My friend sent me this from her local moms Facebook group. I thought you all might be able to appreciate it:
From my moms group on FB... Do you think in some alternate universe, there's a Boulder Area Dads and they're the ones trying to figure out in person vs homeschooling vs pod, what to make for dinner, how to entertain the kids every single day, how do I fit in my 9-5 job, what workout program is most efficient, how do we stay in touch with grandparents and friends mid-pandemic, did I forget a birthday?, should we take a road trip and if so to where (then planning every bit and packing for the whole family), will we ever have a date night again, when's the last time the kids took a bath/brushed their teeth/changed their underwear, did anybody feed the dog/cat, dear Lord, this house needs a good cleaning, is there wine in the house?, what can I do for self-care when I have zero free and/or alone time, etc etc etc... Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of dads (my hubby included) who do tons, but today I'm having one of those "get off the f'ing PlayStation and help!" days. Thanks for letting me vent!
My friend sent me this from her local moms Facebook group. I thought you all might be able to appreciate it:
From my moms group on FB... Do you think in some alternate universe, there's a Boulder Area Dads and they're the ones trying to figure out in person vs homeschooling vs pod, what to make for dinner, how to entertain the kids every single day, how do I fit in my 9-5 job, what workout program is most efficient, how do we stay in touch with grandparents and friends mid-pandemic, did I forget a birthday?, should we take a road trip and if so to where (then planning every bit and packing for the whole family), will we ever have a date night again, when's the last time the kids took a bath/brushed their teeth/changed their underwear, did anybody feed the dog/cat, dear Lord, this house needs a good cleaning, is there wine in the house?, what can I do for self-care when I have zero free and/or alone time, etc etc etc... Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of dads (my hubby included) who do tons, but today I'm having one of those "get off the f'ing PlayStation and help!" days. Thanks for letting me vent!
LOL This cracked me up. Beau's response to his son's district probably doing a 2/3 day hybrid split schedule was just "Huh, ok. Makes sense." And he only knew about it because I told him.
Since this was mentioned on the MM thread I wanted to talk about it here.
Schools have reached out to us to assist with online learning for their teachers’ kids, but unlike the park district we are not a childcare and have no license for that. We reached out to the lawyer to see what line would cross us into childcare. The reason schools reached out was to provide childcare/ online assistance to teachers because one district is in person and one district is entirely online and teachers have kids in the online district.
If it wasn’t a special request from the school for the teachers I could see us offering a “pod” for the community. It definitely wouldn’t/ couldn’t be childcare but it could be online assistance probably more for those that work from home and could drop off and pick up easier.
My vision was something like 2 hour sessions 9-11 and 1-3 (or matching school hours better but we can’t offer probably more than 2-3 hours). Parents drop off/ pick up and we support M-F. A group of 5 kids in a pod, and they sign up for the exact same time and day each week.
But the school wants us to do 5 hours a day, and I’m pretty sure more than 4 kids and more than 4 hours puts us into childcare territory.
Would a online study club like this be of interest to parents? I mean even if I only could get 2 hours a week would be better than nothing. For example my pod could go 2 mornings a week from 9-11.
Post by sandandsea on Jul 19, 2020 20:54:34 GMT -5
I need all day or at least 4+ hours. 2 hours is more hassle than it’s worth because the stress of getting up, ready, and out the door by a certain time is at least an hour of my time whereas if we are doing free range they can do it whenever and it takes nine of my time.
I need all day or at least 4+ hours. 2 hours is more hassle than it’s worth because the stress of getting up, ready, and out the door by a certain time is at least an hour of my time whereas if we are doing free range they can do it whenever and it takes nine of my time.
We'll see what the lawyer comes back with. Personally I think 6 hours a day 5 days a week is a daycare, and we can't do that. If the lawyer says you can do 3.5 or 4 hours a day for 5 days as a "program", then we could do that. But I don't think we can provide childcare for teachers without us actually being a childcare facility.
It is not my department, so honestly I don't have to worry about it. I was just asked my opinion. Other options might be we offer up our room for the park district or daycare to staff and use, and maybe it goes under their license as an offsite location. But truly the park district already having the license and probably having the room as well due to limiting other programs would be the more logical choice.
waverly one of the pod families we’re joining with works for a local foundation that owns a farm and runs educational programs. She’s trying to get them to do something like this. But we all agreed that we’d still need a teacher/tutor for our first grade boys, since they need more than just supervision.
