How much information are your districts/schools providing you for decision making?

[wendibird22]

Fellow NY'er. Very very little info. DH is a teacher and he's received ZERO (yes zero) communication from his district about expectations for teachers or their plans and yet he has to report to work the last week of August (students start the next week). My kids' district is doing hybrid (2 day a week) for 7-12, and full in person five days a week for K-4. No bussing plan. No plan for specials. Lunch in the class for K-6, but vague about lunch for 7-12. No requirement for masks in classrooms, but this was super vague in the plan and I had to ask the district for confirmation.

They shared 3 models: full in person, hybrid, full remote and said which model for which grade, but no other info about opt-in/out, metrics to pivot to a different model, or really much of anything. And I'm amazed at how entirely different each school districts' plan is, especially districts of same size and population type.

[PZMommy]

My district is usually awful with passing along information. This summer they’ve been pretty good. There is still a lot we don’t know and as a teacher and parent it is frustrating. It is 100% distance learning, and a schedule has been posted, but there is still a lot to be worked out. We start in 2 weeks. I’m afraid it will be a bumpy first week as things get sorted out, but that is pretty typical of any first week, even when we are in person. It’s just that parents often don’t see that part.

[petesgirl]

Not much. I called DS’s principal with a list of questions and every answer she gave was preceded by ‘probably’, ‘most likely’ or ‘it currently looks like’....very non committal about anything.

[lizzywednesday]

Our school district has presented a proposal (7/13), and its follow up (8/3), as of this week.

The 8/3 BoE meeting did not leave me feeling at all confident that the 'plan' they're going to roll with for school is going to be at all sustainable.

In addition to that, the heavily-advertised (and parentally-invested!) virtual meeting was held on a platform that capped at 250 seats ... and they booted folks who joined in the early part just as the public session got underway, forgetting that the district serves 5200+ students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

The plan, as it stands now, is to offer a hybrid in-person session (A/B cohort model with rotating days, full-remote one day per week, live instruction at home, and live teacher help for an hour and a quarter every afternoon) and a 100% virtual model.

The investments of time & effort are more focused on giving the appearance of action than on anything supported by expert evidence, and there are a lot of places the system can break down.

As a result, I do not feel at all confident that DD will be safe to return to indoor instruction with dubious masking compliance from her peers and no real ability to modify her classroom supports to accommodate her ADHD, and I do not believe the rose-colored glasses view of what happens in school buildings on the daily will hold up long-term.

They'll be closing by November.

[doberbrat]

Most of these questions have been answered. The question I have is how is the curriculum going to compare. There are 8 handwashing times + 2 mask breaks mandated during the day so there is a good chance there will be more learning opportunity online. If you sign up for online, its until Jan. It will be staffed with teachers from the district.

[KrisM]

My district is trying, but we are still missing some info for sure. We have 2 options - in-person or online.

Online - 100% virtual with a few curriculum choices for each class. Every class has a district teacher assigned to it for help. Most of these are not teachers who teach in the classroom. We are starting our 11th year of having this online school, so it runs well. You need to commit for a semester at a minimum.

In-person - every day, but they are looking at changing secondary schedules. No lockers. Masks required for K-12 for everyone. Mask breaks during the day for elementary. All students get 1 mask provided. All staff get 5 masks. Hand sanitizer in the rooms. Every room with a sink will be sure to have soap. Desks are at least 3' apart. All 6-12 students will get a Chromebook, so I imagine no textbooks will be used in a classroom.

Remote, when in-person isn't happening - this is where the questions are. We have the daily schedule and some loose guidelines, but I'd like more detail. I've heard some small groups would be allowed to go into the school still - kids needing various services, kids needing tutoring or extra help, small groups for band class, maybe small groups for labs in high school.

So far, I've opted for in-person for all my kids. DS1 is starting the IB diploma program and it's not available in the online platform. So, he will be there. We are still talking about whether he should change any of his classes though. DD really does not want to work online. She's still thinking about it, but is very against it. DS2 is willing to do some onilne and we've put him in 2 online classes. They will be the last 2 of his school day, so I will pick him up and he'll do those at home. I'd like DD to do 1-2 online just so she's not in a mask the entire day. We will see.

[georgiegirl]

My district has provided a decent amount of information, but it’s come in little bits here and there.

Our choices were online or full time in school. We always knew we do online, so I don’t remember all the in person details. Our district has sent out sample schedules for online. K-5 has shortened days for online. 8:40-12:20 for K-2 and until 13:30 for 3-5. Then lunch break until 1:00. Optional related arts from 1-1:45. Instead of switching off specials every day, there will be one week of each special, then repeat (one week of art, then one week of PE, etc.). This will be the same for in-person as well to reduce the exposure of the specials teachers. Some In person specials will happen in the classroom. The schedule also noted that elementary kids will have three whole group instruction times (generally 20-30 min) followed by independent work and also small group instruction. For middle school/high school, there will be a live (or potentially recorded) lesson for about 20 minutes for each class. That will be followed by independent work.

We’ve been told our district teachers will teach the online classes, but some electives might be outsourced based on enrollment. Curriculum will be identical for online and in person.

We were also informed that we are using the Canvas platform. Kids in grades K-7 will get iPads (with keyboards grades 3-7), and grades 8-12 will get MacBooks.

We cannot switch from one to the other until the end of the semester.

For those who chose in person, the individual schools will work out things like lunch and recess. Our lunches and recesses are already staggered. But I think they will open up more lunch spaces so that capacity at lunch tables will be 50%. As for recess, I’ve heard that the playground will be divided up so each class has a separate area. In terms of exposure and quarantine, anyone with close contact (within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes) will have to quarantine for 15 days. (Teachers are exempt since they are essential workers and may work so long as they don’t show symptoms). There will be contact tracing...all classes and the bus will have seating charts, so they can identify close contact. I think there might be something about staggered starting times, staggered passing periods, but that will be determined at a school level. And since we picked online, I’m probably not getting that info. But that info was not provided before your choice was due.

As for when in person would switch to online, that’s a work in progress. Our governor set forth ridiculous and dangerous metrics (15% positivity in the country plus 10% absenteeism or 20% positivity before you can even apply for a 2 weeks switch to online. But the governor might not approve it. ). Obviously her metrics go against everything the CDC, WHO, and all experts recommend. So our district and a few others have decided to defy her orders and set up our own metrics (they haven’t been decided yet, but definitely under 10%). And of course the governor then threatened to revoke teacher licenses and not count instructional days. It’s a mess.

So, our district did provided a lot of information before our decision was due (this past Wednesday). Our superintendent hosted two online town halls where he answered questions, so that was helpful.


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[WatchingThemGrow]

In our district, the are distilling info and handing it out weekly.

Have you watched school board meetings for your district? That’s where all THOSE types of questions are hashed out and they come up with the plan. Find out when they are having the zoom/WebEx meetings and put in your earbuds to watch it all. It’s slow, but you will feel SO much more informed!


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