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We are likely to keep our second grader home, but send our 4 year old to preschool 2 days a week. His preschool is already primarily outside and is small, making it an easier transition to distancing without sacrificing the benefits of in person care. The guidelines for the public school will be difficult for ours to meet, and with the anticipation of switching back and forth from distance learning to in person, we feel better about just homeschooling for the year and choosing our own curriculum and style of learning.

All kids are different and have different needs.
All schools are different and have different plans.
It makes sense that you would make different decisions for each kid, possibly.

The more schools you send your children to, the more risk they are opening up to the family. Each kid is going to come into contact with 10-30 other kids. The more kids they interact with, the higher risk of cumulative exposure for the family.

It's not all or nothing, like a lot of people think.

@HappyBaker: I’m sure you thought of this but could you send your older two to the school that makes you the most comfortable? Both of mine go to the same school/daycare so while my oldest had virtual school I kept my youngest home from daycare because it was just simpler for me. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with make different choices for different kids. These are unprecedented times and we’re all doing our best to navigate them. I also think as kids get older the more important school is so that would definitely go into my consideration along with my kids temperament/needs

@HappyBaker: That's nice your son's school is doing that. I keep seeing this lady all over social media in my town blasting anyone who questions what the public schools are doing, and saying to go to (a particular) private school because they have small class sizes, openings, etc. - I assume she's affiliated with the school. And I keep thinking LADY!! Use your head! If you tell everyone to do this, you lose all benefits of the smaller size if it becomes overwhelmed with students!

@HappyBaker: this might be hard to hear, but as a parent and 5th/8th grade teacher, I would NOT send a kindergartner to school this year if I could possibly stay home with them. SO MANY REASONS but the main thing being, this is NOT how they should start school.

If possible, I would keep my kid home, unschool him, and then enroll in K or 1st next year depending on the laws in my state.

I'm of the opinion that sometimes in-person K curriculum & instruction isn't age-appropriate, and a lot of online instruction won't be, either.

Definitely agree each decision can be different. I don’t work right now so it’s different but just to put out some considerations I’ve thought about -

I decided in June to pull our will-be-2 year old from her two day program. That was before they took the big deposit, and to me age 2 is a “nice to have” as a SAHM vs a real educational experience, so it was the easiest to cut. As mentioned above, lower our germ pool and help keep the older ones healthy too. However handling their school with a toddler is not super fun!

Middle is going into K and again agreeing, I’m not excited about sending him in person when it’s a mess. He also has asthma and while the data is pretty good for covid and asthma, we know he has a tendency to get pneumonia from other things like flu and that’s scary when hospitals are overwhelmed. I also wonder how much he’d even be allowed in with asthma coughing! And how often we’d be testing for covid because every cold makes him cough and often wheeze. In Texas our virtual K-2 has to be asynchronous meaning no live instruction or expecting kids to pay attention to tablets for hours, so I figure I can do whatever the school asks and supplement if I want. So that’s my second easiest decision. I’m hoping maybe he can go at least the last 9 weeks in person if things improve next year - it would still be something.

My incoming 3rd grader is my hardest decision. If it felt safer I might send just her, but since Texas is a mess we’re doing virtual to start at least - there’s been a push to keep your kids home if you are able, to help protect teachers and students who don’t have that option. She likes school, misses friends, and biggest thing to me, was supposed to be in a clustered class next year for more challenge. I know it’s likely going to be impossible for the virtual teachers to differentiate like that given the situation. 3rd grade here has 180 minutes of live instruction that I am praying will be useful. I still probably plan to supplement so she gets some new material. I’ll send her back when/if it feels safe. My big worry is that there’s going to be a ton of review this year due to differences in what kids did in the spring, and then virus conditions may improve just in time for them to start cramming for our stupid mandated standardized testing - not the teachers’ fault, just a bad situation. I really don’t want to truly homeschool her because she’d lose her place in the GT program and cluster, I believe.

My second grader goes to a public school and we have selected the full virtual option for the first 9 weeks. They are giving us the choice to assess after 9 weeks. The district has also stressed that it will look a lot different the past spring and will have morning meetings, lunch meetings, closing meetings, etc and with heavy parent commitment. She's in gifted, highly motivated, and very independent so I have no regrets with my choice for her.

However, knowing she's going to be on the computer a lot and some added help in the beginning, we are choosing to send our four year old to half day preK program 5 days a week at a local church preschool. If he stays home, he will complain about how he can't be on the computer, bother his sister, etc. He also needs the structure more and I'm comforted that the preschool is taking a lot of precautions with an even smaller class sizes than the 14 they normally have. They are delaying the start of school until mid september (the public school here starts Aug 6).

My youngest was supposed to be in the 3 day a week program (she's two) but we haven't decided yet.