Back to school - Fall 2021

[Mrs. Ciz]

My youngest just graduated from college in May, so I don’t have kids going back to school this year. But I’m a middle school Language Arts teacher. Teacher Work Week starts on Aug 16th. I’ve been on short term disability since Feb 25th fighting a bone infection around my artificial knee joint. After 3 hospitalizations and 2 surgeries, I’ll be glad to have my recovery behind me and get my life back to normal. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to the daily grind of school.

I work at a small Catholic school. We were able to teach face to face classes with masks, 6ft distancing, daily temp taking, and extra cleaning all last year. The diocese just put out a statement saying this year masks will not be required, temps will not be taken and distancing will be shortened to 3ft. They have lost their minds!!! Most of our teachers are vaccinated (I am) but some aren’t. We all have to be stuck in classrooms with packs of unvaccinated maskless children!!! The very same day as the diocesan announcement, the American Academy of Pediatrics said masks should be required for all school kids while in school. And a couple of days after that the CDC changed their recommendation stating that all vaccinated people should wear masks indoors in areas of high covid/delta variant transmission. The diocese totally jumped the gun and now looks incompetent. Argggg!

 

[jrmasm]

My youngest just graduated from college in May, so I don’t have kids going back to school this year. But I’m a middle school Language Arts teacher. Teacher Work Week starts on Aug 16th. I’ve been on short term disability since Feb 25th fighting a bone infection around my artificial knee joint. After 3 hospitalizations and 2 surgeries, I’ll be glad to have my recovery behind me and get my life back to normal. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to the daily grind of school.

I work at a small Catholic school. We were able to teach face to face classes with masks, 6ft distancing, daily temp taking, and extra cleaning all last year. The diocese just put out a statement saying this year masks will not be required, temps will not be taken and distancing will be shortened to 3ft. They have lost their minds!!! Most of our teachers are vaccinated (I am) but some aren’t. We all have to be stuck in classrooms with packs of unvaccinated maskless children!!! The very same day as the diocesan announcement, the American Academy of Pediatrics said masks should be required for all school kids while in school. And a couple of days after that the CDC changed their recommendation stating that all vaccinated people should wear masks indoors in areas of high covid/delta variant transmission. The diocese totally jumped the gun and now looks incompetent. Argggg!

One local district has already said they won’t change their previous developed health plan. No masks required. I’d expect many more to follow suit.

 

[Boopuff]

We start back Aug. 18. No masks for vaccinated staff (we must show proof to our principal) We'll be in person. The district is offering on-line. But if you choose that option, it's permanent. No switching back to in-person and the on-line kids won't be tied to a certain school.

 

[tcufrog]

DS14 starts 9th grade on August 12, although he's in the 2nd week of band camp. I'm so relieved that he's been vaccinated because he'll be at 3 campuses this school year. DS10 starts back on August 25th. He's pretty good about wearing his mask but I'm worried about this coming school year because the state won't allow schools to require masks. I also haven't been able to find out from the school what precautions they're taking this year, which worries me because the pediatric hospitalization numbers are increasing in our county.

 

[martikus]

Mine heads back in 2 weeks. So disappointed by delta variant and hoping it won’t ruin everything as I was hoping for “normal” since he starts high school and that age can be vaccinated. Sadly
My state has high rate of non vaxers and our govenor likes to pretend covid is over. I’ve got all my fingers and toes crossed it as normal as possible.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I believe school is back on regular schedule meaning mid-August-ish start date (last year it was Sep 1st or so due to the Governor's rule). I did see a post on Nextdoor a few days ago about how last year parents got together for homeschooling and if there were parents interested in doing that again this year.

It looks like the districts are going to be in opposition with each other for covid health protocols. So that's not going to go well I don't think.

I also saw an article about concerns over remote learning and federal funding and that they would have to basically use what will be considered snow days and whatnot. Last year the Governor removed the requirement for number of hours or days in school based on age level but that hasn't been done this year. Honestly I've no clue what they'll be doing.

I did see that the district my house is located in has started a virtual school for k-12 but it's a traditional online school not where the students did last year when the metrics didn't allow for in-person. I'm not sure how many will enroll in the end but right now it's 300 but it's new for the school district. The courses are more limited and there won't be most of the honors or most of the electives offered. Another big district won't have their own virtual school but is instead partnering up with an established virtual academy. Under these virtual schools the students are going to be treated like other virtual schools where they work independently.

 

[Kittyblue]

I go back Aug 12, my youngest goes back Aug 17. No one is looking forward to it. It'll be over 100 degrees with a mask mandate. My oldest starts back at college Aug 23 but all her professors chose to do distance learning this semester so she's bummed she'll be spending another semester learning from home.

 

[Skippy918]

My 10yo is super worried about going back to school in person. She knows she can wear a mask which she is planning on, but she’s concerned that the other kids won’t wear masks. Plus this year, the classrooms will be full since there’s no virtual option cause the state isn’t funding it.

 

[Renarr]

We're back just before Labor Day here. I teach HS, and will be full-time in person after being full-year remote last year. Masks are required for staff and students alike. Distancing will be less than 3 feet, which concerns me some, but our county is pretty good with vaccinations.

 

[anniemae]

My 10yo is super worried about going back to school in person. She knows she can wear a mask which she is planning on, but she’s concerned that the other kids won’t wear masks. Plus this year, the classrooms will be full since there’s no virtual option cause the state isn’t funding it.

We are in the same boat, but ds is almost 12 so he will be able to get the vaccine soon. There has been no official email yet about masks, but for summer school they were optional so I am guessing that is how it will be in the fall. Parents lost their minds last year when masks were required. So I am guessing distancing and masks will be dropped, no virtual option.

