Are you sending your kids to school next month?

[barkley]

Unless the off-campus apartment is school-owned, there is no reason to believe decisions about in-person classes was made on any connection with leases.

i'll agree at least as it comes to the college town i'm in b/c there is NO LOVE between the university and the local landlords. for the most part the apartments and the houses to rent are privately owned vs. being big companies and those private owners were initially devastated a handful of years back when the university decided to add a bunch more on campus housing-with the kicker being the additional requirement that all freshman had to live ON CAMPUS (not the norm in our neck of the woods). any decisions being made by the university are strictly to benefit the university b/c they couldn't give a c--p about the local town (or their students apparently b/c they just announced that despite all classes being on-line and starting this week-tuition has been increased and is due and payable by tomorrow ).

I would also think that not fulfilling the contract of the lease would hurt the student's credit scores. The landlords could also take the student to court for breach of contract.

i'm kind of wondering, depending on the state a student attends (and if like mine-the eviction moratorium has been extended a few months more at minimum), if a student whose school has gone distance and doesn't want to live near campus might not give a go at contacting their landlord/rental office and seeing if any negotiation for breaking the lease might be an option. yes, landlords want their money but the reality is the way things are now a student could move in and immediately stop paying rent without any recourse on the landlord's part in my state. whenever the moratorium gets lifted the landlord could start the eviction process but the courts are going to be slammed so it will be much more time consuming and drawn out. a landlord might be very willing to settle a lease for pennies on the dollar.

as far as an eviction hurting a person's credit, who knows? it may be that given the current economic state of affairs that an eviction won't carry near the weight in coming times that it has traditionally. i look to what a home being foreclosed used to do to a person's credit yet when the number of foreclosures skyrocketed during the housing crisis it became/is not as critical a hit.

 

[mjkacmom]

i'll agree at least as it comes to the college town i'm in b/c there is NO LOVE between the university and the local landlords. for the most part the apartments and the houses to rent are privately owned vs. being big companies and those private owners were initially devastated a handful of years back when the university decided to add a bunch more on campus housing-with the kicker being the additional requirement that all freshman had to live ON CAMPUS (not the norm in our neck of the woods). any decisions being made by the university are strictly to benefit the university b/c they couldn't give a c--p about the local town (or their students apparently b/c they just announced that despite all classes being on-line and starting this week-tuition has been increased and is due and payable by tomorrow ).




i'm kind of wondering, depending on the state a student attends (and if like mine-the eviction moratorium has been extended a few months more at minimum), if a student whose school has gone distance and doesn't want to live near campus might not give a go at contacting their landlord/rental office and seeing if any negotiation for breaking the lease might be an option. yes, landlords want their money but the reality is the way things are now a student could move in and immediately stop paying rent without any recourse on the landlord's part in my state. whenever the moratorium gets lifted the landlord could start the eviction process but the courts are going to be slammed so it will be much more time consuming and drawn out. a landlord might be very willing to settle a lease for pennies on the dollar.

as far as an eviction hurting a person's credit, who knows? it may be that given the current economic state of affairs that an eviction won't carry near the weight in coming times that it has traditionally. i look to what a home being foreclosed used to do to a person's credit yet when the number of foreclosures skyrocketed during the housing crisis it became/is not as critical a hit.

At most of the rentals at my daughter’s university, if one roommate breaks the lease, the other renters are responsible to make up the rent. They would have to take the lease breaker to court.

 

[HeatherC]

I don't think anyone is advocating breaking leases, I am certainly not and paid my daughters full year through July even though she was gone by March but that's not the only questionable moral issue in play. There is the other side of it made up by those who profit when the kids are on site. There is soooooo much money in the college student industry that it's hard to believe those dollars aren't a big part of any conversation taking place over what to do.

My kids went away so in some ways it's good for them but for independence, the kids aren't paying for apartments, unless they have trust funds it is their families paying so there is nothing independant about it at all.

As long as people keep renting and paying the high prices, you can’t really blame the landlords.

 

[Southernmiss]

We've never paid our college students ' rent.

Scholarships, part time jobs, and student loans have done that.

One son signed his lease in October. Has 3 days on campus and the rest online. He is in 4 bedroom apartment. 3 other roommates moved out. A new one moves in this week. I do think their complex has much lower occupancy than it did last year.

Other son has classes online, but will need to be close to the medical center for activities there.

They fully need to be near their campuses and not at home 2.5 and 5 hours away.

