Hellobee Boards

I’m with you. Our schedule sounds less intense but I’m still worried if it will fit my kinder boy (I also have a third grade girl, for her I’m more worried about being bored than paying attention). Our school plans to go back in person after a couple weeks but we chose virtual for at least the first grading period and probably longer.

One thing I will say, is that due to funding the district is likely incentivized to keep you. So while the district blueprint says you have to do this or that, when pressed they have told individual people that it will actually be much less to be counted present. Like just emailing the teacher your kid’s assignments before 1pm even if you skip the zooms. So, it may be worth trying to see what it will actually be like.

That is my plan - try virtual as we’d really like to stay connected to our home school, but homeschool if it’s just not working and hopefully go back in 21-22. Not ideal but what can you do?

@cat620: I can’t imagine that yours is the only elementary school child that is likely to struggle with that level of screen time and that schedule. I would be inclined to try it out and provide honest and constructive feedback about what is and is not working before I opted out. I would also think this would be a lot to ask of the teachers too.

Our school has said elementary remote will be 1-2 live zoom type meetings per week and the rest asynchronous. Which is harder for the parent but more age appropriate...

We don't know what we'll be doing yet for DD, who is starting kindergarten, but homeschooling is definitely one option we are considering. Our district hasn't released any plans yet. I think they will be starting with some sort of hybrid schedule, but I know we can choose 100% virtual. I am worried the virtual option will be like yours and we wouldn't be okay with that for kindergarten, so in that case we would likely homeschool. I have all of the paperwork/forms ready to go if we make that choice.

I'm hoping we will be okay with the virtual option though. I am a big believer in public schools and I want to support our district/town/state. None of these choices are perfect but at the end of the day we'll choose the option we feel is best for our kid.

@cat620: Our school schedule sounds very similar except the kids will be on live with their teachers three hours 8-11 and then 12:30-3 they will have a window of live time with their specials teachers (science, PE, etc). I am dreading the live time but my community is demanding it. Our first two weeks will be 20 minutes of live time and then individual assessments the rest of the day.

I don't blame anyone that switches to homeschool because this schedule sounds horrible. Parents are going to have to be wardens dragging their kids back to the screen. One thing that gives me some peace is that the School Board President forgot to censor herself on one call and when a parent asked how Kindergarten will work she just laughed and said "It's not going to work." I like the lady and she usually handles herself quite well so in that moment I appreciated the candid honesty. It's helped me reframe my expectations.

I registered my two in the regular afterschool care turned full time care since DH and I WFT and I'm in the office about half the week. The students will be doing the school curriculum on their Chromebooks. When I registered the kids I was envisioning the kids would be in a group of their classmates and be more apt to sit and do their work when there's a group of them. Information has been slow but it seems like the pod of students will be made up of multiple classes from likely multiple schools so my Kindergartener will have to be very independent. Or it all blows up and we homeschool on the weekend.

I am in the same situation. My options as I see them are to do the bare minimums and not stress about the rest, hoping it'll only be another semester and that fostering their interests and just focusing on core math/science/language will be enough or to give it up and homeschool. But if they do eventually do hybrid learning, we aren't guaranteed a spot if we weren't registered in the first place. I don't even worry about the school district. Our district has not handled this well.

Find out the deadline to stay enrolled and still allow the school to get state funding. If it's only a few weeks, then you can just wait to withdraw.

But I would prioritize your family's needs at this point. I am personally burned out from COVID and need to be able to provide for my kids first and foremost. I'm tired of feeling responsible for everything, so I've decided to stop doing that. I cannot fix our broken public institutions or a global pandemic. I'm not going to try.

@cat620: Virtual learning in the spring for preschool and kindergarten was a shit show. We pulled my son out of his private school that is not handling this well (at all). We are lucky that it’s not really “homeschool” because he’s only 4.5 but yes it will he homeschool esque. You’re very responsible to care about the PTA but I can’t imagine anyone would blame you for doing what you feel is the right thing for your family.

My husband and my best friend both quit their PTO officer jobs this summer. 🤷‍♀️ most PTO's won't be able to host events, which is their main function at this particular school, and this upcoming year will be particularly stressful so we had to pare down our commitments. We are all public school teachers or spouses od them or both.

If you stay enrolled but don't attend all of the live sessions, what *really* would be the repercussions? Honest answer. Here we don't hold kids back academically or prosecute truancy in normal times, much less covid times.

I withdrew my kindergartener and am homeschooling for this year. We decided pretty early on (June maybe?) that it was going to the right fit for her and for our family for a whole variety of reasons...so I've had some time to sit with the decision and we've gotten into a good routine with it. My daughter is thriving with what we've been doing for school and it's working (well enough) for me and my husband with our work schedules.

