Parents of PCF: School Reentry Plans (No Politics) (1 Viewer)

What are your child(ren)s back to school plans?

  • 100% Online

  • Hybrid Model of In person and Online

  • 100% In person

  • Other (Explain Below)

  • N/A


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Payback

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Posting this outside of the politics section in order to get a wider perspective and to see what people are doing with their kids in the fall regarding school reentry. Anyone else struggling with this decision?


BTW, if you want to try and make this political be forewarned I'm polishing this up:
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Background: As some of you know, I'm an educator with 10+ years of experience in elementary ed (mostly K-2). I just got a promotion to an administrative position in May, so I won't be "in the classroom" this year thankfully, but now will be around 500+ students. My wife, a former K-12 music teacher of 10 years, is now a stay at home parent. We have two kids an upcoming 1st grader and soon to be 1 year old. The 1st grader is above grade level for academics, so no concerns there especially since I can fill in any missing gaps from the school, but he definitely had some emotional issues in April/May about not being able to return to the building.

My District: Our school district, one of the largest in the county, was the first one to close in the state in March. In the reentry poll given by the district 44% of parents voted to be online only, 12% voted in person, the remainder were from a variety of hybrid options.

***My son is zoned for the district I work in, but the home school is terrible. I might have the option to bring him to my new school with me which is #1 in the district and would be sufficient for this weird year as we are planning on moving next year to a different district.

Reentry Plan
Students are either going to be 100% online or 100% virtual must choose for the entire semester by July 16th. The start school is likely to be delayed 3 weeks to allow for an opportunity for active case numbers to decrease. Masks will be mandatory and temperatures will be taken at the door for everyone, including staff each day.

My Son's District: We do not live in this school district, but drive him 120 miles/day to get him here (60 miles round trip x 2 times a day). We love this school/district in general otherwise we wouldn't make the sacrifice we do. In the reentry pool 76% of parents voted for in person education and 22% chose online while 2% chose a hybrid option.

Reentry Plan
No decision made yet and they aren't making one till Mid/Late July. School is starting August 10th. The mayor has stated they are not issue fines for non-mask wearers, despite it being mandated in the county.

Where we are at:
Due to the fact my son's district isn't changing their calendar, we know what my district's plan is, and to reduce the populations our family is around we are strongly considering enrolling my son in my district/school. The bonus is we save 120 miles a day of driving! Beyond that though, my wife and I don't agree on anything.

My preference is to 100% home school him regardless of district for the 1st semester and reevaluate moving ahead for semester 2. My wife wants him 100% in person to avoid any emotional issues. My position is if we send him back, and then need to close, the damage will be greater. Not to mention who knows what will happen if he or the 1 year old get sick. We literally can't agree on the matter and have been debating this for the last 4-6 weeks. We only have another 10 days to decide in my district before we need to make a decision.

Fun times /s
 
Would you want 36+ kids in your house for 6+ hours per day, coming and going, having to feed them? Kind of how I see it right now. I wouldn’t
 
My son is 5 years out of high school, so I have no dog in this fight. However, my wife works as a teacher’s associate in a public school program for under-resourced junior high and high school kids. Online only classes are great for kids with parents who will be involved with their kids, and keep them on track and working. However, many, if not most, of the students my wife works with do not have involved and diligent parents. Some of them live with grandma who works three jobs. Some of them have junkie parents, or one or more parents in jail. Some of them don’t even have access to Internet. For many of them, school is the only place they can count on for a meal. You get the point.

When schools closed down here, she tried to keep in touch via email with the students she works with. She got a handful of replies for the first couple weeks, then it ended. Online classes will be terrible for under-resourced students.
 
My father recently retired after ~35 years as a teacher/principal/superintendent and is now the senior exec in the state school board association. He's been meeting with his state's governor and he thinks schools will stay online for the foreseeable future until there is significant improvement with the number of cases. The big issues are:

1) What is the protocol for live education if you get a positive case in your school? Do you shut down the whole building? If you make the call now that classes will resume online you can be more efficient with resources and just prepare for online learning. A lot of time and effort will be wasted preparing for in person classes if we have to quickly shut back down again.

2) Teachers' unions will have a lot of concerns and demands regarding safety

3) District insurance. What type of legal exposure will districts have if they return to in person classes and how will that effect there insurance coverage and premiums that they pay?
 
Some of them live with grandma who works three jobs. Some of them have junkie parents, or one or more parents in jail. Some of them don’t even have access to Internet. For many of them, school is the only place they can count on for a meal. You get the point.

