kids which is problematic at best.
Agreed! At some point we're going to have to take a more assured stance and realize that whatever the costs may be, they are worth it to preserve a nation's economy and ensure the education of its children.
Someone famous once said: "The only thing to fear is fear itself." Never more appropriate than now.
I agree schools are between a rock and a hard place. And with both BIL and SIL teachers along with many of my friends, I understand the struggle from their perspective as well as that of a parent. I'm disappointed that we don't have much in the line of creative solutions coming from school administrations.
But I'm more disappointed that the education system can't make this decision because whatever they do they are going to be ostracized, and someone will use it for their political gain. You can't make a good decision if no one will stand up for you after the fact. It's the definition of dis-empowered.
The Los Angeles area, in general, is likely to go no classes (not a surprise). The adjacent areas (where I am) are still undecided, but will almost certainly not go full classroom. Orange county want to go full open (no mask etc). I suspect they are likely to back off of that (for legal reasons if nothing else).
I have a friend who is a teacher. She is in her 50's. She has an elderly dad at home (his sole caretaker). She has no interest in being in a classroom. I suspect she would have a strong legal case to avoid it.
I do wonder about the contract tracing though that some talk about. There is generally a LOT of minor sickness in schools. COVID, if it presents at all in a kid, will likely overwhelmingly be mild. Are they going to do a COVID test on every sick kid? No way they will find asymptomatics. As noted above, the danger is less with kids, but it's still there.
Also of consideration, if they have these teachers (and kids to a lesser extent) go back into classrooms, some one gets it, they die, I can imagine the lawsuits...
There are already adds on TV for lawsuits against prisons because prisoners are being impacted and I expect a lot more (supermarkets, Amazon etc).
93EXCivic said:The big problem is the schools are in a damned if you do damned if don't situation. If you open and a student or teacher dies, they will never hear the end of it. Also it may push a lot of older teachers to go ahead and retire which isn't good when you consider the teacher shortage we already face. If you don't open, parents are stuck figuring out what to do with kids which is problematic at best.
Agreed. There is no right answer, just an assortment of wrong answers.
As I mentioned earlier, some preparation for this for this during the last 6 months or so could've likely made things a lot better. Maybe they could've come up with an option that actually sounded good to parents.
Here in suburban Baltimore, were exclusively online for the first semester (thru Jan.)
They say they will re-evaluate for the second toward October. They are supplying every student k-8 a chrome book, and grades 9-12 a laptop. Of course I already bought 2 new ones for my kids at the end of last year when they went to virtual learning. I just hope the curriculum is better and more involving than the one they had to rush to put together last year. Both of my girls are straight A students, and it wasn't enough for them. I understand the problem with having to balance that though, as I have several teacher friends that have told me of several students in their classes who did zero work from March thru the end of the school year.
MadScientistMatt said:Gwinnett County, Georgia here. The school board had initially offered parents the choice of in-school or online classes. They just sent word Monday that in-school classes are suspended indefinitely.
I don't think my son is going to do very well trying to learn lessons in front of a computer from 8 to 3 all day, and my wife stays at home with the kids already. We've made the decision to take our kids out of public school and homeschool them. (Note - I would be interested in hearing from anyone who's taken this route. We're currently planning on using the All In One Homeschool curriculum, but it's been tough figuring this out on such short notice.)
Just shot you a PM, glad to help navigate the homeschool waters.
bobzilla said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:As someone who worked from home much of the time even before the pandemic started, my big fear of this fall semester is that it teaches employers that "work from home" really does mean "taking care of kids and not working".
For a couple months, it was "we're all in this together" and it was a boon to show employers that people can work effectively from home. People with kids put in extraordinary effort to both care for kids and work. Effort levels that are probably not sustainable.
But now it's going to become "regular" that people are more focused on childcare than work. My fear is that many employers will quickly swing the other way as soon as work from home = childcare from home becomes the norm.
As someone who went to work the entire time because their local internet options suck, the first month was fine. From mid april on it's been a cluster and those in the office get to do more and more work as those from home are pre-occupied with other things.
