Philly school district looks like it’s moving ahead with hybrid for preK- 2 only. This will only affect my 1st grade DD (DS is in 3rd) and I’m freaking out for a few reasons:
1. Our case counts are so much higher now than in September 2. Hybrid would start the week after Thanksgiving, so prime time for people being contagious after seeing family 3. If you choose virtual/hybrid you can’t switch until all this is over, so you’re locked in to whatever you choose 4. We don’t know what her teacher is choosing to do (teachers over a certain age and with pre-existing conditions can choose to remain virtual) and if we choose hybrid while her teacher stays virtual she would switch teachers. And we have to make our decision before we know what the teacher’s plans are. 5. We were just getting into a kind of groove, now we might have two kids on two totally different schedules
I’m still hoping the teachers union can fight this somehow, because it’s just such a terrible idea. The private school near us that had stayed open just had 15 cases in one cohort and had to close, why would we choose to do this now?
At one of the high schools in my area, a bunch of parents got together and planned their own, non-school-sanctioned homecoming dance. They rented a ballroom in a hotel. The normal occupancy is 440, and under state low, they are allowed to have 220 occupants under Covid restrictions. So, they sold 150 tickets for the thing. They made attendees sign a liability waiver. The "homecoming dance" is tonight.
A high school in my area did the same thing. I had several FB “friends” who posted about sending their kids and basically calling people assholes for questioning them, saying “how dare you judge me for doing this, we are all just doing the best we can for our families right now and my kid needed this.” Well, the school’s staff infection #s have doubled since the dance. I think the “asshole” label was misplaced.
Post by formerlyak on Oct 25, 2020 10:08:31 GMT -5
Our county is allowing K-2 to apply for waivers to open. They have to prove they have all the safety measures in place and that have widespread community support (teachers, parents, etc). Parents at the elementary schools are pushing hard for it. Meanwhile, same parents went to a birthday party yesterday. It was supposed to be “come get an ice cream from the ice cream truck” and socially distance and wear a mask, and it turned into a packed tiny park with 100 people and only two families wore masks. We didn’t go because we are spending the weekend in my mother in law’s vacation house (driving distance and we brought our own groceries) as we needed a change of scenery (older son’s friend died unexpectedly a few days ago - it’s been a hard few days). But a friend of mine went and texted me how horrified she was that these are the same people pushing for school to reopen.
This is how we end up with people being COVID is fake. 😫😭😭😭😭
Im late to this, but our middle school is only offering 3 classes per marking period. Right now my child has math, social studies and gym. Starting November 6 he’ll have ela, science and either art theory or foreign language exploration. The school is offering zero information on how why this plan is “the best”. Multiple people have emailed the superintendent, the board and the principal. Replies at first were terse and essentially stated “deal with it, it’s not changing”. They’ve stopped replying at all, now.
Whether they stay remote or go hybrid, I think this is a damaging schedule for all grades, but the 6th and 8th graders are being hurt the most. Our high school has a full schedule, some 8th graders will not have math from mid April until their freshman year starts. The band program will suffer for years from this. It’s a mess. I hate that my kid started middle school under these terms.
Philly school district looks like it’s moving ahead with hybrid for preK- 2 only. This will only affect my 1st grade DD (DS is in 3rd) and I’m freaking out for a few reasons:
1. Our case counts are so much higher now than in September 2. Hybrid would start the week after Thanksgiving, so prime time for people being contagious after seeing family 3. If you choose virtual/hybrid you can’t switch until all this is over, so you’re locked in to whatever you choose 4. We don’t know what her teacher is choosing to do (teachers over a certain age and with pre-existing conditions can choose to remain virtual) and if we choose hybrid while her teacher stays virtual she would switch teachers. And we have to make our decision before we know what the teacher’s plans are. 5. We were just getting into a kind of groove, now we might have two kids on two totally different schedules
I’m still hoping the teachers union can fight this somehow, because it’s just such a terrible idea. The private school near us that had stayed open just had 15 cases in one cohort and had to close, why would we choose to do this now?
Good luck with your decision. I’m in the burbs but the district I’m in has been hybrid about a month (my kids still chose virtual). It’s averaging 20ish cases per week before the new spikes in PA. As for philly I saw an article last week that only about 100 school buildings were “cleared with safety protocols”, about 20 pending review, and another 120 or so failed inspection or haven’t submitted plans for review. Are you sure your school is one that passed?
ETA: Also every district is looking/desperate for long term subs now. So even if they keep the same teacher, you could end up in a situation where if The teacher gets sick there is no suitable substitute.
