Are you sending your kids to school next month?

[Funfire240]

My DS10 has been back full time for a couple of weeks and they have been doing great. When they were full remote and even hybrid his grades suffered greatly. He is the type that requires the structure to stay focused. 3rd quarter with being back his grades jumped (with the exception of science - he was still on 4 days a week early on and given a large 2 part test to take on their at home day. Of course he aced the first part but lost focus and failed the 2nd so it dropped his grade to a B for the quarter). My DD12 is in junior high and just started up to 4 days, going to all 4 the week after Easter. now she's one that has enjoyed staying home and loves working at her own pace and would love to remain on homeschool after this year.

 

[monsterkitty]

We were notified that my daughters school would allow them back starting this week. I talked about it with her and she wanted to back and i thought it would be good for her. Then we got the full details and students were going to stay in one classroom still doing their classes on zoom just at school. We saw no point in that so we choose for her to just stay home for the remainder of the year.

We're doing something similar and it has actually been very successful. The students only leave that teacher for lunch and an elective. We've been in school since August and have had less than 10 cases all year. The other schools in the district that did not use this model had many more cases and they have fewer students. When those schools switched to this their cases dropped.

The first week a student complained about not being with her friends in class. Another student commented that she was looking at it as it's not the ideal situation but at least she's not home being annoyed by other siblings. The first girl replied, "true and you guys are way better than my family at this point!"

Our students are thriving because they get more individual attention with the smaller class sizes (15-25 depending on the cohort). We can keep better tabs on their emotional needs. On cohort has about 5 students from my academic enrichment class (fancy label for homeroom) from last year and these students fought like cats and dogs the two years I had them. Within one week this year they had exchanged phone numbers, all social media and game info, and more importantly, support each other like I have never seen in my 31+ years in the classroom. They call each other their O'hana (I made them watch Lilo and Stitch at the beginning of the year when I had them for their elective. They didn't know who Elvis was!)

While it looks bad from the outside, it's not as bad as we all thought it would be at the beginning of this year.

 

[tink89]

Our students are thriving because they get more individual attention with the smaller class sizes (15-25 depending on the cohort).

That was one of my issues. Students were not going to get individual attention. All learning will remain as distance learning for both the kids in class and at home. The teacher in the classroom is just there to supervise not teach them. The teacher will be doing their own online class while the students are each doing their own on their computer while having to wear headphones the whole time to not hear the teacher doing her teaching.

 

[monsterkitty]

That was one of my issues. Students were not going to get individual attention. All learning will remain as distance learning for both the kids in class and at home. The teacher in the classroom is just there to supervise not teach them. The teacher will be doing their own online class while the students are each doing their own on their computer while having to wear headphones the whole time to not hear the teacher doing her teaching.

The instruction doesn't last the entire class period. It gives plenty of time for the students do get to their work and ask questions. If the cohort teacher doesn't understand something, the student can call the other teacher.

When the cohort teacher is teaching other classes, their class is also doing that lesson. All 6th graders have social studies at the same time, math at the same time, etc. We've been required to record our lessons for years and put the lesson up in our in-house system. This allowed students to go back and review something the missed or if they were absent watch the video. Our students are used to this.

Our breakdown in a core class has been 15 minute group instruction, 30 minute work time/ask for help time, 10 minute whole group time. We started this several years ago when we went to a competency based system and there might be several different lessons going on in a classroom. While we may have a few kids in each cohort that are in a different level of math or lit, this year we've gone back to more of a 90% of the students in a cohort/classroom are doing the same assignment model.

 

[tink89]

The instruction doesn't last the entire class period. It gives plenty of time for the students do get to their work and ask questions. If the cohort teacher doesn't understand something, the student can call the other teacher.

When the cohort teacher is teaching other classes, their class is also doing that lesson. All 6th graders have social studies at the same time, math at the same time, etc. We've been required to record our lessons for years and put the lesson up in our in-house system. This allowed students to go back and review something the missed or if they were absent watch the video. Our students are used to this.

Our breakdown in a core class has been 15 minute group instruction, 30 minute work time/ask for help time, 10 minute whole group time. We started this several years ago when we went to a competency based system and there might be several different lessons going on in a classroom. While we may have a few kids in each cohort that are in a different level of math or lit, this year we've gone back to more of a 90% of the students in a cohort/classroom are doing the same assignment model.

seems like you guys have a much better plan. The students who choose to go back will be doing the exact same thing they were doing at home. Just in the classroom. Same bell schedule, all teachers on zoom. No in person teaching.

 

[monsterkitty]

seems like you guys have a much better plan. The students who choose to go back will be doing the exact same thing they were doing at home. Just in the classroom. Same bell schedule, all teachers on zoom. No in person teaching.

This makes me sad.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

seems like you guys have a much better plan. The students who choose to go back will be doing the exact same thing they were doing at home. Just in the classroom. Same bell schedule, all teachers on zoom. No in person teaching.

Were they thinking "oh social interaction can occur now with the kids" or something like that? Because certainly their plan seems like a weird definition of in-person learning.

 

[tink89]

This makes me sad.

Yea. DD was excited to go back and just get back to "normal", but once I explained it to her she choose not to go back since it would be the same thing but in a classroom instead of the comforter her room lol

Were they thinking "oh social interaction can occur now with the kids" or something like that? Because certainly their plan seems like a weird definition of in-person learning.

Honestly I don't know if it is because some teachers are not wanting to go back, or because there is just 2 months left in school,or they are waiting for teachers to be vaccinated but it just seems like they didn't really try to even have a plan to get kids back to actual in person learning.

It looks like many kids/parents opted to stay with distance learning at home