Hellobee Boards

There are no official announcements yet. Our district has a committee that is working on details of all possible plans - all in person, all online, and various hybrid options. The minutes from their meetings have been public so far but I'm not sure if reading them made me feel better or worse about the fall. I know all of the superintendents in our county are also having meetings, but those aren't public.

I can't imagine DD starting kindergarten online but I also can't imagine her wearing a mask 6+ hours a day. I'm honestly not sure what I am hoping for the plan to be...

All our district has said so far is that right now, they do plan to start school on time and they are evaluating different models of attendance.

I hope there's at least some in-person attendance for my daughter's sake. I think that would make it a better start to the year for her. If there's distance learning, she's fine with videos, worksheets, activities on the tablet, etc. We may have to hire someone to help with that because we're both working full-time. If her teacher wants to do any Zoom-type sessions, we'll have to have a chat because any time we tried to meet with her previous class on Zoom, it led to an epic meltdown. She gets upset that the teachers can't give her any one-on-one attention in that format.

We're in the DC suburbs, and haven't heard anything definitive yet. I'm hoping that there's a plan put forward soon, but have no idea when to expect it. I used to teach in our district and reached out to a few teacher friends, who said that at the school level, they've been preparing for an online start (either all online, or blended). I don't envy anyone is a decision-making position with schools right now. So many moving pieces, and so many things to consider.

On our end, I think we're going to un-enroll my daughter and homeschool next year...but I have such conflicting feelings about this, and am waiting to see what the plans from our district look like before really making the call.

We are attending a small private school for PK3-7. DS is entering K and DD is entering PK3. We received notice late last week for an A and B plan.

A is in school, masks optional at this time, more room for social distancing. B is virtual with some live instruction (Zoom, etc.) and some on your own learning time. A is planned unless the student/parents need B. If student/parents need B, then they will have to show medical/social need. B will occur if the state shuts down schools again.

I haven't heard anything from our local public school district. In our case, school starts in early/mid August, on time for our southern school district.

We are good with A as both of us are essential workers. If B occurs, luckily we can partially work at home. We work at the same office and can split days in vs days at home.

Just thought I would bump this up! How is everyone doing? Do you know what the start of school will look like? Certainly an interesting year for LOs starting kindergarten...

We start Monday. We’re at a private school pk-8 school and will be going 100% in person.

We just had our parent orientation yesterday and while they have made changes so we can go to school, it’s a little heartbreaking to hear them out loud.

They’ll require all students to wear masks while inside the class. They’ll only allow one (maybe 2) classes to use the playground a day, which basically means once a week. They aren’t allowing any parents on site which means there’s no big send off ceremony for the first day. They’ll allow them to do group work or centers, but not longer than 15 minutes at a time.

It’s definitely going to be an interesting year....

@Miss Ariel: wow, that playground rule is awful. Is there any space available on the school grounds for them to have some outside time without using the playground? I assume they want to disinfect between uses?

The SC in our town just voted to do hybrid (they had to backtrack on starting full in person) which will either be mon/tues or thurs/fri. I’m a teacher as well and thankfully I appear to be going back full remote which makes logistics much simpler. I think her class is going to end up tiny - they already were only like 17 but cut in half plus any child can choose a full remote option and obs it’s easier to pull from K entirely too. I actually think it’s a little misguided to do hybrid in this case because it’s just going to make more exposure to whoever is watching the kids on their days not in school.

They’ll have to wear masks but have mask breaks during day. I think kids will be more resilient about wearing masks than most adults are once they get used to it and see their classmates all wearing them too. But I am concerned about the first few weeks of school which can be hot with no ac. Though they did push back the start date two weeks as well to mid September.

We got a new backpack and lunch bag and are just trying to be positive about it! The one good thing about our kindergarteners is that they don’t know what school is “supposed” to look like.

@petitenoisette: her teacher was basically like we’re going to spend as much time outside as possible, especially since they won’t have to wear masks outside. But we’re in Louisiana where it’s crazy hot, which also makes that difficult.

But yes, I’m assuming they’re looking to clean the playground between usage. To be honest, I’m not actually sure if the kindergarten playground is separate from the other grades. I’m assuming it is, but if not, then their use of it would go down even more.

@Miss Ariel: that’s not as bad then despite the heat issue! Kids don’t need a playground but they do need to be outside, especially for mask breaks!

We start 8/19. Texas hasn’t made it easy to fund hybrid options, so after a transition period it’s either 100% virtual or 100% in person (no reduced class sizes unless enough people choose virtual), we had to choose this week. You can switch every 9 weeks but aren’t guaranteed a seat in your local school due to teacher allocation issues (interesting to see if this actually comes up - they say unlikely). We’re doing 100% virtual for both my older kids to start. I’m hopeful it’ll be ok. Up to third grade is asynchronous which really means a bit of both - language arts has to be taught synchronously, the rest will be more mixed, but they’re saying that if kids don’t make it through the zoom they can still be counted present if they turn in work and connect with the teacher. So I’m hopeful about that flexibility. Someone started a fb group for our virtual families and having an older kid, I know a lot of them, which helps.

