Back to School during the pandemic ...a discussion thread

[wdwmom3]

I do understand all of that. What I was getting at is that many parents pushed for school to return but there is has been upset that kids are getting sick from going back. @pigletto was saying how it's not sustainable having parents have to keep taking time off every time a child has symptoms and has to get tested. Its why I said you can't have it both ways.

You can want schools open but then still get upset that kids are getting sick. It’s a stressful time. You are lucky your child is not school aged right now. There is no way you can even begin to understand how complicated and hard this is for parents, deciding what to do. Every day my husband and I stress over sending our child to school, even though we know right now it’s what’s best for him.

 

[Frozen2014]

This is all such a mixed bag. We've sent our kids to school as we feel the education in person will be so much better, plus the interaction with other kids and people. Having said that, my son in high school still seems to have a lot of down time as the mornings he's not in school he has nothing (time to work on the class work but this week he finished everything when in class). His other classes also seem to have some free time. The thing with him too is that his friends are not only not in his cohort, but the ones that go to school go on opposite days. So he's still isolated from them and never sees them. He plays/chats with them online but no going to each others house after school like before. There have been positives to being at home for my daughter. First, it got her online much quicker than she would have been otherwise and now she's a typical teenager (at 11 years old) and chats with friends all the time (i.e. she wouldn't' have had a phone otherwise). The other thing is a lot of kids picked on her in class so she didn't have to deal with that drama, and it helped build her confidence back up. (And she had a great summer at camp without drama) But I'm glad she's back this year and her 2 closest friends are in her class/cohort thank goodness.

But when I see the numbers climb...where is August we were under 100 cases a day in Ontario and yesterday we had a whopping 401...and you keep hearing of cases in schools all ready. I feel like it's just a matter of time before it comes to their schools and they are shutdown. Very scary and all a gamble...hoping they stay safe. I don't even know what the right answer is for going to school or doing online only.

 

[pigletto]

I do understand all of that. What I was getting at is that many parents pushed for school to return but there is has been upset that kids are getting sick from going back. @pigletto was saying how it's not sustainable having parents have to keep taking time off every time a child has symptoms and has to get tested. Its why I said you can't have it both ways.

I think an optimal return to school plan should and could have included the ability to test larger numbers of people and obtain quicker results . That’s not “having it both ways”, it’s common sense. That is going to need to happen to make this work.

FWIW I don‘t have a small child in school who would need me to take off work. But I can see that the model being used is not sustainable for people who have small kids which is why I said that. My 16 year old went back. If he needs to stop he can switch to online learning pretty easily. Moreover we are adults who understand the consequences of our decisions and won’t pass blame if and when Covid goes through the school. I think there is a lot of people like us.

 

[pigletto]

This is all such a mixed bag. We've sent our kids to school as we feel the education in person will be so much better, plus the interaction with other kids and people. Having said that, my son in high school still seems to have a lot of down time as the mornings he's not in school he has nothing (time to work on the class work but this week he finished everything when in class). His other classes also seem to have some free time. The thing with him too is that his friends are not only not in his cohort, but the ones that go to school go on opposite days. So he's still isolated from them and never sees them. He plays/chats with them online but no going to each others house after school like before. There have been positives to being at home for my daughter. First, it got her online much quicker than she would have been otherwise and now she's a typical teenager (at 11 years old) and chats with friends all the time (i.e. she wouldn't' have had a phone otherwise). The other thing is a lot of kids picked on her in class so she didn't have to deal with that drama, and it helped build her confidence back up. (And she had a great summer at camp without drama) But I'm glad she's back this year and her 2 closest friends are in her class/cohort thank goodness.

But when I see the numbers climb...where is August we were under 100 cases a day in Ontario and yesterday we had a whopping 401...and you keep hearing of cases in schools all ready. I feel like it's just a matter of time before it comes to their schools and they are shutdown. Very scary and all a gamble...hoping they stay safe. I don't even know what the right answer is for going to school or doing online only.

Exactly the same here with my son and downtime. He said something interesting yesterday. He was saying he’s done his work by 12:30 most days and then just sits there until it’s time to go. He has only once used all of the time they are supposed to use for 75 minutes when he gets home. There just isn’t enough to do. So he was saying basically it’s showing him how much extra time it takes to teach those large class sizes they normally have. He said without distraction they are blowing through the material. And he’s doing physics and business accounting right now, so its not light material.

 

[AngelDisney]

Exactly the same here with my son and downtime. He said something interesting yesterday. He was saying he’s done his work by 12:30 most days and then just sits there until it’s time to go. He has only once used all of the time they are supposed to use for 75 minutes when he gets home. There just isn’t enough to do. So he was saying basically it’s showing him how much extra time it takes to teach those large class sizes they normally have. He said without distraction they are blowing through the material. And he’s doing physics and business accounting right now, so its not light material.

Probably teachers are still figuring out how to pace their lessons with the quadmester system. It could be lighter work at the beginning to promote mental health and support transition back to school. If this continues, students should let their teachers know so they can adjust their pacing. I am using a flip classroom approach. Students are expected to watch videos and complete worksheets at home during asynchronous time online. Then we will take up homework, do rich open tasks and complete assessments in class. Group work and discussion plus guided practice are done in the synchronous online learning period. I use D2L Brightspace platform and I can create a virtual breakout room for students to do group work online. I am still learning about different features of Brigjtspace and how to incorporate other virtual tools to engage students and track their progress. Teachers will slowly build the capacity. It takes time and input from students and parents is important to help promote student success this year.

