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Anyone else worried about the upcoming school year? My oldest daughter has two kids, 3 and 6, and is concerned about the upcoming school year. Oldest grandson is gifted (goes to a private school for gifted kids) and is entering the second grade, but will be placed upward for math, reading, and writing (the school doesn't put them in "grades", just assigns them to the grades for their abilities). She isn't happy about the on line education he got during the quarantine. She thinks that in fall the "distancing, masks, etc." will deter from his progress. And another inevitable quarantine. The BLM demonstrations/riots also worries her immensely. as it is in a big city an hour away.
So she's found another on-line schooling program, and wants to start just home schooling him, because she's worried that he'll start school in the fall at his academy and the "S**T will hit the fan again in October", and he'll have to be remote schooled again. And get an inadequate education for what they're paying for. She thinks home schooling him from the getgo is the answer. To enroll in the new home schooling program, he'd have to be placed in third grade, to be at the same place he'd be going into entering second grade at his private school.
I don't know what to tell her. She wants what is best for her kids, and they can provide it. The youngest is 3 1/2 and can already read and do simple math. He was a shoe-in to be accepted at his big brother's school, to start early at age four. Now all their plans have been derailed due to the Covid.
I am strongly considering enrolling my younger two for a year in a private distance learning academy that my homeschooling friend uses. My oldest is in high school and his teachers did a great job transitioning to distance learning(recorded lectures, held Zoom meetings for class discussions), but for my younger two, it was lousy and lackluster at best. Their "teachers" just posted links to You Tube videos and learning apps, and then mostly disappeared after the first month, and probably a third of their assignments weren't even graded. I ended up doing most of the hands-on teaching, but I also work full-time so it's not sustainable, especially with one of kids being rather obstinate (he's one of those gifted gifted who became a slacker once he realized that being academically advanced only got him more work than everyone else).
It kind of chaps my hide that the rest of us had to quickly transition to working remotely, but their teachers did not. Particularly because the framework is already in place. So, I don't know; it really depends on what they come up with.
My wife works for our local Head Start program. Not that I can speak for her, but she does not seem worried about the virus, but she does want the program to reopen so that working families can get back to normal.
She does wonder about the drop in official reports of child abuse and neglect in that last few months. Teachers and others who come into contact with very young children are often the first to spot signs of abuse. With financial turmoil and isolation hitting so many working families, do we really think the drop in reports of child abuse is due to an actual drop in child abuse?
Please, let's get back to school for the children's sake.
I would like to see my teens back in school, even if it's a hybrid manner of two or three days at school with half the students working online at home, and then the other two to three days my teens working online at home. Right now we're set to open as normal, with some social distancing measures in place that have yet to be announced. I think if/when we get a confirmed case of Covid-19, they will shut the school for cleaning for 2-5 days and rinse and repeat until they decide to go by rid, or shut down for the remainder of the flu season.
I am most worried about the transportation aspect because more than 3/4 of the schools here have kids that ride the bus. Last year the kids were packed in like sardines three kids to a seat and we had so little room that kids were sitting on the floor of the bus which I called three times to transportation to complain about u til they finally fixed it so that every kid had an actual seat to sit in. I'm worried about the bus driver getting sick, and the kids passing the virus among one another. I'm considering driving my teens to and from school 30 minutes each way, twice a day. It would be a pain, but maybe worth it? Still up in the air at this point.
In Texas (where there's currently a massive outbreak) several major urban districts are now announcing that the two choices are you either go 100% online learning or 100% in-person learning. There are no hybrid models offered. Which I think sucks because if, say, at least 75% of parents are at their wits end with homeschooling and can't bear the idea of 100% online learning or no socialization for their kids for the next year (which I'd say is a low estimate), you're going to have crammed classrooms with no feasible way to social distance. All those kids crammed onto buses. All those kids using the same bathrooms in small enclosed spaces and touching common surfaces over and over.
It's not a matter of if there's a case in the community here. It's already rampant in the community. And school is due to start in a month.
Edited: The bus situation here is exactly as CrazyChickens described. Every year parents post pictures in news stories with their kids sitting in the aisles, others sitting 3 to a seat. The school districts promise it's fixed. Then more pictures come out. Some parents will likely be able to switch to driving their kids in, but there are some families for whom that isn't an option due to work schedules.
I'll tell you that if my son were still in K-12 I'd be looking for an online school with a track record and enrolling him for the upcoming year.
I could have worked with that because I was a software engineer and could have switched to working from home.
Honestly no one can predict what will happen. I'm reading of some strange illnesses in kids that have recovered.
I just wouldn't take that chance and an online program would not be greatly impacted as the physical school with open/close/quarantine/open/close/......
Plus we've seen that traditional K-12 are not equipped nor trained to provide quality remote learning.
In Texas (where there's currently a massive outbreak) several major urban districts are now announcing that the two choices are you either go 100% online learning or 100% in-person learning. There are no hybrid models offered. Which I think sucks because if, say, at least 75% of parents are at their wits end with homeschooling and can't bear the idea of 100% online learning or no socialization for their kids for the next year (which I'd say is a low estimate), you're going to have crammed classrooms with no feasible way to social distance. All those kids crammed onto buses. All those kids using the same bathrooms in small enclosed spaces and touching common surfaces over and over.
It's not a matter of if there's a case in the community here. It's already rampant in the community. And school is due to start in a month.
Edited: The bus situation here is exactly as CrazyChickens described. Every year parents post pictures in news stories with their kids sitting in the aisles, others sitting 3 to a seat. The school districts promise it's fixed. Then more pictures come out. Some parents will likely be able to switch to driving their kids in, but there are some families for whom that isn't an option due to work schedules.
I think the most feasible solution would be to strongly urge distance learning for the students who are old enough or have an adult at home during the day. No situation is going to be universally ideal, but the biggest roadblock is going to be employers: any type of hybrid model will fail miserably if employers aren't willing and/or able to accommodate working parents.
In Texas (where there's currently a massive outbreak) several major urban districts are now announcing that the two choices are you either go 100% online learning or 100% in-person learning. There are no hybrid models offered. Which I think sucks because if, say, at least 75% of parents are at their wits end with homeschooling and can't bear the idea of 100% online learning or no socialization for their kids for the next year (which I'd say is a low estimate), you're going to have crammed classrooms with no feasible way to social distance. All those kids crammed onto buses. All those kids using the same bathrooms in small enclosed spaces and touching common surfaces over and over.
It's not a matter of if there's a case in the community here. It's already rampant in the community. And school is due to start in a month.
Edited: The bus situation here is exactly as CrazyChickens described. Every year parents post pictures in news stories with their kids sitting in the aisles, others sitting 3 to a seat. The school districts promise it's fixed. Then more pictures come out. Some parents will likely be able to switch to driving their kids in, but there are some families for whom that isn't an option due to work schedules.
I saw that Austin ISD has announced that's how they're planning to handle the fall semester, and it seems best, to me. I think if they offered 50-50 home and at school learning, most students would take them up on that, and the logistics would be horrific, and in the end, you'd still have everyone exposed because you just can't manage groups of children all that carefully.
I think that people should forget about going to schools for the next two or three years, unless a viable vaccine comes about sooner.
A considerable number of daycare facilities are being hit hard now, and youth does not guarantee a favorable outcome or a lack of permanent disability.
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