Not sure what they will do about the whole contact tracing/quarantine thing. I wonder if they will still do that?

 

[DisneyHardin]

My DD 10 starts back to school on August 11. DH and I have been working in our respective offices since Summer 2020 and glad she gets to go back in person, as she is one smart cookie that did NOT thrive under virtual learning. Our district is currently planning to follow the Kentucky Department of Health's guidelines on reopening school.

We are in KY too and also start Aug. 11. We are going to be fully masked and distanced the best we can. At first our district wasn't going to offer a virtual option for elementary students, but they announced at their board meeting this week that they would. Last year when we went back to in person in March, students at each school who chose to stay virtual were still taught by teachers at their home school - this new virtual option will be an academy where students withdraw from their current school and enroll in the virtual academy. At the school where I teach, we had about 1/3 of our students stay virtual last spring - I'll be interested to see how many choose the virtual academy when it means withdrawing from the school.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

We are in KY too and also start Aug. 11. We are going to be fully masked and distanced the best we can. At first our district wasn't going to offer a virtual option for elementary students, but they announced at their board meeting this week that they would. Last year when we went back to in person in March, students at each school who chose to stay virtual were still taught by teachers at their home school - this new virtual option will be an academy where students withdraw from their current school and enroll in the virtual academy. At the school where I teach, we had about 1/3 of our students stay virtual last spring - I'll be interested to see how many choose the virtual academy when it means withdrawing from the school.

It sounds like ours will be the same set up this year - having to unenroll from the home school. A lot of our parents chose remote in the spring because the AM/PM model didn’t work for working parents. It’ll be interesting to see what people choose now, especially with the Delta variant so prevalent.

Masks will be required, regardless of vaccination status.

 

[Skippy918]

We are in the same boat, but ds is almost 12 so he will be able to get the vaccine soon. There has been no official email yet about masks, but for summer school they were optional so I am guessing that is how it will be in the fall. Parents lost their minds last year when masks were required. So I am guessing distancing and masks will be dropped, no virtual option.

Not sure what they will do about the whole contact tracing/quarantine thing. I wonder if they will still do that?

So our district said that if you test positive, you should isolate for 10 days, but quarantine is optional for those exposed. The health department will do the contact tracing apparently. The school doesn’t have the resources to do contact tracing.
I hope they have a plan for kids who have to miss school because of Covid or Covid exposure.

 

[Funfire240]

DD13 and DS11 start back August 19. Broke it to them yesterday they are 3 weeks away. However, dance and football all start in full swing next week so we will be back to busy.
They are required to wear masks on the buses, which mine only ride in the afternoon as I drop them off on my way to work to save them some time. As of now, masks are optional although a larger neighboring school district went with required so it will be interesting to see if we follow suit. DD is vaccinated but obviously DS is not yet. I worry because he is scheduled to go to camp the week after Thanksgiving and I would love for him to have that experience but I will be extremely surprised if they allow it this year again. When DD went just before COVID hit, influenza B ran rapid through the kids that went. She had her flu vaccine but still got hit pretty hard.
DD was home most of last year and loved it and we considered home school for her but ultimately she chose to go back. DS did not do well remotely as his attention span isn't there and his grades suffered so I'm really hoping they can stay full time in school. (yes, we worked with him but with of us working full time out of the home and not there to supervise his studies in the day, he was very easily distracted no matter what we tried)

I also hope our district has a plan for those that are required to quarantine. Last year my daughter was exposed but by the time we were notified it was 5 days into the 10 so she only missed 5 but she missed a lot of learning in her one class with not having teacher interaction and was expected to take a test at home before returning which was a large chunk of her grade and dropped her quarter grade because of it. And she couldn't finish an art project and it was a scramble to get exactly what she needed to restart and finish it at home.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

DS22 just graduated from college in May. This will be the first time in over 20 years that we don't have a kid in some kind of school. He's living at home and working to save money before plotting his move to NYC (he's a singer/actor).

I will be going back on 8/19 for my 20th year as a Special Education Instructional Assistant (public school district). I have been working all these years in a preschool classroom, and this past year was difficult. We were sent back in-person last September, while the older grade levels remained at home. Several times, we learned that family members of students had tested positive, felt sick and were being tested, were quarantining after an exposure, etc. It was a scary time for us. Our kids could not tolerate masks and didn't understand the need for distancing, wiping noses, washing hands, etc. Most are non-verbal due to their various disabilities. Yes, they needed to be in school but we, as a staff, didn't feel safe. They finally shut down the in-person classes before Thanksgiving. They brought us back in March (again, before the older grade levels). We felt a little better since our staff was half-vaccinated (had received our first shots). We all breathed a sigh of relief when we hit two weeks after our second shots.

I decided that it's a good time for me to leave the preschool level. Last year was stressful due to Covid, but I also feel like I need a new challenge. I will be moving to a special ed class for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. I will also be working at a different campus in our district where I don't know anyone. It will be like starting a whole new job, which is what I need right now!

 

[texaslover]

This is also my first time to be going back to school as a teacher but not have my son doing the same! He graduated from college in December and started a full time job in April.

I go back on Monday for preparation and professional development. The students start August 12. We were in school in person all last year with a remote option for students. This year it is all in person, masks optional. From reading social media there are quite a few parents upset with no remote option but our legislature did not pass the bill to fund virtual public schools. I'm a specialist that goes in and out of all grade level classrooms daily so was exposed to numerous cases of Covid last year, quaratines, etc. I'm not worried about going back to work and am happy that students will be in person, getting the services they need, and being educated using best practices. Having said that, I'm not ready for summer to be over!!!!