Working at a company where WFH was commonplace before COVID... Where is management in this? Or are you getting a big bonus? If not, I'd be looking hard at finding a new job.
I wanted to share this as it is on this topic but dealing with the higher education response. This was a project at my alma mater that has a good data resource.
How Higher Ed Responds to a Pandemic
created The college crisis initiative
with THIS dynamic dashboard.
I thought some of you data guys would find this interesting.
Depends on the district here in Denver. Littleton, where we are, delayed school ten days to August 24th. So far it's in person, with an online option if you want to do it. My wife is very worried that they're going to go all on line. We both work and we're not sure what we're going to do with our 7 year old if he can't go to school. I was home most of the last semester (since they shut me down) and I helped him with the online school. The teacher did the best she could but it was a waste of time.
Well, until work twists my arm otherwise, pregnant wife, asthmatic 2yo, and I are all staying home and working from home. With kiddo number 2 due in early November I do not anticipate setting foot in the office this year.
Culpeper VA - option 1 - is 4 days a week in person, Wednesday no school and will be used as a sanitizing day. Option 2 - is an A and B schedule, 2 days a week, online 3 days. Option 3 - is 5 days a week online learning.
I'm hoping for option 1 or 2, my upcoming 9th graders education needs some kind of in person instruction. The pre k program for my daughter is probably canceled too. I'd really rather not have to deal with all online only, my wife is a bus driver and juggling finances isn't very appealing. Nothing will be decided until the 27th. We may luck out because our population and rate of cases is much lower then Loudon, Fairfax and Arlington counties, which are going full online classes.
mtn (Forum Supporter) said:bobzilla said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:As someone who worked from home much of the time even before the pandemic started, my big fear of this fall semester is that it teaches employers that "work from home" really does mean "taking care of kids and not working".
For a couple months, it was "we're all in this together" and it was a boon to show employers that people can work effectively from home. People with kids put in extraordinary effort to both care for kids and work. Effort levels that are probably not sustainable.
But now it's going to become "regular" that people are more focused on childcare than work. My fear is that many employers will quickly swing the other way as soon as work from home = childcare from home becomes the norm.
As someone who went to work the entire time because their local internet options suck, the first month was fine. From mid april on it's been a cluster and those in the office get to do more and more work as those from home are pre-occupied with other things.
Working at a company where WFH was commonplace before COVID... Where is management in this? Or are you getting a big bonus? If not, I'd be looking hard at finding a new job.
Management completely complicit on this. In fact they were driving us in the office even harder because "we all have to come together and make this work". So the people like me were screwed over even more than normal. to put fuel on the flames we either got no raise or a less than 1% raise this year and they are already talking about how it's so tough and the company has to cut back so no raise next year either.
Maybe this will explain my disdain for that phrase and a little more of why I'm less compliant in this topic.
I was job shopping after my last review and my .94% raise which was late February. At that time there were literally hundreds of jobs open. Now some of those places I applied aren't even in business anymore. So. berkeleying. Done.
Add all that on top of my wife trying to teach from home on 5Mb dsl from March until June and her frustrations and now trying to figure out how to get 35 hours of work in a 24 hour day on top of the normal pre-school jitters and it's not fun. We both are at the end of our ropes and don't know where to go. We've been leaning on each other enough that one goes down we both go down.
We start July 31. You can either choose in person learning with 25 in class, online learning at home ready to go like normal school and ready at 8am no option to learn independently aka flexible times to watch the class, or homeschool.
All of our options suck. Can't afford to have the spouse stay home to homeschool.
Guidelines came out today.
Starting after labor day instead of before, finally. Always thought it was ridiculously stupid to start school for 2 days, have a 3 day weekend, then go to normal schedule.
3 options for learning. 100% in class (thank you), live virtual, recorded virtual.
All students K-12 will receive a chromebook so if things go bad again they're aren't berkeleyed like they were last year. Not real happy about the kindergartener getting one, but still nice.
Masks will only be required when social distancing can't be met, which should help immensely in the younger grades. And on the bus, which should prove entertaining to enforce.
Major win.
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