Hellobee Boards

In TX here where we’re setting records for cases - both the state and the county are red on this: https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/
But the state has made it so that, currently, schools can only be funded if they offer 5 full days to anyone that wants it (virtual can be offered also). It’s high drama since safety is definitely in question, especially for adults, with lots of community spread and people not following the masking order etc. Districts are scrambling to figure it out and there’s actually a push in our local moms fb group for all who are able to keep their kids home and virtual to lower class sizes for those who don’t have a choice and must attend in person. I wish it was not up to parents to make that happen and the state was doing more to support schools.

Our district hasn’t released their final plans on the minutiae of it all (how they will handle masking behind the governor’s order, etc) but it seems like the new thing that’s being talked about is pushing back our start date from mid-Aug or allowing virtual starts until districts are more prepared and/or cases go down (but no sign of that yet). And of course they may have to just start and it’s going to be chaos when cases show up. And then maybe things will get so bad the whole state will shut down, who knows? There are soooo many issues and I’m just sick for the position teachers are being put in. And the administrators - they are trying but it’s such a mess and they’ll never please everyone.

The one good thing is kids will be allowed to switch at the 9 week grading periods. So we’re starting virtual for my K and 3rd grader and will switch to in person if we feel it gets to a safe point.

We have been given zero
Information so far and I’m trying not to lose my mind. The public schools here I think are making their plans public on July 20 - so I assume our small private school will also
Do so shortly after.

I am in a province in Canada where cases are very low (1 case in the last 2 weeks).

We are returning full time but with some changes. Our max class size has dropped from 21 to 15 students. We will become a “bubble” and students do not need to social distance or wear masks within their bubbles. Lots of extra cleaning, limiting movement of students within the building, trying to keep the adults that work with each bubble consistent, etc. School access to the general public will be limited. They are still ironing out the details (what will the playground look like? Bussing? Lunch?) but so far this seems best case scenario to me, both as a teacher and a mother of 2 young kids. I am teaching Kindergarten next year and am really excited for my little bubble class !

Our district will reveal the plan in early August. But I’m quitting my job - bw the uncertainty about schools and childcare (we have an au pair, trump cancelled that type of visa), I just need to stay home. I feel guilty leaving in the middle of a pandemic as I’m a nurse practitioner..but I did put my notice in in February so at least not leaving them high and dry. I had intended to find a new job in the suburbs but turned down my dream job bc of this mess.

This is all going to get way, way worse.

NJ here (NYC commuter suburbs). As mentioned in another thread, NJ school districts operate on a “township” level, so we have ton of small districts, and each gets to do their own thing. Ours announced a tentative plan last week. There will be no bussing except for those living 2.5 miles away from school or more (basically no one) whereas we used to have courtesy bussing for K & 1 and subscription (Pay-if-you-want-it) bussing available for others. Masks will be required on the bus and in school; lunch will not happen at school. We will go five days but four hours; it is unclear whether they’ll use the time to halve class size, or just for extra cleaning. The kids may sign on for more virtual learning once they are home from school, and everyone has the option for 100% virtual if they want. Parents will be expected to report their children's temperature daily. Of course, this can all change week to week as we see what happens in our area...there are supposed to be more details by August 3rd.

We are just north of Chicago, where cases had been relatively lower and are now rising again. We haven't heard anything from DS's district, except for the range of options - everything from 100% in person to hybrid to 100% virtual. I teach in a different district, and we also haven't heard anything. I do understand wanting to see how things are going and make comprehensive plans but not being able to figure out work and childcare yet is nuts. My son's district has a focus on equity and access due to significant achievement differences between Black and non-Black students, so we'll see how that impacts what they do. A nearby K-8 district is going back full time with 20-25 kids in a class, which to me seems like such a reckless choice right now.

@Mrs. Carrot: for the days when students do remote learning (for those who do a hybrid), do you know if it will be all self-directed and asynchronous? Or will students be watching the teacher at school, live? I think a hybrid model with a small pod would be my preference, as long as the days at home didn't have the expectation of DS zooming into school for many hours a day.

Our school district has a proposed hybrid model of kids being grouped in 3 tracks and attending school in person one week and virtually for two. Parents can also choose completely virtual by the 20th. The governor may still choose to delay in person learning though so we could be all virtual anyway. When they first announced I was sure we’d be doing in person but I’m second guessing myself now and thinking DH and I should figure out how to make virtual work. DS1 was exposed to someone positive for COVID at summer camp 2 weeks ago and the resulting self-isolation was a pretty big headache. I don’t expect my daycare to open soon so keeping everyone at home seems to make the most sense...

@Chuckles: For the hybrid option, the non-school 2 days would be completely asynchronous, which was one of the many reasons why we chose virtual for my kid. I really wanted her to have a consistent level of interaction and with virtual they get 4 days of synchronous instruction, even though it's spread out. I don't know how many schools are entertaining the "zooming into class" option - I think there's too many privacy concerns and technologically it's very hard to do from my own experience managing training for a living (and virtualizing it all for the past few months). If they had a 2 days in school/2 days of synchronous learning option, I might have considered it, but no teacher/student interaction at all for those two days was one of the reasons I didn't like it.

I’m in Ontario, and the short story is - we don’t know. The schools have all been directed to make three plans - one for full time in class leaning, one for part time, and one for full virtual. I guess when we get closer to the start of school (after Labour Day here) then they’ll decide, region by region, depending on what case counts look like. People are upset, though, and are pushing for the support and funding to go with full time in-person learning.

