Are you sending your kids to school next month?

[gwynne]

So my granddaughters started school today. I really hope and pray that all goes well for them. I'm sure it'll be an interesting day.

I'm wishing your sweet granddaughters a good and safe school year.

 

[fitgirl36]

We have started the virtual option when her private school started 2 weeks ago, and at first I was worried about if she would fall behind in 2nd grade by doing virtual. We have the weekly schedule for the class (same course work for inperson and virtual) as well as the daily schedule the inperson kids go by. She has a live meeting with the inperson class for an hour in the morning and then we also have recorded lessons. We can get all our work done for the day in a morning pretty easily (and my kid is academically above average but is not some gifted genius). The teacher has to spend so much time correcting kids, getting them organized and keeping on task, transitioning them from one activity to another, and now having to tell kids to wash hands, pull mask up, put on face shield, etc. They have 20 minute allotted for bathroom, washing hands, plus 1 1/2 hrs for lunch and recess. We are so much more efficient at home!

We may return sometime this semester but I wanted to give a couple weeks of her school being in session. The public county schools start next week, so I also want to see how that goes and if a large spike in child cases occurs. Unfortunately, we have no published metrics as to what will lead to closures. Out county has about 125 cases per day for a 450,000 population. Out positivity rate has been about 8% though and we have had 45 of our 49 deaths in the last 6 weeks.

I have a daughter going into 5th grade at our local Catholic School and have chosen the virtual option as well to start (we have to chose for 9 weeks at a time). We don't start until next week but will have live sessions, it sounds, much like you described. My daughter is academically above average too so if things go as you described in your experience hopefully we will be efficient too! Thank you for sharing your experience with remote learning.

 

[VandVsmama]

And...now we have a Cox Internet outage in our area until almost 4:00 today. There went the school day.

 

[CarolAnn856]

Here comes all of the articles of kids not wearing masks and social distancing. I expect to see a lot of these over the next couple of weeks. The outbreak articles should start hitting in Sept.

I admin the unofficial parent page for our son's college. I just declined the first of many, I'm sure, attempts to post articles about surges and hotspots at other colleges. I just don't need the page to be clogged up to high heaven with these articles when they're all over the news anyway.

 

[HeatherC]

And...now we have a Cox Internet outage in our area until almost 4:00 today. There went the school day.

Typical. What a year!

 

[RamblingMad]

And...now we have a Cox Internet outage in our area until almost 4:00 today. There went the school day.

Neither COX nor Comcast are reliable during the day.

 

[Renarr]

Neither COX nor Comcast are reliable during the day.

Quoted for truth.

Comcast is a hot mess sometimes, but it's the only game I have in town that gets me faster than 20 Mbps. Every time somebody sends out a mailer or asks if I'd like fiber, and I say yes and tell them where I live, the response is all, "Well, not out that far! Can you actually get something beyond dialup?"

On the other hand, my students enjoy playing "How many times will my teacher's connection drop out mid-sentence this week?" My personal record is three (and luckily, in three different classes).

 

[VandVsmama]

Neither COX nor Comcast are reliable during the day.

My DH is fond of referring to Cox as Crotch Cable.

 

[gwynne]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ote-learning-after-reporting-135-new-n1236977

 

[Pucks104]

UNC Chapel Hill is going online only and encouraging students to return home after outbreaks of COVID19 on campus. I think students were there for a week or so. Now the students will take CoVid19 back to their communities and continue the spread!

 

[RamblingMad]

UNC Chapel Hill is going online only and encouraging students to return home after outbreaks of COVID19 on campus. I think students were there for a week or so. Now the students will take CoVid19 back to their communities and continue the spread!

Will parents get their dorm money refunded? That experiment didn’t last long.

 

[Turn the Page]

What's happening here is that the parents with more ability to keep their kids home, whether because they have a SAH (or laid off) parent in the household or a parent that is working from home or can arrange/afford a "pod" style arrangement or in-home caregiver, are keeping their kids home. Parents who are struggling, who have to go into work every day, who don't have support systems to lean on, who can't get home internet, are opting for in-person. But that's how our district wanted it to work out, because the parents who opt for distance learning are allowing better distancing and protective measures for those students who will be attending in person by reducing the number of students in the classroom. Our state didn't mandate social distancing in classrooms because it is impossible within the physical and economic constrains most schools operate under, but by given parents the option of distance learning, public schools are finding they can reduce their in-classroom populations by anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2, which then does allow for wider spacing between desks, better divisions at meal time, etc.