We've been in school about 6 weeks now. My kids go twice a week to a classroom of 6 kids. It has been an okay balance so far. On virtual days we have about 45 minutes total of Zoom time, plus some independent work in phonics, reading, writing, and math. We get an assignment for each special 1-2x a week, and science and social studies every once in a while. (This is 1st grade.) They're making progress. I have nothing to compare to, so I don't know if it's as much as they would in regular life. I suspect it's less. But I'm with any progress at this point. We've had one student COVID case and one staff COVID case, which are unrelated as far as I can tell. The district has had 20 positive cases overall. Our community cases were super low when school started, and now we're considered a NY state hot spot....but the outbreak has apparently been traced to dumb ass adults in bars.
Post by RoxMonster on Oct 25, 2020 18:40:44 GMT -5
Well the board approved a return to school plan. It does involve masks, but does NOT have any physical distancing. It's all students returning, not hybrid (they can still choose to stay remote). However, we have to meet certain metrics two weeks in a row to initiate the plan and the first week, our numbers were awful, as I knew they'd be. After the two weeks do get met, it's six weeks before the HS returns, so it looks like we will be January at the earliest now, which I am totally fine with.
This is how we end up with people being COVID is fake. 😫😭😭😭😭
Im late to this, but our middle school is only offering 3 classes per marking period. Right now my child has math, social studies and gym. Starting November 6 he’ll have ela, science and either art theory or foreign language exploration. The school is offering zero information on how why this plan is “the best”. Multiple people have emailed the superintendent, the board and the principal. Replies at first were terse and essentially stated “deal with it, it’s not changing”. They’ve stopped replying at all, now.
Whether they stay remote or go hybrid, I think this is a damaging schedule for all grades, but the 6th and 8th graders are being hurt the most. Our high school has a full schedule, some 8th graders will not have math from mid April until their freshman year starts. The band program will suffer for years from this. It’s a mess. I hate that my kid started middle school under these terms.
We are doing the 3 x 3 Schedule . Your concerns about not having math for half the year are totally legitimate but there are plenty of schools that do this under normal circumstances and those kids manage. For us, most of our families said that kids were overwhelmed trying to manage 6 classes, 6 zoom links, 6 classes with homework in the spring. The CA governor mandated the amount of synchronous time per day and we decided 3 classes fit best in that. This is definitely a schools can’t win and there is no right answer.
Im late to this, but our middle school is only offering 3 classes per marking period. Right now my child has math, social studies and gym. Starting November 6 he’ll have ela, science and either art theory or foreign language exploration. The school is offering zero information on how why this plan is “the best”. Multiple people have emailed the superintendent, the board and the principal. Replies at first were terse and essentially stated “deal with it, it’s not changing”. They’ve stopped replying at all, now.
Whether they stay remote or go hybrid, I think this is a damaging schedule for all grades, but the 6th and 8th graders are being hurt the most. Our high school has a full schedule, some 8th graders will not have math from mid April until their freshman year starts. The band program will suffer for years from this. It’s a mess. I hate that my kid started middle school under these terms.
We are doing the 3 x 3 Schedule . Your concerns about not having math for half the year are totally legitimate but there are plenty of schools that do this under normal circumstances and those kids manage. For us, most of our families said that kids were overwhelmed trying to manage 6 classes, 6 zoom links, 6 classes with homework in the spring. The CA governor mandated the amount of synchronous time per day and we decided 3 classes fit best in that. This is definitely a schools can’t win and there is no right answer.
Thank you. You just provided more insight in one post than we’ve gotten from our district!
My SIL is a ER nurse and she said that they are maxing out in the COVID unit currently. They had stop getting many cases and had even closed off the hot zone. But she said it has really picked up and it's bad. I feel justified and happy with our decision to keep with virtual learning for another 9 weeks. DD did get straight A's and while we have a few drama moments it hasn't been horrible.
The school district called a snow day, in case you were wondering if they would still happen in this day and age. It sounds like most of front range CO has a snow day today.
The school district called a snow day, in case you were wondering if they would still happen in this day and age. It sounds like most of front range CO has a snow day today.
We’ve had several hurricane days here this year and our district simply moved virtual. Honestly it was all pretty seamless. I think weather days are a thing of the past here.
The school district called a snow day, in case you were wondering if they would still happen in this day and age. It sounds like most of front range CO has a snow day today.
My SIL is a ER nurse and she said that they are maxing out in the COVID unit currently. They had stop getting many cases and had even closed off the hot zone. But she said it has really picked up and it's bad. I feel justified and happy with our decision to keep with virtual learning for another 9 weeks. DD did get straight A's and while we have a few drama moments it hasn't been horrible.