When schools closed down here, she tried to keep in touch via email with the students she works with. She got a handful of replies for the first couple weeks, then it ended. Online classes will be terrible for under-resourced students.


This is basically my district in a nut school. There were 6 families out of my 22 last year that I never got in touch with after school closed. Another 3-4 were desperate for meals most of the time and another few had no internet. Active engagement was under 40% despite I was teaching live lessons, emailing packets, calling/answering text messaging daily.

Our district just bought 90,000+ new devices and hot spots for families that need them to support online learning if they choose that option.
 
My wife and I are struggling with this decision too. We are still waiting to hear what options we will have for next year, but it looks like either blended face to face/online, and 100% online.

I am a little more passive about the topic, but my wife, being a prior educator, feels strongly about the topic. I think we are both hoping to have a little more information before making a decision. If face to face, what will the days look like? Our kids are young - does that mean no library, music, PE, recess? The kids are locked down to their classroom? Is the teacher using the same online platform as the 100% online students are using? Are they just going to be doing online work at school?
 
For our son who is 7YO and he has a hard time with listening to other kids and hearing them out. He does have friends in the classroom and kids he plays with. At times he doesn't work well together in a group setting with other kids. That is what his K teacher and 1st grade teacher have told us. We had him tested him when he was like 4. The Dr. said he doesn't believe our son is on the spectrum. He said if he was it was slight and it can be fixed as he matures. He is kind of hyper and has a hard time sitting still at times, but the teacher says he got better before the Pandemic hit. He does see an Occupational Therapist regularly as my cousin's daughter is an OT for one of the good school districts in the area. We feel he needs social interaction with other kids to help him develop social skills so we made the tough decision to send him to camp this July and August. Going to school in September would not be an issue for us since he went to camp beforehand. For us the Home schooling was ok because we really didn't have to teach him a lot of new stuff because when the pandemic hit it was in the last part of the year so it was a lot of stuff he already learned. If he had to start a new year where I had to teach him the new methods of doing things they use it would be very tough for me. I think having him in school is a better option for us.
 
We started home schooling about 6 months ago unrelated to COVID. It works great so far and there are lots of local sports and activities for the social aspect. Home school is much improved compared to what it used to be. I remember only weird kids doing it but overall it seems really cool. Almost any activity can now be used for credit.
 
My district has not made a decision yet, but based on their announced schedule we expect it probably at the end of next week. Our governor is pushing hard for 100% in person, but is deferring to local districts (at least on paper).

Mrs S and I haven't made up our minds, honestly. A lot can happen in six weeks.
 
Boy, this is a conversation many parents are having around the globe. It seems like there’s no easy answers and everyone has a opinion or a different comfort level.

My daughter is going to be a junior in HS. Her school has been set up As a hybrid working schedule online at home with a couple of days on campus. So, a seamless transition in that regard. My son on the other hand is a freshman at Santa Clara U and living on campus. While I’m grateful that it has a much smaller student body than many schools, it’s still a bit of a concern. Small class sizes and only one roommate is a plus.

Standard protocol of masks at all times staggering classes, and the amount of students in certain areas will be followed. However, as mentioned in the OP, what’s the protocol if there’s an outbreak? At this point I think everyone’s trying to be cautious. However, let’s face it, uncharted waters and it’s kinda like let’s wait and see how it goes and then re-evaluate.
 
So, have nothing to add, but I can tell you it's a hard question to answer. I work for a college and we are having meetings to try and figure the right answer.
 
Our Division is set for 1 of 3 scenarios, to be determined August 1 based on situation.

Return to school as "normal".

Return to school with distancing measures in place.

Limited return to school with online supplementing.

Personally, have zero problems with a full return.
 
Online learning from March to June in my district was a shit show. Students were allowed to keep their grades from when we left school even if they did no e learning. I get that and probably agree with the decision. But now the precedent is set, if we do e learning at all, students will not be held accountable if they don’t want to be. So while no decision has been made yet, anything online or hybrid would surprise me.
 
I’ll stay in my house and use a bubble for the next ten years if it means my kid gets to go back to school.

4 year old, very well developed mentally but needs social interaction. Hasn’t played with a non sibling, English speaking child in 8 months now. Moved twice around the world in one year, 0 support structures in place, so no way to have a safe play date or such.

It may be a unique position, but we desperately need at least partial in person preschool/kindergartens to start.
 
needs social interaction. Hasn’t played with a non sibling, English speaking child in 8 months now.