I don’t know how likely we are to switch to in person before next year (hoping for last 9 weeks at least). Cases have been going down in the county which is good, but I think we’re pretty likely to go back up the rollercoaster as schools and activities restart and they lift other restrictions again which is already happening. Complicating things, my kinder boy has viral-triggered asthma with a tendency to pneumonia. Our local children’s hospital published a guide and it recommends virtual for his situation, given the amount of spread we still have. I’m cautious about covid itself because he and I both have asthma, but I’m also nervous about all the other things he might get that would require dr visits and testing and such. Last year he was sick so much just from 3-day preschool and it was hard - he was pretty close to being admitted for his pneumonia from flu. Masks are only mandated in common areas up to 2nd grade and so it will definitely be interesting to see how much it happens in class (recommended, but what does that mean in practice?). Unknowns drive me crazy so trying to just focus on a good start and not think too far ahead.

We start Monday at a PK3-7 private school. Masks required for grade 3 and above. Interestingly enough, the parish isn't starting for another month. One playground, but there is only one class per grade level. Last year, he had 24 in his class, but I suspect that it will be smaller this year as public is free.

100% virtual is an option, but we both should be in the office. Worst case scenario, we can both stay home every other day. Virtual is a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning. I suspect we will be remote learning during the school year.

We start K on August 24th, which is our normal start date, normal times/days. Masks highly recommended on the bus but not required in class. They will use separate entrances for grades so everyone is not using the same doors. Increased cleaning/hand washing, decreased interactions. No visitors. Other than that we haven't seen much details yet.

They do offer an all-virtual option. The school is less than 200 students and classes probably around 15-20 normally.

Statewide our schools have to be open unless we our district hits a 15% positivity rate. Our counties are around 7-8% now and hopefully going down.

@Mrs. Pajamas: good luck, definitely interested to hear your report!

@LadyDi: Rates are pretty low, yes - I'm in Ontario and for the province we had 115 cases yesterday, the whole previous week had been under 100. My town in particular has only had 200 cases total, but on the other hand we're kind of a commuter suburb to Toronto, which was pretty bad at the peak. I also think it's nuts that they aren't capping class sizes - I had hopes that some parents wouldn't send their kids back so class sizes would be artificially low because of that, but my friend who's a teacher told me yesterday that they needed to have something like 24 kids in a class to fund it so I guess instead of having smaller classes they'd just maybe have fewer classes? Not sure. The school board is being pretty good about sending updates, and there's still a month to go, so I'm just crossing my fingers.

I totally agree with your sadness that this is how they're going to start. My son was so excited to get a lunchbag, he insisted on eating all his meals out of his Yumbox for a couple of days. I hate that he's going into it like this, with masks and face shields and general weirdness.

Jumping in late to the game - but our district is going full remote, and actually the recommendation for the whole state is to go full remote. Originally our district had voted to do a hybrid model, with the option to do full remote, and possibly more days in the class for K/1, but our cases as a state have gone up so they locked everything down. Our positivity rate has hovered around 6% for a long time, but the counts/100k had gone up.

DH and I are both essential workers, and we have 3 kids total, so it's been a hot mess. School starts in a month, and so I'm having to make plans for childcare and change my work schedule to accomodate, but yet school hasn't released anything about how their distance learning will work. I currently work 3 days/week, and DH works every other Saturday with every other Monday off. So we'll have LO1 in AM daycare at the same place as her siblings (who will continue to go 3 full days/wk) and then 2 d/wk I will work remote from home in the afternoon (which is doing virtual visits with patients, so not ideal for multitasking) and the other afternoon DH will pick up and we'll alternate care with LO1's best friend for the days he works. This is taking a lot of work, and with my luck the synchronous work for school will only be in the mornings. But I can't wait on the district when I need to save a spot in childcare and change my work schedule!

Kids have all been in daycare other than 6 wks during the peak when I was able to keep them home, but daycare has stayed open. They're a partial outdoor program and right now LO1 wears a mask all day - same for any kids 5 and up. Our state has a mask mandate in place.

I'm so so sad about this milestone not happening the way I had imagined it. Especially when I can't imagine an end anytime soon.

@catgirl: we started and it’s been going pretty well! They’re spending a ton of time outdoors, even eating lunch outside. To keep kids further apart, half of them sit at tables while the others have floor desks, alternating each day. And surprisingly based on some of the photos her teacher has shared, the kids are doing fairly good wearing masks in the classroom. So far, so good!

Today was our first day! My little guy was super excited in the morning, he insisted on wearing his backpack on the walk over to school despite it covering him from shoulders to knees and being wider than him. Once his brother headed off into the big yard, though, he started to get nervous and clingy. When we took him to the kindergarten area he just hugged me and kept saying he wanted me to go in with him, I felt so bad! You could tell that he was trying to be brave but his little face was so sad. We finally got him to go into the "kindergarten pen" and promised to wait until he went into his class, which happened about one minute later, but he was wiping tears away and I felt so bad for him. There were only 5 kids today (they're doing a staggered start) and as he went in his teacher put her hand on his head, which made me feel better - I'd been worried that they'd be really strict about the social distancing, but I should have known that they really care about the kids.

we have to quarantine for 2 weeks because we travelled out of state so we are missing the "first day". I just haven't told my daughter that. So we are holding on to 2 weeks more of "summer" before we head back to school. She is full time in person.