It also keeps them in the school mindset more than a room in our house.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My kids went away so in some ways it's good for them but for independence, the kids aren't paying for apartments, unless they have trust funds it is their families paying so there is nothing independant about it at all.

You speak a lot about weath-building and now trust funds. While I agree college is definitely more expensive than when I started in 2006 it doesn't take wealthy parents nor a trust fund to rent an apartment nor are parents as a blanket statement paying for the whole apartment all the years a student is using it in college. Though maybe I should have known the kids you seem to know lol

 

[Kestryl]

And that symbiosis is a real problem in some college towns. The U of M student newspaper (which is independent of the university) had a scathing article about the campus reopening and the real estate interests of several members of the Board of Regents who voted to reopen over the objections of faculty. I don't really have a strong opinion about whether they should or shouldn't be reopening, but I think it is entirely fair to say that board members who own multiple rental properties, in one case millions of dollars worth, in a market that depends almost entirely on the student population may not be casting their votes with the best interests of the students or the university in mind.

I read that article (and other discourse) and I am absolutely disgusted with the conflict of interest. UM is failing their students. They are one of the universities with some “Hold Harmless” policy: https://kb.housing.umich.edu/hc/en-us/articles/360042875132-Hold-Harmless

Basically, if you get sick, it’s your own fault for living here and using communal areas like the bathroom.

And they’re sitting over there on their Twitter account posting some ridiculous meme about 25 people party good, 26 people party bad.


Meanwhile MSU pushed mostly everything online (its president is a medical doctor and researcher... for infectious disease so that should be telling), CMU is having trouble and blaming their students, EMU delayed by two weeks, and WMU is just getting started so we’ll see how that goes.

 

[barkley]

You speak a lot about weath-building and now trust funds. While I agree college is definitely more expensive than when I started in 2006 it doesn't take wealthy parents nor a trust fund to rent an apartment nor are parents as a blanket statement paying for the whole apartment all the years a student is using it in college. Though maybe I should have known the kids you seem to know lol

agree. i know my oldest (2018 grad), none of her college friends nor anyone she roomed with (for the one year she had roommates) had parents who paid in whole for their college apartments. for some it was paid for by virtue of scholarships, others financial aid, many used student loans and part time jobs-most a combination of all the above. i'm not saying there aren't some kids whose parents bankroll the entirety of their college years of housing but plenty of kids pay their own way albeit with their parents as legal co-signers on their leases.

 

[godisney14]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...t-Announces-Termination-Future-Lease-Contract

Not exactly the same, but thought it was interesting given the recent discussion regarding leases in this thread.
Pinterest got their future lease (a 10-yr lease in a new development) terminated by paying a one-time 20% penalty.

 

[EACarlson]

Bringing this back to the discussion earlier. My local school district made the decision this afternoon to have one middle school and one high school virtual only. 16 hours before kids were supposed to show up for the first day of hybrid.

 

[HeatherC]

Bringing this back to the discussion earlier. My local school district made the decision this afternoon to have one middle school and one high school virtual only. 16 hours before kids were supposed to show up for the first day of hybrid.

Sorry to hear this. I am sure there are a lot of disappointed students, parents and teachers.

 

[mom2rtk]

Our local county asked schools to delay 2 weeks, the Friday afternoon before classes (some fully in person, some hybrid) were due to start here last Monday. First off, what exactly is going to be different in 2 weeks? Second, just stop with the last minute nonsense. You've had LITERALLY MONTHS. Our district went ahead. Saw kids walking in (wearing masks, and spread out) over a week ago. I see the buses moving about town every morning. It's nice. They had summer school for a month in person and I think (hope?) they have a good plan (my youngest is in college now).

 

[Renarr]

I got my teaching assignment for the year late last week after classes had to be shuffled for offering hybrid versus online learning. Our hybrid is delayed six weeks (so starting remotely) in the hopes that our case numbers will be closer to our governor's requirements for hybrid reopening, but it seems unlikely.

Found out I'm teaching three courses this year instead of the usual two. The first class I also taught last year, but I lost the course I'd been developing over the last six years, unfortunately, though I can't say I'm surprised. One is from a course I taught once four years ago, and it's got a new textbook and new requirements since then. One is from a course I last taught eight years ago. That last one has this web-based curriculum that's new to me that they use during the normal year. When they first implemented it, teachers got a week of training, but because of the shortened time frame, I got two hours that was more of an infomercial for the product that we already bought, and partway in, I found I was getting more value out of lowering the volume and exploring the software myself.

