Kindergarten moms: what’s your plan?

[noodleoo]

More school talk (sorry!). Who else has kids entering Kindergarten in the fall? What are your options and what are you planning? Anyone else want to commiserate with me? 

I’m in MA and numbers are low, but starting to rise. 🙁  My town has a 1% positivity and 1.5 daily cases per 100k, so we are currently “green”.  The current plan is for K to start in person, 5 days a week for mornings only (8:30 to 11:30 am). Masks are required for all ages and social distancing, etc. You can opt into virtual if you aren’t comfortable with the in person school. I have friends who are planning to unenroll and homeschool, another that is putting together a “pod” and I think planning to hire a teacher. My plan so far has been to go with in person, knowing that it will probably switch to virtual within a few weeks. I work part time, so I’m nervous about supervising virtual K, but homeschooling seems like so much work to me.  I’ve heard great things about our K teachers, I’m kind of trusting they will figure it out and at least provide me what I need to teach DD1. But I feel like Im being too trusting and I’m behind everyone else forming alternative plans. Part of me wants to quit my job so I can just focus on my kids but I know that would be terrible long term decision. I wish DD1 could just stay at daycare another year. K is not required in my state, so maybe I should just do that and worry about this all next year? 😭

[imimahoney]

Also in Massachusetts... our town is white ( so "better" than green).

We pay for fullday so the town was pushed to do more than the free pt program.

We will have 4 fulldays in a row and then a half day remote on Friday.

Masks, social distancing, possibly having satellite classroom if 6 ft apart won't work in the classroom.

[imimahoney]

The town I work in, which is green, is doing a/b split between morning and afternoon with Wednesdays remote for all. Masks and 6 ft apart.

[patches31709]

I'm in upstate NY with a positivity rate that hovers right around 1% and has for a while. Our school district is one of the largest in the state and will be starting 100% remote.

We found out this morning that they are planning to bring K-2 in 2x a week starting 9/29. DD would go Monday and Tuesday, they would sanitize on Wednesdays, and the other cohort would go Thurs and Friday. It's not ideal at all, and I'm really hoping they find a way to get the youngest kids in 5x a week as soon as possible.

[mae0111]

noodleoo, I'm also in MA in a "green" town. My kids go to private (parochial) school and are a bit older (5th and 2nd). They're returning to school full time, but I don't anticipate they'll last beyond October 1 before distance learning kicks in.

Have you seen the plans for distance learning for your town? I know that my town did a terrible job in the spring. There were no mandatory assignments until end of April, and no Google meets until mid-May (not mandatory). Absolutely no sychronous learning at all. Kids with IEPs did not receive services (they're now part of a lawsuit because they with held services unless parents signed away their rights... it's a whole mess). Once it started here, it was very hands on - parents really needed to sit with the younger kids to help them to navigate the system. But other towns did a fantastic job with distance learning, so I wonder if you know what you'd be getting.

Could you hold her out and have her start K next year if you're nervous about distance learning? I can't really picture what it looks like for K. Do any daycares offer K?

Good luck, whatever you decide!

[Mrs.flang]

My oldest is still one year away but I've been closely following a co-worker's plans that has a rising K son. Most of the schools here in NJ seem to be a hybrid with only 2 in-person half days and the rest virtual. Which seems kind of like, what is even the point. I actually encouraged co-worker to call around a few places and she found a daycare that used to offer a K program several years ago that is now re-opening that program, so she is doing that instead. It was fairly last minute too so I think she got lucky she found openings. It's 5 days in person with a class of only 6 kids, and comparable to the cost of regular daycare.

In general I'm pretty trusting of our state leadership and feel whatever guidelines they put in place will be as adequate as possible, so my hesitation wouldn't be so much about the safety of being in class, but the logistics just seem like a nightmare. Even if I could quit my job, I really have less than zero interest in teaching kindergarten.

[Susie]

Upstate NY here, positivity running around 1% and around 3/100k cases.

Our district is doing 5 days/week, full day for K-6, and we're going for it.  Masks all day (except outdoor breaks, eating), social distancing, desks 6' apart.  DD's building has bathrooms within the classrooms (it was just built in 2008) and sinks outside the actual bathroom so that makes hand washing easier and also reduces mixing of cohorts in shared bathrooms.  7-12 is doing hybrid, A/B day rotation.  Any family can opt out and do remote instead of in person/hybrid if desired.  A lot of families are going that route (fewer for K than other elem grades) but we let that date go by.

