Anybody's kids prefer remote?

[gatorsmom]

DS is in 9th grade and he bounces back and forth between wanting to be home and wanting to be back at school.

This is us. My 4 are all virtual learning. They all enjoy the pros of it but hate staring at a screen all morning. My eldest is loving making friends at a new school that’s 3 hours away. He is Alex P. Keaton right down to the tie and his teachers love him. I get regular emails from his teachers asking if we couldn’t just move to the city the school is in. My 9th grader loves that he’s in all the same classes virtually as his friends but his day ends at noon when his classmates go on to music and then study halls that he doesn’t have to join them for. He’s taking advantage of zooming into boring classes to teach himself the guitar during class (the trick is to tilt the screen so only his head is showing and then mute it). My twins are ok with the virtual learning as long as they can see text and play fortnite with friends after class. Apparently during boring classes the 2 of them have been playing cards. As long as they are getting A’s and B’s, I don’t care what they do.

They are finding ways to cope.

[AnnieW625]

Oh no! Your school was off the list and went back on? This is one of my fears. That we'll get to go back to school and then be pulled back again! I don't think it will be as disruptive to my kids as it will to me, lol!

Riverside County was on the red tier for about a month and just went back to purple. Schools that met certain criteria were able to apply for waivers and one Christian, and a Lutheran school in our area were open (not sure of others) in mid September. The school principal when we met two weeks ago said all they were waiting for was a call from the diocese to start. They were under the prior assumption that they could re open because Riverside had been off the watch list for 2 weeks, but because their department of education is handled by the Diocese of San Bernardino they had to wait for their authorization.


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[Myira]

7th and 4th grader here. Our elementary schools just started in person 5 days this week but we chose to keep DS 4th grade remote. His teacher changed as a result, and he felt a bit sad about that (had really liked her) but it’s going well with the new teacher as well. He is actually having a great time.
He is very self driven and academically ahead, so he is able do things on his own dime in a way. For instance, for math his teacher assigned him challenging work and he did it when she was spending time with other kids. He does participate in breakout rooms etc. and that’s going great.
During 10 mins breaks, he loves to play the piano or jump rope! He is a time police so he keeps track of class times himself and sets timers on Alexa if needed.
DD is doing fine too but of course right now the whole middle school is remote. It is going to change November but she has almost no classes in common with her friends even right now, so it won’t make a difference there. The fact that they will be eating lunches in classrooms means you won’t get to see your friends so she does not feel she will miss anything by staying full time. She is such a voracious reader that she reads during breaks.
I’m glad I don’t have to pack lunches or have them wake up early. Plus this is better nutrition wise since DS never eats well at school! He is a string bean!


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[essnce629]

Oh no! Your school was off the list and went back on? This is one of my fears. That we'll get to go back to school and then be pulled back again! I don't think it will be as disruptive to my kids as it will to me, lol!

I think in CA, once counties are off the watch list and schools reopen, schools do NOT have to go back to remote learning even if their county goes back on the watch list, just other things will shut down. Which is how I think it should have been since the beginning-- open the schools but keep bars, gyms, card rooms (whatever those are!), malls, indoor dining, etc closed in order to keep community spread down.

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[AnnieW625]

I think in CA, once counties are off the watch list and schools reopen, schools do NOT have to go back to remote learning even if their county goes back on the watch list, just other things will shut down. Which is how I think it should have been since the beginning-- open the schools but keep bars, gyms, card rooms (whatever those are!), malls, indoor dining, etc closed in order to keep community spread down.

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Agreed. Such a good point. I haven’t been in a mall since July and it was an outdoor mall. The local mall here has been crazy busy recently per the parking lot, but I have no urge to go inside. I have been to Target and the grocery store on a pretty regular basis, but things have been going well with social distancing and mask wearing. Trader Joe’s still has occupancy rules here and I think it is because the stores are so compact. TJ’s also just started bagging groceries again using reusable bags, although with the jump back to purple I am sure that is out the window as well and since the state is no longer allowing a waiver for bag fees I will be adding bag fees to my grocery budget or additional time to bag my own groceries at the counter outside or at my car.


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[georgiegirl]

I know the circumstances in your state are very different from mine and I imagine you'll stick with remote as long as there are no mitigating accommodations for COVID at school, right? What will make you feel safe going back?