Class sizes are also up (I was placed in the full-year online cohort). Normally, they're soft capped at 32 (you should prioritize other sections if possible once at 32, and you need teacher permission once at 34). This year, the hybrid is hard capped at 32 (understandable with physical distancing and all), and the remote is uncapped, but targeting a max of 40. I already have two classes of 38 or more students (both in that eight years ago course), with students still registering. A colleague of mine has a class of 50 (!).

There was talk to perhaps pushing back the start until the Tuesday after Labor Day to give teachers a chance to wrap their heads around their new schedules (more than half the staff district-wide had a teaching assignment change). Frankly, I never understood the start two days before Labor Day anyway since a lot of families (under normal circumstances) would pull their kids on that Friday for one last summer hurrah anyway. But in any case, they decided not to go that way.

Classes start Thursday. Here.... we..... go.....!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Our local county asked schools to delay 2 weeks, the Friday afternoon before classes (some fully in person, some hybrid) were due to start here last Monday. First off, what exactly is going to be different in 2 weeks? Second, just stop with the last minute nonsense. You've had LITERALLY MONTHS. Our district went ahead. Saw kids walking in (wearing masks, and spread out) over a week ago. I see the buses moving about town every morning. It's nice. They had summer school for a month in person and I think (hope?) they have a good plan (my youngest is in college now).

It's the same level of non-information on this side of the state line. School is about to start next Tuesday for many of the kids here and parents don't have much of a clue about what is going on. Not only that but school districts keep changing their mind with at least one that was going remote deciding to have elementary students go in-person, to districts initially following the County's gating criteria and colored learning modes to switching to the state's gating criteria and colored learning modes, to will fall sports happen, to all sorts of things. I know they are trying to keep up with the community spread and numbers which I assume is being directly tied to gating criteria or comfort level IDK there's only so much information being shared but it's wreaking havoc on other things in probably a much more encompassing way. *sigh* it's kinda exhausting honestly keeping up with the seemingly constant whip last here of decisions.

 

[Carol_]

I have teachers in place at a private school ready to monitor my child’s online public school for his first year in kindergarten. They don’t teach his grade but have modified their system to accommodate and profit. Thank God, because without them we’d be stuck homeschooling possibly in a ‘pod’ of local families.
I’m scared that he won’t get the attention he needs whichever way this wave breaks, and I can’t help but resent the public school system and everyone in it for not doing what the private school has figured out.

 

[KittyKitty]

You've had LITERALLY MONTHS

Schools had plan in June to do in-person/hybrid classes for this next school year. But Covid didn't care. Many schools districts were told to not open this fall by their County Health Dept because of Covid cases. It was in early August we got that notice to remote learning only. Teachers have been working hard to revise lesson plans, technology, and schedules.
Frustrating? Yes. Fault? Evil Covid!!

 

[mom2rtk]

Schools had plan in June to do in-person/hybrid classes for this next school year. But Covid didn't care. Many schools districts were told to not open this fall by their County Health Dept because of Covid cases. It was in early August we got that notice to remote learning only. Teachers have been working hard to revise lesson plans, technology, and schedules.
Frustrating? Yes. Fault? Evil Covid!!

I get that. And I also get that I'm an armchair quarterback. It just seems to me that having a couple possible plans of action mapped out would have been a good idea. And the counties involved could have done a lot better than to pull the rug out with more notice than 1 business day. Sure Covid is unpredictable. But not 100%. Some of this could have been anticipated. I think a lot of it is shifting opinions more than shifting conditions.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Schools had plan in June to do in-person/hybrid classes for this next school year. But Covid didn't care. Many schools districts were told to not open this fall by their County Health Dept because of Covid cases. It was in early August we got that notice to remote learning only. Teachers have been working hard to revise lesson plans, technology, and schedules.
Frustrating? Yes. Fault? Evil Covid!!

Eh..I'm in the same area as that poster. It really has been a cluster here. It wasn't that COVID just popped up in such numbers and ruined the plans it's that they didn't even HAVE the plans. Like they were still formulating them and they are constantly changing them. And in our metro while there were great concerns about in-person learning in the fall they weren't told to NOT open by the health departments but rather the positivity rate really should be at this level from a health department standpoint--hence the gating criteria.

I don't think the poster was implying that the teachers haven't been working, it's that whatever the teachers are supposed to do have been left up in the air so late. Lesson plans are really not the same thing as knowing if your kid is even showing up to a building on X day or if that X day is now Y day and that was decided with days to go or now your 5th grader is going in-person but your 8th grader is remote, and so many more things. And knowing some teachers in my area they are just as frustrated as the parents.