My SIL is a ER nurse and she said that they are maxing out in the COVID unit currently. They had stop getting many cases and had even closed off the hot zone. But she said it has really picked up and it's bad. I feel justified and happy with our decision to keep with virtual learning for another 9 weeks. DD did get straight A's and while we have a few drama moments it hasn't been horrible.
The school district called a snow day, in case you were wondering if they would still happen in this day and age. It sounds like most of front range CO has a snow day today.
We’ve had several hurricane days here this year and our district simply moved virtual. Honestly it was all pretty seamless. I think weather days are a thing of the past here.
Not here. My principal was really clear that snow days were here to stay, at least in the middle school. Unless it's a couple of days, we're off and not virtual, which I really really appreciate!
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I think they had to do that because not all teachers brought home their materials. Im sure every time it snows now we will get a barrage of emails about taking stuff home.
My SIL is a ER nurse and she said that they are maxing out in the COVID unit currently. They had stop getting many cases and had even closed off the hot zone. But she said it has really picked up and it's bad. I feel justified and happy with our decision to keep with virtual learning for another 9 weeks. DD did get straight A's and while we have a few drama moments it hasn't been horrible.
My middle got straight As too for the first time in secondary school. She does so much better academically without all the social distraction.
I will say it was nice to have e-learning today since it was snowing. Usually I go into work, but our babysitter was sick, so I stayed home. I have to go in tonight though, but the snow has stopped, so that is good.
Our county is allowing K-2 to apply for waivers to open. They have to prove they have all the safety measures in place and that have widespread community support (teachers, parents, etc). Parents at the elementary schools are pushing hard for it. Meanwhile, same parents went to a birthday party yesterday. It was supposed to be “come get an ice cream from the ice cream truck” and socially distance and wear a mask, and it turned into a packed tiny park with 100 people and only two families wore masks. We didn’t go because we are spending the weekend in my mother in law’s vacation house (driving distance and we brought our own groceries) as we needed a change of scenery (older son’s friend died unexpectedly a few days ago - it’s been a hard few days). But a friend of mine went and texted me how horrified she was that these are the same people pushing for school to reopen.
Sweet sixteen over the weekend, no social distancing, no masks. Both the birthday girl and her sister are in my classes.
I have fucking had it with people. There was a sweet sixteen on Long Island that became a superspreader event but that’s totally NBD.
There are hundreds of cases in my district's schools, but kids are still playing full contact sports. Tons of social media pics of athletes without masks on, arms around one another. I am so glad I am teaching virtually, and kept my kids virtual.
The school district called a snow day, in case you were wondering if they would still happen in this day and age. It sounds like most of front range CO has a snow day today.
We’ve had several hurricane days here this year and our district simply moved virtual. Honestly it was all pretty seamless. I think weather days are a thing of the past here.
That was supposed to be the case here. They specifically announced that there would be no more weather closures because snow days would now just be virtual days.
Then we were hit with a derecho that knocked out power for almost the whole district from anywhere from 1 to 5 days depending on where you live, including some of the school buildings. No power, no virtual school. I hope that's the last time they try to tell us too definitively what will or won't happen during 2020.
Sweet sixteen over the weekend, no social distancing, no masks. Both the birthday girl and her sister are in my classes.
I have fucking had it with people. There was a sweet sixteen on Long Island that became a superspreader event but that’s totally NBD.
We had an influx of parents calling their kids in for virtual for the week, supposedly because they don't want their kids around anyone who was at that party. I can't say I blame them...wish I could've done that for myself.
I hope Biden wins and appoints a really solid Sec of Education because god help me if we are stuck with Betsy DeVos not giving a shit about public education after all of this.
Hybrid school started last week Monday. Today our county reported 27 new cases. The highest it's been before today was 11(that i can recall). Correlation is not causation, but i can't help but think the increase is because of schools. (They're hybrid, 2 days a week, masked, etc. We kept B virtual so she is not going into the classroom)
Post by Jalapeñomel on Oct 29, 2020 15:20:31 GMT -5
The primary school in my son's district is shut down. The elementary school in my district is also shut down. Two days for cleaning but positive students.
Post by sporklemotion on Oct 29, 2020 17:54:06 GMT -5
PDQ
We are following pretty strict protocols, but we are now starting to face a staffing shortage In my school due to people having to quarantine or await test results. A nearby district went to full remote for this reason.
We have not had many cases in kids or staff who entered the building, which is good, but I don’t see how we can continue to operate with roughly 15% of staff out for multiple days at a time.