H and I can WFH, but he spends most of the day doing audio-recorded administrative hearings behind a closed door and can't assist much with kids.  He changed roles in May, and while he is really happy with the change, I am not loving it because it is much less flexible and he is much less available for the kids during the day.  I have a high demand career as well and just can't shoulder 100% of the remote-schooling burden for a kindergartener who will not be self-sufficient AT ALL.  We returned to daycare over a month ago, so this feels like the next logical step.

If/when they transition to remote eventually (I am not kidding myself that we will be able to stay in person all year), I figure at least she would have some connection to her new teacher/school from having started in person, which will be good.  If she goes remote we will need to hire some kind of help because I will not be able to do it all.

[nessness]

Our options are virtual learning (for an unknown amount of time) and homeschool. I chose the homeschool option.

She started a few days ago. The homeschool program is run through the district and is much more structured than I anticipated - they provided daily lesson plans for the first month, and we have to document that we're completing all of it. And there's a lot of projects - make a board game, make puppets and a puppet show, make slime, make homemade ice cream, make a poster, etc.

It feels like a lot for working parents to take on (and, presumably, for anyone homeschooling multiple kids). But the advantage over doing some other homeschool program is that she has a spot reserved at our regular school and can switch back at any time.

[sporklemotion]

Also in MA. I have one in K and a rising 1st grader. I live in a “green” town, though I’m not sure how stable that is. We are under 2% positivity and numbers are declining, which is good.
Our town is hybrid for “special populations,“ which includes PreK-1. It’s alternating weeks. Full remote for most 2-12 graders, so hopefully they’ll be able to keep things open? I’m a teacher in another district who will be required to report to school even though I’m teaching remotely.
If I had just one kid or if they were farther apart in age, I might look at a day care based K. There are some day dates around here with new classes for that.
I am sending my kids, largely due to a lack of other options. If they end up full remote, we’ll deal with it then. I am hoping to secure care for the “off” weeks, but can’t do much until I know which weeks and have a sense of options. My husband works from home but he can’t supervise them adequately on a regular basis due to the nature of his job.

[isabel]

DS1 starts full time in person a week from today, normal school day hours. They are required to wear masks except during lunch and recess. Kids are kept in their classrooms for almost everything, so there should be minimal contact between kids in his class vs. kids in another class.

I fully expect school to move to virtual at some point. In that case, we found a former-teacher-turned-SAHM who has K and 2nd kids. She will take him for the normal school day if school moves to virtual.

Aside from the cost of paying her, which I’m basically expecting to have to do for the whole year, I feel good about this plan. I think the risk is relatively low (given our county’s numbers) and he’ll get the opportunity to build a relationship with his teacher, meet some friends, and continue learning in a virtual setting with someone who actually knows what the heck they’re doing (unlike me).

[nicolewi]

We are in the red zone with rising cases. Choice between regular in-school, 5 days/week, with masks, some distancing, etc, but not able to maintain 6 feet; or virtual. We are starting with virtual, but I am very willing to pull her and just straight-up homeschool on my own if the virtual is a mess. We can re-evaluate our choice at quarter break (11/4) and choose to move to in-person if we want.

The ONLY reason I am even doing virtual rather than straight homeschooling is that she is my youngest of four (others are grades 2, 4 and 6). She wants to be like the big kids, and she wants to GO to school in-person if/when they go. So, we're giving this a shot. Were she my oldest, I would absolutely just homeschool and not worry about it.

I was really, really hoping her preschool would offer a half-day kindergarten for this year only, which they considered, but in the end they decided it was too hard to pull it together. I LOVED our preschool and would have been really happy with that option.

[awkwardpenguin]

We're at 5% positivity and 11 cases per 100k. Our only option through our public school is remote learning. Our district has not yet released what the plan is but it sounds likely it'll be heavy on synchronous video learning, which did not work for my daughter last spring at all. We have chosen to homeschool. DD has some behavioral challenges so she will be attending a private behavioral support classroom two days a week, and we wouldn't have the flexibility to do that with the remote learning plan.

I'm pretty confused about and frustrated by how kindergartners with special needs or who need to be assessed are going to get those services under remote learning, since incoming students often don't have established IEPs or 504s. It seems like we likely just won't be able to get her assessed until school is meeting in person again.

[Poppy]

We have the choice of full time in-person or remote. We chose remote, and I don't really know what the day will look like yet.

We agonized over the decision but now that it's made I'm feeling ok about it. DS is on the older end, can read, and is advanced in math as well so that lowers the pressure I feel about it. I don't want to pull him and jeopardize school funding so we're going to try to make the best of it and keep things low stress.