That's been my issue with my 1st grader. He is the type of kids that plays with different people during each recess and sits everyday with different kids during lunch. Social butterfly. The no play with another kid besides his younger brother and 18 month old cousin is all he's had since March 12th. We've thought about caving and letting him hang out with some close friends kids, but every time I think that they post another set of pictures of them hanging out with different people and I change my mind immediately.
 
Having just completed my first year teaching in NYC, I can tell you that the entire 3.5 months of building closures was very difficult for me. The situation laid bare every deficiency in our system and society. From day one, we were just thrown into the fire of triage education. Hours of outreach and surveys, responding to student and parent texts and calls at all hours, learning tools and platforms for a range of different class and assessment formats, planning accessible and equitable lessons and activities everyday while caring for my 4 yo and monitoring my 8 yo's schoolwork and Zoom classes. Easily the most challenging, draining, and soul-crushing thing I've ever done. But doing it again for an entire year is utterly preferable to any more death.

All that being said, my whole household was COVID positive, and I truly am grateful that we dodged every bullet possible. The day I first became physically ill was an awful day and at night I suffered the scariest flu-like symptoms I ever did. I have heart issues and take 6 meds per day, and my blood pressure spiked to the point where I sat up in bed thinking I would have a stroke and die at any moment. I got off very lucky that I didn't, and only lost smell and taste for 5 days after. My kids were each sick for one day and never presented any other symptoms. My wife worked in a COVID command center at her hospital and was in charge of a sometimes-empty supply room and the crew that hauled body bags to the freezer truck on the loading dock. We've lived this outbreak very personally and professionally... I'm glad that this isn't a political thread because I take politicizing the pandemic very personally now.

My kids attend a Catholic school and I will insist on their 100% remote education. I don't want them exposed to any of this again or God forbid have a hand in infecting someone else who begins a new chain of spread. I feel the same about all schools reopening. Address the inequities and assessment policies using the resources and time we have right now to maximize online learning and continually improve it to keep as many humans safe as possible.
 
Definitely going to be an interesting fall. In NY we are waiting on the governor to make the call.
 
We are leaning the route of 100% virtual classes for our boys. We were struggling through that when schools shut in March as it took our district a month before things started to be available online. Even then it didn't feel as structured as it needed to be and felt more like assignments to fill up time rather than real learning. I'm hoping this school year, now that they have had more time to prepare, the courses will be more structured and with more virtual classes where the kids can listen and learn.

My wife has adjusted her work schedule to be home more during the week and then on weekends she works and I'll take care of the kids. This also allows her to work with them during the day and pull me into the discussion when needed to help clarify or point them in the right direction. We are also lucky that our district has chosen to consider all options even though our governor initially said all classes will start normally this fall. That was, of course, before the major spikes we've had in Texas which have lead to restrictions being put in place again and slower opening of the state. Texas was one of the first to repoen and in quick order.
 
We have 2 girls in elementary school. One going into 2nd and one into 1st grade. We also have twin 3 year old boys that are supposed to start preschool this fall. We are opting for either 100% online or pulling them out of school and my wife will home school them. My aunt is an elementary school teacher of 25 years and her school closed this past year so she acquired all the materials we need for both girls already. My wife also bought a separate curriculum as well and has already started teaching them.
 
My kids are about the same age. Oldest is going into 3rd, middle is going into 1st. Youngest is ready for pre-K but they don't offer that at the public school unless you have a need (English is not your primary or the child needs assistance) so we'd have to keep him at a Montessori/Charter if we send him back to class.

We have also been using apps like ABCMouse and online resources like Khan Academy to introduce new topics and methods of learning. It's a lot of work and has confirmed to us that teachers are way underpaid! Aside from doing little chores around the house, we have them read books online or perform other learning activities before they have their game times on their iPads or video games.
 
95% of the classes in my college will be online this fall. Even in Jan. they are planning on having the vast majority of classes online. I am teaching online this summer semester. I take it seriously and testing is a struggle.

However my son is going to be a senior in high school. How he finished out his year was a total joke. The teachers got away with murder and taught him basically nothing.

Personally, kids adapt. I would home school. You are lucky to have that as an option. Take it.
 
95% of the classes in my college will be online this fall. Even in Jan. they are planning on having the vast majority of classes online. I am teaching online this summer semester. I take it seriously and testing is a struggle.

However my son is going to be a senior in high school. How he finished out his year was a total joke. The teachers got away with murder and taught him basically nothing.