Yeah it makes more sense for slightly older kids say 8-12. Supervision versus teaching would be spotty. Some of the Youth staff as just really there to man the desk and answer questions, some have master degrees and degrees in education. And they would have to alternate.
So the aftercare employee we wanted to hire for a few hours every afternoon wanted to charge $30 per hour per kid and said he ‘might’ be able to go down to $25 per hour per kid. We have 5 1st-3rd graders in the group.
Dude, that would cost me $30k annually for 3 hours of playtime for two kids every weekday for the school year. I wanted to ask him if that meant he’d charge $100 an hour to watch my four kids I can’t imagine the public school aftercare program was paying him more than $20 an hour.
I know childcare is in demand now, but wow. We can have a licensed and insured sports camp provider come do it for under $15 per hour per kid.
I think I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that we have to use the after care at the Boys and Girls Club, which means the kids take the bus and get mingled with kids from all over town. The other option is the on-site, at school care that I feel would be safer from an exposure standpoint, but that closes much earlier and doesn't work with ExH's work hours when he goes back to the office. His company has told him when school reopens he'll need to figure out how to get back there in person, so we have to find a solution that works with that scenario.
My friend sent me this from her local moms Facebook group. I thought you all might be able to appreciate it:
From my moms group on FB... Do you think in some alternate universe, there's a Boulder Area Dads and they're the ones trying to figure out in person vs homeschooling vs pod, what to make for dinner, how to entertain the kids every single day, how do I fit in my 9-5 job, what workout program is most efficient, how do we stay in touch with grandparents and friends mid-pandemic, did I forget a birthday?, should we take a road trip and if so to where (then planning every bit and packing for the whole family), will we ever have a date night again, when's the last time the kids took a bath/brushed their teeth/changed their underwear, did anybody feed the dog/cat, dear Lord, this house needs a good cleaning, is there wine in the house?, what can I do for self-care when I have zero free and/or alone time, etc etc etc... Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of dads (my hubby included) who do tons, but today I'm having one of those "get off the f'ing PlayStation and help!" days. Thanks for letting me vent!
sdlaura, this was the gist of my rant to DH last night. I'm researching and making all the plans so we can have a safe family vacation on top of figuring out summer care, school and all else Covid. You going to your friend's cabin five days prior is like a slap in my face and a great example of how this isn't impacting you at all.
I am trying to decide between them riding the bus home all days and 1 day of aftercare.
DS friends are not going at all to aftercare anymore. And it would save us money not to go.
The pros of going one day a week is DD would see her friend and they would have a relationship with aftercare for random days off.
However when she is with her friend a lot of times that friend plays with someone else anyway, so I guess I’m not sure that is a super pro. I just don’t want their friendship to end.
One day of aftercare would be another exposure point and possible quarantine point.
WWWP do?
DH is working from home until November probably. I think at this point due to the pandemic I could have whatever schedule I want so after he stops working from home I could theoretically work 8:30-3:30 and work the rest of the day from home. This would put me home about 20 minutes after they get off the bus (we have a ring camera for getting off the bus).
Well we are online until labor day.... How do you distance teach kindergarten? You can't. Mom had too. Mom had full time job and an husband who is deployed. I literally don't know how to do this 😭 there aren't any spots for daycare and nothing like online support because they waited so long. We start in 2 weeks
xctsclrx I think the only viable plan for really young elementary schoolers and parents who have to work is hiring someone. Cheapest would be joining with other families to hire someone, or getting a high schooler or someone just to oversee say 9-noon and trying to occupy him with non school stuff the rest of the day. I’m sorry. We’re full virtual and no way my kid entering first grade could do distance learning on his own.
xctsclrx, unfortunately I agree - try to hire someone. DD2 was in 1st grade last year when we went virtual, and I had to spend a TON of time with her. I had to load the videos, get her on to her Zoom calls, read with her, queue up her work, and just help to reinforce new concepts that were introduced over videos. I could rely on around 40 minutes each day when she didn't need help - while she was on her Zoom calls. That's usually when DD1 pounced...
sdlaura yeah financially that's not really an option. I can afford to send my kid to daycare, but I can't afford hire someone unless I pull my DD out of DC
I'm going to have to ask my mom and hope that this isn't an every day thing.