Our administration did a series of virtual town hall meetings and a parent asked the high school principal if they were hoping that parents who could easily keep their kids home would in order to free up space for those families who can't be as flexible and the principal said "no, not really, we have enough room for everybody." No, you don't. Not with any sort of social distancing you don't.

The district says 20-25% of students chose the virtual option. I have no idea if that is consistent across buildings or varies with different age groups.

 

[KBoopaloo]

Will parents get their dorm money refunded? That experiment didn’t last long.

8 days. I read they had to make the call because they were down to only 4 available beds in the quarantine dorm.

 

[KBoopaloo]

Things not off to a great start in Mississippi.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1295448468044107778

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The county above me issued an executive order prohibiting fall sports last week or the week before. My county announced today it will not issue a blanket order on restriction for academic instruction or school-related activities like sports. The health director is meeting with all 6 of the school districts' superintendents tomorrow though. One of the large universities in the state was granted approval by their county for a 25% capacity limit for their football stadium. I'm waiting to hear about my alma mater.

My local NFL stadium will be at a 22% capacity limit.

I have no intention of going to a game this fall but it is interesting to hear the various capacity limits (and that they will be having fans in the first place). We do have family members who get season tickets to both football and basketball for our alma mater so if they attend games we'll be distancing ourselves from them afterwards.

 

[Kitty 34]

OP, it's almost time to change your thread title.

 

[barkley]

OP, it's almost time to change your thread title.

naah. the way things are going every month some district will be opening/reopening/re-re opening......it's going to be fascinating to see how many months (calendar years?) this thread continues to be active.

 

[Kitty 34]

naah. the way things are going every month some district will be opening/reopening/re-re opening......it's going to be fascinating to see how many months (calendar years?) this thread continues to be active.

True.

 

[Kestryl]

Our administration did a series of virtual town hall meetings and a parent asked the high school principal if they were hoping that parents who could easily keep their kids home would in order to free up space for those families who can't be as flexible and the principal said "no, not really, we have enough room for everybody." No, you don't. Not with any sort of social distancing you don't.

The district says 20-25% of students chose the virtual option. I have no idea if that is consistent across buildings or varies with different age groups.

The school district here claimed that with kids choosing virtual, they could space out classes.

One of my husband’s in-person classes has 29 students. He has 27 seats. Socially distanced classes my butt.

The school district forgot to account for the fact that with students shifting to virtual, teachers would as well. On top of that, the district wouldn’t guarantee any teachers virtual classes if they had concerns- it was either risk teaching in person or quick, retire, or take an unpaid leave. So they lost a lot of teachers that way. So much so that they’re hiring teachers from an online district out of state to help fill the virtual holes.

 

[VandVsmama]

I just need to whine for a moment. Today has been a total poop sandwich. And today's Internet & school nonsense has sent me over the edge.

First, I took today off as a mental health day with plans to basically veg out and watch TV/Youtube. Went outside in the wee hours of the morning as I often do this time of year (because that's when it's a human temperature and not 115) and what do I find? But our fig tree is leaning over 1/3 thanks to a huge dust storm from yesterday evening.

That dust storm didn't bring any rain with it. Just dust. Just a haboob. Normally, the haboob starts first and then the rain. Other people got rain. Not us!

then I also discovered that my pride & joy of my backyard...the Royal Poinciana tree...is half broken off way down at the base of the trunk, thanks to the dust storm. Tree is basically ruined. So now I have to start over.

Husband is doing his normal shout-talking all morning through his conference calls (we can hear every word even with his office door closed). And then our Crotch Cable internet service goes offline. For hours.

I call school to give them a heads up. School phone prompt says to press 1 to reach the front office or press 2 for the registrar. Every time you press 1, it just sends you back to the intro message loop. So I have no choice but to leave a message with the registrar person instead. They ask how long will the outage be. No frickin' idea.

It finally came back online just before 4:00 pm. Now the kids are frustrated and mad that they have to go back and watch the recorded teacher lectures and take notes and catch up....the stuff that they missed thanks to Crotch Cable.

And then...the nail in the coffin...our cat Hermione decided it would be fun to claw and play with my brand new dining room curtains that we just put up yesterday. Lots of little claw pick marks in both curtain panels.

For the love of all that is holy, if in person school could please open up soon, I'd really appreciate a break from the big wide universe right now!

</end whine>