When I told a few friends about our decision to homeschool this year, I've gotten a huge range of responses, from: "don't you care about funding public education?!"...to: "do you even know what you're doing?!"...to understanding that we're all trying to get through this year as best we can. No school choices for next year felt ideal, but this felt "most doable" for our family...so we're running with it.

If I get laid off, I will definitely homeschool. And if I try to go with the remote school plan, I WILL get laid off. It's basically a full-time job for each child. You've got to keep track of their time, make sure they're on for the live part of the class (which is supposed to be 15 minutes at a go - WTF?), force them to do things that elementary-aged children kind of... don't do well and definitely don't enjoy (so effectively, I'm being a jailer to my own children), make sure their assignments get done and turned in, and when the school says "jump" you just ask "how high?" In exchange you've got zero consideration that there are actual living people on the other end, that possibly have a job to hold down and may need to plan for that. They won't tell us what day school will start. They won't tell us how many days it will be live (only that it's two at most and that the schedule will jump from week to week). They won't tell us what we're supposed to do with the kids the other four days, or how it's making teachers safer that those kids are who-knows-where for four days and then go back into the classroom.

And the latest kicker - I'm told that even if most people leave the system, they'll stick with this ridiculous schedule. So our school has about 800 kids. I've been asking around the parents I know, and I'm guessing we'll actually have a couple of hundred fewer. Some have left the city. Some are going remote. Some are going to private school. Lots of people are running for the exits. So let's say instead of 30 kids per class, they actually have 20 - you'd think they could get those 20 into live classes 2-3 days a week, but nope. It's not going to be considered because them's the rules.

Frankly, this situation began in March. It didn't start yesterday. They could have planned for something. Especially now that the virus seems to be nearly gone from NYC, and they're essentially not reopening because of nervousness, not because it's actually justified. They could have predicted in April or May that they'll be too scared to reopen no matter what the numbers say.

In other words, I don't think I owe anything to the system.

@katsupgirl: I feel for you and all the teachers and principals here. You're in a tough spot. And all of this not knowing is so frustrating. We had an info call with our principal yesterday, and parents were asking what to expect, and most of her answers were along the lines of "we don't know, we're waiting for DOE to tell us"...

Yeah, the homeschooling rules here are not so simple. I think I'll give it a try though, if I end up having no job. I'm staying up at night finishing my reports anyway. Might as well keep staying up at night doing homeschooling paperwork

@cat620: what about asking his future or previous teacher?

In my district (we're all so different, I know) we required nothing in the Spring. So going into the fall, we are really emphasizing that attendance and grades are required, BUT, in terms of attendance, almost anything counts (a submitted assignment, email, phone call, text, or live instruction), . All live instruction is recorded for vieiwng later.

Our district just went virtual for the first quarter and no one seems to be able to tell me what to expect. It's beyond frustrating. I work from home, my husband works from home half the week and is out of state the other half. We/I can't babysit our kids (1st and 4th grade) and nag them to be on Zoom all day when we are trying to do our own jobs. I can see the appeal of setting up a homeschool curriculum that is less strenuous. I just don't want to go there until I have some answers, but no one is giving them ...

Other people have given much more thorough and useful responses. The only thing I want to add is that like you, I strongly support the idea of public schools and we've made it a priority to stay in our city school district. Our district is doing a hybrid back to school plan, with 2 days in person, which I absolutely do not want to send my son to. I struggled with the idea of going fully remote, but have come to the conclusion that for whoever is able to do it, keeping kids home at this moment is actually an act of solidarity. During a pandemic, the fewer kids in the classroom, the better for teachers and other students and their families. Whatever you decide to do would probably only be for a year, tops, and then you could revisit. Good luck!

@catgirl: I chose Easy Peasy. It came recommended from our good friend who homeschools her 4 kids. It is Christian based but in all the stuff I have gotten there is no religion just normal school work. I only got math and language arts books though.

@catgirl: We’re using Singapore Math and All About Reading, and a combination of handwriting workbooks. I’m supplementing with math extras on my own and pulling extra stuff here and there from Teachers Pay Teachers...my daughter loves color by word/sound kind of worksheets or anything she can use letter stamps to do...and she’ll happily do that kind of stuff, not even thinking of it as “school.”

I'm withdrawing my 1st grader and will homeschool her for the year. Our schools will be all virtual. I'm the school psychologist at my kid's school and I still don't feel any obligation to "stay in the system." I'm having a baby at the end of September so I'll be on leave for most of the year. I have zero desire for my kid to engage in virtual learning. We do minimal screen time and I have no desire to change that and I also don't think what will be offered will be particularly helpful. I'm confident my kiddo will better served by reading books with me, playing outside and following a curriculum of my choosing.