I’m torn - I don’t want to put teachers in danger, but I really don’t know what I’ll do, trying to work full time from home with a 4 and 6 year old, if they go to part time or fully virtual. It’s been hard enough for the past four months and my job is increasingly going from “these are unusual times, let’s just get through it” to “this is how things are now, let’s get back to normal”.

We're in the western suburbs of Chicago. Schools all around us are starting to come out with their plans. They have all varied with a lot of what has been stated above. We tend to be one of the wait and see what others are doing so I was surprised when our district decided that for k-5, we're going full day. 6th through HS are going to a hybrid schedule. Kids will wear masks all day. They will still have all of the specials (art, music, gym) but I don't think they know how those will look yet. And I'm not sure how lunch will work. I think they're planning on still having it in the cafeteria but keeping under the 50 people in a room rule. I really hope that doesn't mean some kids have lunch at like 9:30 or something crazy. I'd rather just have them eat in their rooms at that rate. While I haven't fully read the entire document, I don't think it spells out what will happen when someone tests positive at the school. That's my big question. Oh and they also will allow anyone to go 100% virtual if that is their preference. They will also provide their before and after school program. We would normally have used this but I'm hoping not to have to this year. We'll see how flexible DH and my company's continue to be as the year goes on...

@bhbee: basically the same as what she said.
Arizona.
Our governor has mandated we offer a 5 day, full-time option. This is being interpreted a little differently by some districts, but most are taking it at face value.
So, our 2 districts are offering 100% in person or 100% online.
They've said, multiple times, that physical distancing probably won't be possible.
They are relying on mask wearing, cohorting in elementary and middle school, and more cleaning (to be seen if they follow through.)

I have a school of 650 students, my husband works at a school with 2100. From June surveys, one fourth plan to stay home.

We start online aug 10 and in person aug 17. That's the plan for most schools here.

In my state school districts go by county. I live in a large county with many schools. They gave the parents the choice to have full instruction 5 days a week, elearning (synchronous/teaching led), or virtual learning (asynchronous/parent or student led). We had to put in our selection by this Friday.

We have decided to go with the full in person instruction, which I hopefully won't regret. We just moved here this spring and we are worried about DS starting at a new school and having it all be elearning. We also can't function with our jobs while we have kids at home. We both have too much going on during the day. We were terrible at remembering which days to go to the zoom meetings and just stopped doing any school work. The teachers kept moving things around and we had both kids home (3 and 6) and honestly they mostly watched their tablets all the time, which wasn't good for anyone.

My parents think schools aren't even going to open. That there are too many what ifs. What if a kid is infected, who has to quarantine? All the kids in the class plus their families? All the kids in the school? What happens if a teacher is exposed and can't come to work, will there be any subs? We just have no idea. My parents have volunteered that if it goes to full time elarning to help or to take DS for a few days at a time, but IDK how that would even work. It's not like I can have him go live a half hour away for the entire school year, lol.

Our district just released plans:

Half go Tues/Thurs, other half go Wed/Fri. Mondays are a combo of prep time for teachers, grade level, extra support, etc.

That will stay in place as long as there's no surge in cases.

We got an if/then draft plan today.

If we are in phase 1, kids go to school either MT or ThF, full day, but half size classes (our k-2 class sizes are usually about 20, so this makes them pretty small). No groups over 15. Middle and high schoolers in masks. No movement in the building if possible.

Stage 2 (current stage): all kids every day, but shortened and staggered. K-2 would go 825-2. Masks for middle and high school.

(We also have a local ordinance mandating masks for ages 12+, so teachers would be in masks in any scenario).

These options all come with 100% virtual options for any family that chooses. If we move to phase 3 (not likely any time soon), we’d have to petition for on-line.

I’m strongly considering keeping kiddos home because I can (my work is largely shut down) and not everyone can. I’m interested in what virtual learning looks like—I’m not interested in hours in front of a screen for my K and 2nd graders, so I’d pull them entirely if that’s the case. But hoping not to (our spring learning was fine for that, so I’m hopeful this would be similar). I have a 1 year old, too, so looking at partnering with another family with a K and 2nd grader and a 2 year old. I’m a former teacher, so I’d handle the four older kiddos and she’d keep the babies. We’d do about 3 hours a day. I mourn the loss of a “regular” kindergarten experience for my middle kiddo, but both my boys think this is a great plan, so I may just need to buckle down and sell it!

We just got a survey from our school yesterday and I was disappointed to ascertain they aren’t considering giving the option to choose at this point. I’m going to write to the superintendent. One of the potential modes of going back was half day which makes no sense—you’re all still there together anyway.

I did want to say we know some teachers doing summer school in person with lower elementary students and they have said the students are really good about keeping masks on so that’s encouraging.

@DillonLion: I work in a hospital and if we are not in the covid unit, we don’t get any PPE other than a regular mask. Since we went to universal masking at the hospital I work at, there hasn’t been a single employee who has contracted Covid. And it is impossible to practice social distancing as a health care provider. Other essential workers don’t get full PPE either, like people working at target etc. I don’t think it’s feasible to have teachers in full PPE every day.

@Becky: I've just been following along as my kiddo is too young for regular school right now, but it seems like the benefit of half days could be that kiddos are within the confined classroom space for less time per day, and time within an infected space with re-circulated air is a factor for covid exposure. So, if the kids are only there for half days, they're less exposed in case someone was asymptomatic. Just a thought!

An update from Northern VA - a number of districts around ours have made announcements this week that they will go fully virtual through the end of the year. The deadline for our district parents to select all virtual or 2 days in/2 days out is today, and as of yesterday I think about 60% of the population responded (more opting into in person vs virtual). I have a hunch that before we actually start school on September 8th, we'll end up going fully virtual too, so we'll see.