[gretchenindisguise]

We are in SoCal and started today.

I took the week off to supervise and figure stuff out. H is working from home until at least Jan and I'm 1/2 time from home.

Our plan is to roll with it.

We are virtual until our state gets off the watch list, but honestly given what's happening around the nation with schools and cases - I'm not sure how we go back until there is a vaccine.

My biggest worry is burning his energy and getting him some friends to play with. He was in preschool until 2 weeks ago so we've been spoiled for a few months.

[CloudBee]

If you really need the childcare, then keep her at daycare another year if you can swing it financially. If you can supplement with Bob Books and getting her to read and complete a basic kinder math book, you will be golden.

It takes practically no time to homeschool a kindergartner. Less than an hour a day for most homeschool families.

[boiler717]

Aug 17, 2020 16:51:10 GMT -5 awkwardpenguin said:

We're at 5% positivity and 11 cases per 100k. Our only option through our public school is remote learning. Our district has not yet released what the plan is but it sounds likely it'll be heavy on synchronous video learning, which did not work for my daughter last spring at all. We have chosen to homeschool. DD has some behavioral challenges so she will be attending a private behavioral support classroom two days a week, and we wouldn't have the flexibility to do that with the remote learning plan.

I'm pretty confused about and frustrated by how kindergartners with special needs or who need to be assessed are going to get those services under remote learning, since incoming students often don't have established IEPs or 504s. It seems like we likely just won't be able to get her assessed until school is meeting in person again.

We are fully remote but PT/OT/speech and other services needed by IEPs are being provided in the school. There are a lot of issues with transportation, etc since busses aren’t running as normal but there is the option.

[arehopsveggies]

Small rural area with 2-3 cases a week.

Public is all virtual for now and then going to 2 day a week hybrid.

The private where we did preK is full time, but a stretch for us to afford financially. It was absolutely worth it for the real experience but I was worried with all the changes (stay out two weeks for every cold etc, stay six feet from friends...)

I am a teacher doing a few years as a SAHM so we decided homeschool was the best of a bunch of bad options.

[vtdiamond]

My twins are entering kindergarten this fall and we’re in MA too. Our town is in the green zone now and they are doing a hybrid model. For Kindergarten that will be 2 cohorts either AM or PM 5 days a week. Other option was a virtual academy or home schooling.

My son is on an IEP and was in the town preschool last year and virtual learning did not work at all for him. For him it is much more effective to do in person learning. My H was laid off so is able to cover the off times with them while I’m working.

[numbers]

We're in the south and my oldest is starting full day in-person kindergarten at a private school this week.

Public schools in our area are virtual for the first 9 weeks.

We're expecting this year to be bumpy, but the school has done everything possible to prepare- bought all new individual desks, spaced everything apart, masks required all day, and the entire school and staff received mandatory testing.

[thejackpot]

I am in MD and school is virtual. We decided to homeschool our k and 1st grade ones and the middle school one is doing virtual. I spoke to their Principal last week to let her know and she wants me to stay active with our PTA and in the loop about the school stuff which I plan to do.

[starburst604]

In a MA “white” town also with a kindergartener. Our town is doing full day 4 days with one remote day, however at least for the first semester they won’t have to actually log in or do any work electronically on the off day, they’ll be given worksheets. They may implement actual remote learning after they become more familiar with using the Chromebooks. Grades 1-12 will be hybrid. Masks will be required and social distancing will be in place. There is a totally remote option also. The families we are friends with are sending their kids to school as our we. Our current daycare only goes up to pre-k but is working to get approval to offer enrichment learning for kids up to second grade to come there on their remote days and get assistance with that. So we are hoping to have DD there on the off day. If that doesn’t work out, I guess me and H will alternate weeks being home with her.

[christy082]

Our options are 100 virtual for the first 9 weeks, then based on CV color system of the county, hybrid 2 days in person and 3 days virtual when orange, full time in person when yellow. 100 percent remote for red and purple. You also have the option to remain virtual and watch the live feed from the classroom once in person resumes.

The sample virtual schedule has kindergartners at a computer for 6 hours with three 30 minute breaks (one is lunch). My husband and I agree this is too much for our daughter and we've decided to pull her from our district and will be homeschooling her.

[starburst]

I'm in SE PA, outside of Philadelphia. The school district we live in is 100% virtual and will be re-evaluated every 3 weeks, with K-2 having the highest priority of going back to school in person. Since I have to go back to work, DS1 will be going to daycare, where they'll have a room for school-age kids and a teacher who will help them navigate their distance learning. I'm disappointed for DS that he won't have the "typical" kindergarten experience and I'm hoping that that they'll be able to go back at some point this year, and I'm a little worried about how much he'll get out of the online learning. I'm disappointed for myself because I have to pay for another year of daycare. Womp womp.

