What do you think school will be like in the fall? UPDATE page 29 for Mass.

[jlwhitney]

My prediction. For elementary schools - Half days, no recess, gym, or meals. Half go in the morning, sterilize the desks, half go in the afternoon. Perhaps no busses. God help us working parents, trying to deal with this.

which all it is gonna do is increase somekind of daycares and cost parents more money. The day cares will do the mid day pick up or drop off , which I’m the end will do nothing and may as well have them in school all day.

 

[gotomu212]

Honestly? I'd like to see it set up like our online classes here at the college I work for. Set up classrooms with video equipment and some type of live computer stream so that kids at home can participate and ask questions along with their classmates. Then, allow the kids whose parents are comfortable to return to school and those who can't for whatever reason can learn remotely.

Now, is this realistic - probably not, it would cost a fortune but it would be a good way to balance everyone's needs and comfort level.

This is exactly what my son’s private school is doing (they tested a few of the cameras this week with a teacher in the empty classroom, an admin pretending to be a student in the classroom, and the rest of the class was all online).

They recognize that there will be students that are high risk or live with high risk that will not be able to come back in the fall even if they are able to reopen. Hey also have a group of international students that may not be able to return after the summer break.

Online has been a real success for them the past 2 months, but they already had a lot of technology in place and have been doing online learning for snow days and any other interruption.

 

[Frwinkley]

 

[Frwinkley]

3rd grade teacher....the above is going to be my life. I really like the kid in the lower right hand corner with the mask over his eyes....

 

[mom2rtk]

View attachment 494750

Not sure if you meant that as a joke, but I have a hunch it's actually pretty accurate.

 

[Frwinkley]

Yes. Meant to make light of a terrible situation, but I’m afraid it might be pretty accurate too. The graphic depicts pretty realistically though what keeping masks on young children will actually look like.

 

[2China2009]

Heard on the national news today “this will be the darkest winter that we will experience.” Meaning to me that Covid will be much more deadly and virulent. As I read through this thread I really have to ponder this whole school issue. I realistically do not think that my kids are going back in Aug just to be sent back home FT by Oct 1st to be home bound learning. Our district is very tech savvy and each child has their own IPad or laptop that the school gives out. We went to all e learning within 1 week of being home. My kids were all expected to be online from 8-3 all day with zoom meetings. Grading did not stop until their last day of school yesterday. My high schooler took an AP exam online and turned in her last art assignment at 1157 pm. We already live a pretty low key life so this was not hard for us. We are very great full for amazing school system.

 

[jlwhitney]

Heard on the national news today “this will be the darkest winter that we will experience.” Meaning to me that Covid will be much more deadly and virulent. As I read through this thread I really have to ponder this whole school issue. I realistically do not think that my kids are going back in Aug just to be sent back home FT by Oct 1st to be home bound learning. Our district is very tech savvy and each child has their own IPad or laptop that the school gives out. We went to all e learning within 1 week of being home. My kids were all expected to be online from 8-3 all day with zoom meetings. Grading did not stop until their last day of school yesterday. My high schooler took an AP exam online and turned in her last art assignment at 1157 pm. We already live a pretty low key life so this was not hard for us. We are very great full for amazing school system.

If you read the whole article that is only if we do nothing to prepare and don’t have testing in place and such.

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm really afraid this is going to decimate private schools.

And just a few days after I posted this, a friend in the northeast just told me her child's private school just notified everyone they will be closing at the end of the current school year because of the impact from Covid. I'm so sad for them. What a giant disruption to their family.

 

[jlwhitney]

And just a few days after I posted this, a friend in the northeast just told me her child's private school just notified everyone they will be closing at the end of the current school year because of the impact from Covid. I'm so sad for them. What a giant disruption to their family.

That is so sad. I think a lot of small private schools are gonna end up closing.

 

[dreamin_disney]

College out here will be online for the fall.

I don’t see how the district K-12 will come up with a good plan. Even doing alternate days or morning/afternoon session still exposes staff , teacher and kids. Parent will arrive late to pick up their kids, they will continue to send sick kids to school, teacher will be overwhelmed . Who will do the in between cleanings? Kids will have to be giving breakfast and lunch and they will all gather in one space.

Right before school closures a lot of sick kids(stomach issues, headaches, fever, cough, colds) were attending schools. Parent sent their kids because they had to work or didn’t want to deal with them (I’ve heard parent and kids admit to it).

And now, with the inflammation covid symptom affecting kids it will spread. No matter how many times you tell kids to keep their hands and feet to themselves, it never happens. Middle school always pushing, messing around, fist pumping, 1/2 hand shake 1/2 hug, and selfies head to head.