As far as technology they've been working on wifi hotspots to give to students or what platforms they will be using, etc but again those aren't the same as what's been going on. It's compounded for the other poster by the fact that some schooling has already been going on during the summer.

 

[siren0119]

I get that. And I also get that I'm an armchair quarterback. It just seems to me that having a couple possible plans of action mapped out would have been a good idea. And the counties involved could have done a lot better than to pull the rug out with more notice than 1 business day. Sure Covid is unpredictable. But not 100%. Some of this could have been anticipated. I think a lot of it is shifting opinions more than shifting conditions.

I know that for those of us on the parent side of things, it seems like it should have been simple. But I know at least in our state, there were factors that were out of the control of the local public school districts:
-They could spitball possible plans (and did through much of the summer) but until DESE (our state governing body) issued their guidelines, schools couldn't put anything official to paper. And the DESE guidance wasn't even issued until July, and has changed a few times in the last six weeks.

- our public school teachers are unionized. They are contractually obligated to do, and not do, certain things as part of the union. So before official plans could be cemented, there had to be union/administration negotiations. We got tentative agreements from the union a couple of weeks ago.

- As PP mentioned COVID had its own plans, there was a lot of hope that it would dissipate over the summer and we might be able to start school up again pretty close to normal in the fall. Public schools don't have a lot of fluid cash to throw at a "maybe" solution if there's a chance it can't happen. Unlike private schools, they have more severely limited resources and many more governing bodies to answer to.

I do think changing plans a day before the start of school indicates that maybe they weren't as prepared as they thought they were, but I don't know the details of what other outside agencies can dictate what the public schools can and can't do in your area - it's likely that a sudden change was a result of something that happened much higher up the food chain.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I get that. And I also get that I'm an armchair quarterback. It just seems to me that having a couple possible plans of action mapped out would have been a good idea. And the counties involved could have done a lot better than to pull the rug out with more notice than 1 business day. Sure Covid is unpredictable. But not 100%. Some of this could have been anticipated. I think a lot of it is shifting opinions more than shifting conditions.

To the bolded--I really think it's more this. Our COVID situation while going up and down hasn't so drastically changed that suddenly it was okay before and now it isn't. They've had the gating criteria for a while and they know they can adjust as needed but you gotta give some notice. I think parents on my side of the state line in my county are particularly annoyed because the districts all decided fairly close together like the 3rd week in July for a start date of September 8th/9th. And they still don't have plans ironed out and haven't given the parents the information they really need.

 

[Kestryl]

I got my teaching assignment for the year late last week after classes had to be shuffled for offering hybrid versus online learning. Our hybrid is delayed six weeks (so starting remotely) in the hopes that our case numbers will be closer to our governor's requirements for hybrid reopening, but it seems unlikely.

Found out I'm teaching three courses this year instead of the usual two. The first class I also taught last year, but I lost the course I'd been developing over the last six years, unfortunately, though I can't say I'm surprised. One is from a course I taught once four years ago, and it's got a new textbook and new requirements since then. One is from a course I last taught eight years ago. That last one has this web-based curriculum that's new to me that they use during the normal year. When they first implemented it, teachers got a week of training, but because of the shortened time frame, I got two hours that was more of an infomercial for the product that we already bought, and partway in, I found I was getting more value out of lowering the volume and exploring the software myself.

Class sizes are also up (I was placed in the full-year online cohort). Normally, they're soft capped at 32 (you should prioritize other sections if possible once at 32, and you need teacher permission once at 34). This year, the hybrid is hard capped at 32 (understandable with physical distancing and all), and the remote is uncapped, but targeting a max of 40. I already have two classes of 38 or more students (both in that eight years ago course), with students still registering. A colleague of mine has a class of 50 (!).

There was talk to perhaps pushing back the start until the Tuesday after Labor Day to give teachers a chance to wrap their heads around their new schedules (more than half the staff district-wide had a teaching assignment change). Frankly, I never understood the start two days before Labor Day anyway since a lot of families (under normal circumstances) would pull their kids on that Friday for one last summer hurrah anyway. But in any case, they decided not to go that way.

Classes start Thursday. Here.... we..... go.....!

FIFTY?! In my state, they raised the cap and average to 35 (which have special exceptions for classes like band and gym). This applies to virtual classes as well. I think you can apply for an exception, but the district my husband was in literally hired teachers from the Florida Virtual School to cover virtual classes. (And asked district teachers to sell their prep time...) How is 50 allowed?!