[hbomdiggity]

I have no clue!

DS is currently enrolled in both the public and parochial school. The parochial school was to be in person until our governor created testing based requirements.

Still so much is unknown - what the public expectations will be, whether I can find a pod; and the private school sent a survey asking about “childcare” limited to 20 per class (max enrollment is 25/ class soo...)

[lynn07]

Our Kindergartener starts 100% in person this Friday. Our area is doing ok right now, around 1.9% positivity, and about 3 cases per 100k people. I still fully expect it to go virtual at some point, but I figured this was his best shot at physically meeting his teacher and getting a sense of what the school day will be like. His preschool was only a couple of hours a day, so K was/is going to be a big change for him. I work outside of the house (RN), and DH can’t give them a ton of attention while WFH, so we’ve been struggling with what to do when/if it goes virtual. I really sucked as their teacher last spring, but we don’t have the extra $ to hire anyone.

[mrsjrd23]

I have a kinder and a 2nd grader. We pulled them from their public school and enrolled them in the small parochial school that is attached to my daughter's early learning center.

We hoped that would allow them to go in person since it's SO small of a school and the daycare has an emergency license to operate so even though the school can meet all the requirements that allows the childcare to be open, they can't open due to our current positivity rate.

So DD and DS will be going to the daycare's "school age support" program that will have facilitators for their online learning.

The kicker? The teachers for their school will be onsite every day to provide the distance instruction so the teacher will be in one room, while my kid is down the hall interacting via zoom. I'm so pissed the damn school can't just open. I mean seriously.

So I have to pay the private school tuition AND then the early learning center support monthly payment.

[laurenh]

We're in WNY and are homeschooling our two kindergarteners. Our district is still half-day kindergarten (pre-COVID) and is doing hybrid for K-12 with 2 days a week in person, so 5 hours of in person schooling for kindergarten. We did have the option to select full remote but my husband and I both have demanding jobs and managing my 2nd graders virtual schedule in the Spring was awful. We couldn't bring ourselves to try and manage 3 virtual schedules for this year. We've been testing the waters for the last several weeks and it has been far easier to create the schedule that works for us and thankfully we're both able to WFH and stagger our schedules so that it's more manageable.

[ebeth]

DC here. We're starting public school 100% virtual for the first quarter. I'm not aware of any private, in person options for K and daycare for 5 year olds is hard to find because we have universal PK starting at 3. It will be a mix of live online and independent work from 9-3. I don't know how this will work. It seems ambitious to expect kindergartners to do that much online schooling. There are a couple camps with half day options and I'm debating just not logging on in the afternoon and sending her to camp as it seems like she'll get way more out of camp then online kindergarten. We're meeting with her teacher next week and I'll formulate a plan once I figure out how attendance will work....

[madringal]

Aug 17, 2020 23:55:12 GMT -5 mrsjrd23 said:

I have a kinder and a 2nd grader. We pulled them from their public school and enrolled them in the small parochial school that is attached to my daughter's early learning center.

We hoped that would allow them to go in person since it's SO small of a school and the daycare has an emergency license to operate so even though the school can meet all the requirements that allows the childcare to be open, they can't open due to our current positivity rate.

So DD and DS will be going to the daycare's "school age support" program that will have facilitators for their online learning.

The kicker? The teachers for their school will be onsite every day to provide the distance instruction so the teacher will be in one room, while my kid is down the hall interacting via zoom. I'm so pissed the damn school can't just open. I mean seriously.

So I have to pay the private school tuition AND then the early learning center support monthly payment.

My nieces' public school district is 100% virtual for the first 9 weeks. Some teachers and staff will be onsite - teaching virtually. The school is offering onsite child care to the tune of $600/month/child IN THE BUILDING.  So, my sister can choose to pay $1200/month to send her kids to the very same place that it is not safe to send them for free.  Excellent.

[krystee]

We’re at 5% in my county in IL, and my only option is virtual (or homeschool or private). I’m sad about it, but we’ll make the best of it. He’s going to two days from home and three from his in-home daycare. I am just relieved that he can read now so he should be able to figure it out after the first couple of days. Daycare has four e-learners from four different schools plus a couple toddlers, and I have no idea how they’ll keep it all straight.

Daycare requires masks for the kids when inside the house, but she is letting the virtual learners do face shields while in their classes so the teachers can see their faces and understand them better.