It will be an interesting 2020-2021 school year. Praying for all


Oh btw I talked to a friend and she said this was her sons first year teaching and he was let go along with 30 others. Sad

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Curious if you have people around you threatening to switch to actual homeschooling if school stays online for Fall? There is a lot of talk about that here and I wonder if the threat of loss of funding has schools pushing harder to find a way to reopen?

I don’t have it in me to actually homeschool, but this online isn’t working, so I understand where these parents are coming from.

 

[barkley]

Curious if you have people around you threatening to switch to actual homeschooling if school stays online for Fall? There is a lot of talk about that here and I wonder if the threat of loss of funding has schools pushing harder to find a way to reopen?

I don’t have it in me to actually homeschool, but this online isn’t working, so I understand where these parents are coming from.

i have'nt heard anything around us (washington state) but i don't see where this would really work to the parent's advantage. the laws here are such that if a parent opted to do 'homeschooling' as it's defined in our state law then it's not like they stop paying for state education. they would still pay for it via all the same taxes just like those of us with no kids in school pay. sure, the school districts would lose out on that kid count for funding but i suspect that they would crunch the numbers and ultimately argue (when things settle down financially for the state) that the per kid cost of attendance has increased and will offset any losses that way.

this state actually ends up in a winning financial position w/home schoolers-they are entitled to no tax breaks or stipends or funds if they 'home school' so taxes get paid/zero goes out for that household's children to be educated. if they opt on the other hand for the state supported school at home education programs (one of which is an existing entirely on-line program that has successfully continued without a hiccup during all this shutdown) where the districts would see their monies going to alternative forms of education it might have an impact on some things (like having a distance learning plan in place and staff/students/parents trained on how to use it) but ultimatly i think all of this is going to come down to student/staff safety for reopening. i don't know what it's like elsewhere but no one was happy when the shutdown order came down here and the districts would prefer to be open.

 

[rjb123]

do you think that schools will mandate distance learning for kids who can't or won't obey social distancing rules? Because that is likely the only way that kids will comply, and parents will force kids to comply.

 

[AP1209]

To be honest I don't think schools should even attempt social distancing. It's just going to end up being a headache for teachers and staff. Do we really expect elementary students to be able to handle it. I don't. There should be temperature checks, handwashing at least 3 to 4 times a day (maybe more) and extra cleaning of classrooms throughout the day. We parents need to be careful about sending sick kids to school.

 

[barkley]

do you think that schools will mandate distance learning for kids who can't or won't obey social distancing rules? Because that is likely the only way that kids will comply, and parents will force kids to comply.

seeing as allot of schools are prohibited these days from removing students from classrooms let alone suspending them from school attendance for violations of school rules including violence against staff/other students i don't think this would ever fly.

 

[1GoldenSun]

Do you think it's likely that schools will be requiring kids to wear masks?

 

[jlwhitney]

Do you think it's likely that schools will be requiring kids to wear masks?
[/QUOTED]

Duval countyb(Jacksonville fl) is proposing to spend 300k ok masks for teachers and students

 

[amylevan]

Do you think it's likely that schools will be requiring kids to wear masks?

I live in Pa, where masks are required, so unless things change I'm assuming yes.

I also think it's sort of a useless requirement. What elementary-aged kid isn't going to touch it, move it, play with it....making it worthless?

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

i have'nt heard anything around us (washington state) but i don't see where this would really work to the parent's advantage. the laws here are such that if a parent opted to do 'homeschooling' as it's defined in our state law then it's not like they stop paying for state education. they would still pay for it via all the same taxes just like those of us with no kids in school pay. sure, the school districts would lose out on that kid count for funding but i suspect that they would crunch the numbers and ultimately argue (when things settle down financially for the state) that the per kid cost of attendance has increased and will offset any losses that way.

this state actually ends up in a winning financial position w/home schoolers-they are entitled to no tax breaks or stipends or funds if they 'home school' so taxes get paid/zero goes out for that household's children to be educated. if they opt on the other hand for the state supported school at home education programs (one of which is an existing entirely on-line program that has successfully continued without a hiccup during all this shutdown) where the districts would see their monies going to alternative forms of education it might have an impact on some things (like having a distance learning plan in place and staff/students/parents trained on how to use it) but ultimatly i think all of this is going to come down to student/staff safety for reopening. i don't know what it's like elsewhere but no one was happy when the shutdown order came down here and the districts would prefer to be open.

Here, parents aren’t suggesting it as a way to save any money, but as a way to their kids get a quality education. The distance learning doesn’t work. Like I said, I’m not cut out to homeschool (especially 4 different grades), but I do see why parents feel this way.

I want to see kids back in the classroom in the Fall, but am seeing a lot of pushback from teachers on social media. But if they are doing distance learning still, something has to change.