Hellobee Boards

Our province is full in person (only option unless you are a vulnerable student). Each class is a max bubble of 15 kids. Within that bubble they don’t need to social distance or wear masks. In common areas they wear masks and stay 6 feet apart from other bubbles. It’s going well so far - but we live in a province with very very low Covid rates (ie: pretty much non-existant). The hardest part has been that they can’t play with kids from other bubbles - my oldest DD only has 12 kids in her class and I think they are all starting to get a bit sick of each other at times haha. But overall my kids are so much happier, less anxious and really thriving being back in school.

We're 100% virtual and will stay that way likely the whole year, barring major changes. Our district gave us a hybrid option, which in the summer was 2 days in, 3 days asynchronous, and for my 7 year old that's not enough consistency so we went virtual. She's doing pretty well with it - definitely far from ideal but her teacher is great and kiddo seems decently engaged online. The offline/asynch work is a battle but we're trying.

Our district is slowly starting to bring kids back, and instead of the original 2 days in/3 days out option, they're now going to do a concurrent version so that it's 2 days in/2 days virtual where the kids at home watch the teacher instruct the classroom. Not sure how that's going to work - I haven't heard many positive things about that approach - but we'll see how it goes. We're staying virtual and fingers crossed, because our school is smaller and had a relatively 50/50 split for hybrid/virtual, we'll keep our class and teacher as is.

I have a kindergartener who is in school full time. They are masked, which has been a non issue. Their cohort consists of their class so they don't intermingle with other classes/grades. They cannot play on the equipment at recess (but I think that is mostly to prevent intermingling of classes?) They still have all of their extras...library, PE, music, etc. Our county is at about 50-60 active cases, and there have been positive cases within the school, but so far no cases have been *transmitted* in the school so I feel pretty good about their safety plan. The district had initially offered a choice of either 100% virtual or 100% in person learning, but next semester they won't be offering virtual learning (I think you can apply for an exception, if you have a medical need, etc.)

I have a 3rd grader in public school. He is completely virtual right now, they may start a hybrid schedule in January. I honestly see it getting pushed back and wouldn't be surprised if we stayed virtual the entire school year.

It hasn't been too bad. The hard part is getting him to ask questions over zoom. He ends up getting frustrated and melting down instead of just asking the teacher. It's a work in progress and has gotten better as the year goes on.

We decided to homeschool for this year- 4th, 2nd and pre-K. I love it so much- we get everything done in an hour or two while the baby naps and then we have so much time for play. As a parent it is so much easier than our old routine, no packing lunches, drop offs, pick ups, homework.

@mediagirl: the school. May have had some help from the local parents education fund, who also got chrome books for grades 3+. Same with the air sanitizers in every room.

I have a 2nd grader and kindergartner. They are in school every day for 4 hours. They did this so that they didn't have to do lunch and recess. They are supposed to do their last hour of school at home. This usually consists of a little more school work and then the "specials" (music, gym and art). They are masked all day except for 2 outside mask breaks where they have a snack or sort of play around but can't use the playground. They go outside unless it's raining and even then, they still will on walks. It's been going really well. Only one positive case and it wasn't a student facing adult so I'm guessing someone in the office or a custodian. We are expected to dress them for the weather so they can go outside so bring on the winter!

My older kids are K and 3 and both virtual. Our choices were that or full in-person, masks but no small classes to distance. My Kinder boy was sick so much last year due to asthma making everything else worse, and I’m also high risk, so we picked virtual.

It’s had its bumps but pretty good right now. I think the fully virtual teachers are doing well and finally had time to get the hang of it. I do supplement both - I’m teaching 4th math to the 3rd grader and planning to have her test out - she hadn’t learned anything in math in forever and since March now we finally have the time to address it (she probably spends 3-4 hours a day between zoom, specials and assignments, and then we do about 20 min or so to supplement). Our district has 3rd as the last asynchronous grade ... I’m thankful for less zoom time. I might have pulled her out if she had all day zoom.

Kinder they have an hour of zoom (which can be a struggle and is not value adding for much of it) and then a few assignments (usually 6 but they’re often short so not a lot of time total). I don’t know how kids learn enough like that ... but there seems to have been some self selection at our campus of kids who are already a bit ahead of the average so that helps. I really feel like my son is missing the parts about how to sit still and listen, but oh well. I supplement him with extra reading and phonics, handwriting and math. In total though he spends about 2.5 hours on everything each day (including all his reading time and specials). I love how 1-1 you really don’t need much time and he has a lot of play time with his little sister, even with the mostly wasted zoom time.

Little sister is 2, no preschool so she makes life hard sometimes but we’ve survived! We can switch every 9 weeks here, but I expect to stay virtual until March for sure and maybe all year.