There are two other kindergarten kids in the neighborhood that each have a stay at home parent. The issue is that they have other kids as well so not sure yet if they would be open for sharing. Each family takes a day and then I'd still ask my mom for back up
Post by mustardseed2007 on Jul 22, 2020 11:10:12 GMT -5
xctsclrx, I am already contemplating sharing my sitter with another family that has a rising kinder girl for the purpose of giving my daughter socialization. But, I think there's a chance that family will want to include another family that has two school age kids - a rising first grade boy and a kinder girl.
I go back and forth on how I feel about that. Basically it gets to the point where now its 5 kids and that is a lot for a sitter who isnt' even a teacher. On the other hand, it'd be nice to have that 1st grade boy. On the other other hand, my son is in third, so I'm not sure if that age group is too big for it to help my son have a buddy vs. just be a burden for the sitter.
Having said all that, I'm going to put a pin in this problem until it actually happens.
xctsclrx, I am most concerned about DD (who will be in K), because how do you teach things like how to read over the computer? Also, she hated the videos that 4K sent in the spring, and I didn't have time to make her do them. The 3rd grader (DS), I'm not too worried about. He managed the 45 minutes a day the school district sent last spring on his own. We are hiring 1-2 college students to supervise e-learning and keep the kids alive, so DH and I can work. It is less expensive for us to hire college students than to send the kids to any sort of program (which was also true for this summer when we hired a college aged sitter, it was less than sending both of them to summer camp). I don't think that there are any good answers here, but K online is really hard.
phdmomma, well, according to the folks in the FB group for our district, K is optional, so just don't worry about it since we're "all in this together."
If I had a K I would be partially tempted to pull them and homeschool. K is not mandatory in our state.
There are some issues with this- would you be able to enroll them when the virus has receded? And they still need supervision just not elearning assistance.
If there is a spot at daycare I might just send them to daycare then enroll them in 1st grade next year. On weekends I can teach reading and simple addition.
I taught DD to read using a book so I know it can be done. I also know her teachers do a better job but for K I would hate to be tied to doing it in the computer. 1st grade was not great- I can’t imagine K, and our state is mandating 2.5 hours a day for K.
5K in our district has the same schedule as the other elementary grades (full day and 5 days a week), whereas 4K is partial days 4 days a week. Given that, I think that DD would be pretty sad if I pulled her, she was pretty pumped to get to go to school this year. Also, because we were registered with the district (for 4K) last year, I would need to formally withdraw her. With that said, I have been working on using a book to teach her how to read that I got on amazon, and it is going moderately well. I am hopeful that she will get it. waverly, which one did you use?
k3am, yes total eyeroll. I heard somewhere that it's not we are really all in the same boat with this, but in the same storm all with different boats based on our circumstances (levels of privilege, jobs, etc.). I feel grateful that I am able to hire someone to help the kids, but also frustrated that I just don't have the time with work to help them.
waverly what book did you use? I'd consider homeschooling, but then he wouldn't be able to go back this year if they get to go back.
I did just email the y and the school to see if the distance learning support was an option..thank you k3am, we shall see.
I think I needed a freakout moment and now I am in problem solving mode yay.
I do not think they can keep you from rejoining if you homeschool. We are likely homeschooling our kindergartner because I cannot support the online curriculum and TBH she knows most of it already. We will focus on keeping her occupied and focus on the gaps. Here (and I would think everywhere but not a lawyer) the district can not refuse your child a physical seat at their zoned school if you want to enroll them. So I have to “commit” for the first 18 weeks per the county and I can’t enroll in the “special” programs (online, if you had a magnet seat) but whatever the district default is they cannot bar her from if I show back up.
xctsclrx, our governor shut down all in person school. Since kinder is "optional," our daycare, which also has private kinder, can operate that in person. If (God forbid) we are still in these circumstances NEXT year, we'll put DS in private kinder through them. It might be worth looking into in your area if you can afford it.