What would you pick if you could for your DS2? Would you consider 3 different plans for each of your kids?

There is no way we are going back to in person this academic year. Iowa doesn’t even have a mask mandate. Our numbers are atrocious, hospitalizations are at a record high. There was a special education associate who died in the neighboring district (caught it at school.)

[ang79]

Our district only had two options - fully in school with masks, cohorts, and social distancing as much as possible, or fully cyber. We took the cyber route because I didn't want the chaos of jumping back and forth if there were quarantines or closures. Surprisingly, there have only been a few entire class quarantines in the district and other individuals who have had to quarantine. No full school closures in our district but neighboring districts have. But, I've heard from hospital workers in our county that our hospital cases are rising and they are running out of room for Covid patients (lots of other patients also for other reasons) and community spread is rising. I'm guessing that will only get worse as it continues to get colder and the holidays come around.

DD2 is in 6th grade. She has a teacher is only teaching the cyber class. I think there are 30 some kids in her class. If she were to go back to in-person school she would have a new teacher. She likes being home. She likes that she can sleep in later, play with the pets on her screen breaks, walk the dog during lunch hour, and be finished earlier than her in school friends (because they don't have the wasted time of mask breaks, loading and unloading busses one at a time, extra hand washing, etc.). She also did not want to deal with wearing masks all day long and possibly not getting to see friends that aren't in her homeroom (each homeroom has its own lunch time, recess, etc.) She says she is perfectly content to do the entire year online, though I do think she tires of being on Google Meet from 8:45-2:30 every day. She does not have homework, as her teacher feels they spend enough time on the computer during the day.

DD1 is in 8th grade. She is my social butterfly. She has been participating in the school cross country team so practicing every day after school and doing meets has helped fill that social void, but tonight is her last meet and she has already said she doesn't know how she will make it through the winter without seeing friends much. She understands the reason for doing the cyber program but also feels she is missing out on seeing friends in school. Luckily she has a good friend that is in her homeroom cyber class and another friend doing cyber that is in a different cyber class. They often facetime about class and homework. I'm not crazy about sending her back, especially going into the winter if cases continue to rise. There are so many kids they can't really social distance. I know they are trying to only sit 4 kids at the round tables for lunches instead of 8, but I think the classrooms still have 20-30 kids in them (and the cyber classes can have 30-40 kids!). If they had smaller class sizes or a hybrid model, I may be more inclined to consider in person. DH and I are both working from home as well, so other than Girl Scout meetings and occasional youth group meetings, none of us really go many places, so sending to a crowded school seems counter productive to us trying to stay healthy as a family.

Edit to add: Got an email from our district today that instead of allowing kids to go move between cyber/in school placement every two weeks, they are now going to only allow changes at the beginning of each marking period. Our second marking period ends in mid-Jan. Not sure what Covid will be like at that point, but I'm guessing not great especially since flu season really starts to kick up at that time. Maybe thing will be better by the end of the third marking period in the spring!

[mmsmom]

My kids are very happy to be at school 50%. They would love to be there everyday and I’m hoping maybe in January that will happen. They are both doing well though with current set up.

[wencit]

My HS freshman is currently enjoying remote learning. He likes that he is given plenty of time to get his work done, and there is less "working together in groups with annoying kids who just want to goof off" (his words). He has a very driven and goal-oriented personality.

Remote learning is harder on my 5th grader, who doesn't focus as easily. He's hanging in there, though.

[AngB]

My kids were hybrid (2 days in person, 1 day with 1 hr synchronous learning while schools are cleaned, 2 days at home learning assignments). This week is their first week fully back and they were so excited to have their full class back. (Of course their friends went on opposite days! ) I do not think it will last long, we still don't have a mask mandate , state positivity rate crazy high (like 21%!), and they already didn't have enough subs last week. (that said hybrid went relatively well, only around 12ish positive cases with staff-around 3000 staff members district wide,and around 20 positive student cases out of around 18,000 kids..none at my kids' schools.) I am frustrated they are going fully in person even though I have somewhat hated hybrid (getting them to do the at home assignments is torture) because I don't think it will work. For my kids, in person has unquestionably been better.