Personally, kids adapt. I would home school. You are lucky to have that as an option. Take it.


I had a few years as an adjunct where I taught online course and felt like that experience prepared me for the shit storm that happened. I'm not surprised to hear you'll mostly be online given that experience as my undergrads really liked it. Plus I liked that I could work from anywhere which was nice (although probably not as nice during Covid).

About 80% of my building worked really hard during the transition and we got a lot of teaching done. About 10% struggled w/ online immensely and did what they could. The other 10% did nothing and it made me sick.
 
We are having similar discussions in our house. Kids are 11th, 10th, 9th, 6th grades. Being in Dallas we have a family large school district, and a huge highschool (4k+ kids). The district has been releasing tentative plans. Not sure which we are going with yet. The issue with in person is that if there is a confirmed case, that school shuts down for 2 weeks. With 4k kids at a high school, I can't imagine a week were there ISN'T a positive case. I'm worried the constant disruption will be bad for the curriculum.

With that said, our online option isn't the same crap that was given the last 6 weeks of prior school year. It would be a full class schedule this year, with bell times and changing of the virtual class. I'm leaning this was as it will probably offer more stability than the one campus option.
 
We are having similar discussions in our house. Kids are 11th, 10th, 9th, 6th grades. Being in Dallas we have a family large school district, and a huge highschool (4k+ kids). The district has been releasing tentative plans. Not sure which we are going with yet. The issue with in person is that if there is a confirmed case, that school shuts down for 2 weeks. With 4k kids at a high school, I can't imagine a week were there ISN'T a positive case. I'm worried the constant disruption will be bad for the curriculum.

With that said, our online option isn't the same crap that was given the last 6 weeks of prior school year. It would be a full class schedule this year, with bell times and changing of the virtual class. I'm leaning this was as it will probably offer more stability than the one campus option.

with how fast it is spreading in TX they may not make it past the first week!

I was talking with a vendor in Houston this morning and they have 30% of their staff out with it now. Lead times are much longer already and they expect it to get worse.
 
with how fast it is spreading in TX they may not make it past the first week!

I was talking with a vendor in Houston this morning and they have 30% of their staff out with it now. Lead times are much longer already and they expect it to get worse.
One of my employees in Houston just informed me he's tested positive. My step kid's dad tested positive. Three people in my neighborhood friend group, positive. It's making rounds down here. It's no longer a "news" story, now it's hoping all we know make it through okay.

They just closed summer sports practice for the next two weeks as a precaution, statewide. Hopefully these steps will help make a difference.
 
Our local school district has done a couple of surveys from parents and teachers on what their preferences are. The results are linked below:
https://www.lcisd.org/docs/default-...covid19/lamar-cisd-covid-19-parent-survey.pdf
https://www.lcisd.org/docs/default-...s/covid19/teacher-covid-19-survey-results.pdf

Over half the teachers are uncomfortable going back to school and it's nearly 65% of parents on that side.

Personally I'm not overly concerned about 100% remote learning next school year since my wife's at home (and I am too for the foreseeable future). But there is a good percentage of people who either don't have someone at home during the working day or don't have the necessary devices to facilitate online instruction.

Whatever happens it's gonna be a mess as "wait and see" means no planning or creating of the necessary infrastructure for effective online education.
 
Schools have partially reopened here, specifically for kids who are in the first and last year of a type of schooling (we have kindergarten, "basic school" from 6-12 and "middle school" from 12-18), so they can still be prepared for the transition to a new school system/college.

No news as of yet to how Belgian education will look like in the fall.
 
Seeing that the teachers union in CA REALLY only looks out for the teachers (not the students), I expect we are home schooling. The kids don't like it, parents don't like it. Teachers can do less work from home, so that's what they're going to do.

Wife and I have talked about scheduling a week long vacation for the first week of school and have encouraged other parents to do the same.
 
We started home schooling about 6 months ago unrelated to COVID. It works great so far and there are lots of local sports and activities for the social aspect. Home school is much improved compared to what it used to be. I remember only weird kids doing it but overall it seems really cool. Almost any activity can now be used for credit.
Do you teach or is it online? If you do the teaching what program are you using. Does one spouse stay home full time?
 
Do you teach or is it online? If you do the teaching what program are you using. Does one spouse stay home full time?

My wife stays home and teaches them but it isn't really teaching in the traditional sense. The company is called HCOS and is only available to Canadians I believe. You probably have similar programs/companies in the US.
 

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