 

[pigletto]

Probably teachers are still figuring out how to pace their lessons with the quadmester system. It could be lighter work at the beginning to promote mental health and support transition back to school. If this continues, students should let their teachers know so they can adjust their pacing. I am using a flip classroom approach. Students are expected to watch videos and complete worksheets at home during asynchronous time online. Then we will take up homework, do rich open tasks and complete assessments in class. Group work and discussion plus guided practice are done in the synchronous online learning period. I use D2L Brightspace platform and I can create a virtual breakout room for students to do group work online. I am still learning about different features of Brigjtspace and how to incorporate other virtual tools to engage students and track their progress. Teachers will slowly build the capacity. It takes time and input from students and parents is important to help promote student success this year.

I wasn’t complaining in the least, just noting what he has mentioned. My position has always been that this is an extremely difficult time to be an educator and this is just one more layer. I’m sure it will figure itself out.

 

[FigmentSpark]

My gr 11 DS says he's happy to be back in class, even though it's a hybrid. He feels he learns more in a classroom, because he can see the others and the teacher. At home, he may be on line synchronously, but he's only seeing the board and hearing the teacher's voice, so there's some missing ambiance.

He's also really happy that he's only doing 2 classes right now. Even though they are supposed to be twice as fast, he feels it's easier to just concentrate on two classes than on 4 in this type of setting.

He's also disappointed to be in the opposite cohort from all his friends, but they make up for it after school with online zoom (or is is Google meets?) sessions.

 

[Meglen]

I would love to share my story here for why I have taken my child out of school and is now full distance. A little backstory, this school is under construction so only 2 wings outta the old 5 are able to be used. The auditorium is now the cafe and its just a tiny place for the amount of children.

My email to the principal
Hello, Today while picking up my child from school I witnessed a few mask breaks in the front of white building. The children have such a small space to move about and enjoy the fresh air. Along with this many of the children were playing and being very close to each other while playing with their now off masks. The teachers did not seem to try to separate the students. Times are hard and we all know policing children during this time will be really hard. But these kids were face to face maskless chatting it up and playing.

I am not sure what could be done here, but maybe markers on the ground could help. I think the kids are treating this like recess. My son loves going to school and to see his classmates but he also brought this up to me and said PE class was also the same. That kids would not stay away from him while he was participating in both mask breaks and PE.

I am not here to blame or point fingers,everyone has been amazing so far but I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how the mask breaks were looking to onlookers while waiting for dismissal.

This is the reply I got back
Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. We have been trying our best to fulfill every guideline placed upon us. The tent area is really for shelter and to have a designated area. I have communicated to educators that they can spread out and utilize all areas (minus construction area) to walk and attain space. It is a balance and shift in thinking to create a socially distant space that would be considered ideal. The irony is I observe them walk across the crosswalk at the end of the school day and social distancing is obsolete. I observe students piling into a neighbor's car and masks are off, etc. I bring these points up to emphasize that to keep them at a distance and fully vested in our new norm is almost impossible. We will continue to do all we can, and I will surely share your concerns at an upcoming meeting with JFK educators. My only solution for P/Gs who are not comfortable with hybrid is 100% remote learning but this isn't ideal either...it is a really challenging time.

We will continue to try our best to accommodate the almost impossible challenge placed upon our public school systems during this pandemic.

This principal made me feel less safe for my son with this reply. I understand times are hard but to tell parents they cant do much and to go full distance if you dont like it is a bit much for me.

Sorry this is very long

 

[Silvermist999]

My gr 11 DS says he's happy to be back in class, even though it's a hybrid. He feels he learns more in a classroom, because he can see the others and the teacher. At home, he may be on line synchronously, but he's only seeing the board and hearing the teacher's voice, so there's some missing ambiance.

He's also really happy that he's only doing 2 classes right now. Even though they are supposed to be twice as fast, he feels it's easier to just concentrate on two classes than on 4 in this type of setting.
He's also disappointed to be in the opposite cohort from all his friends, but they make up for it after school with online zoom (or is is Google meets?) sessions.

This is exactly the same for my DD in grade 11. She is enjoying being in school even if it’s hybrid, and opposite cohort from most of her friend group, who are all taking different electives. She had one friend in her class last week, and next week she will not have any friends in the in person class. She says it isn’t a big deal because they don’t get to socialize like before or even talk to one another in class, they are seated too far apart and also...it’s not like they would hear one another through their masks. Plus right after the morning class, they need to head home in time to sign in for their afternoon class. So not much time to hang around and socialize at school. We are lucky we are home so we have been picking her up right after class, too many maskless teens not social distancing. Not ideal with the case count rising lately.

 

[pigletto]

I would love to share my story here for why I have taken my child out of school and is now full distance. A little backstory, this school is under construction so only 2 wings outta the old 5 are able to be used. The auditorium is now the cafe and its just a tiny place for the amount of children.

My email to the principal
Hello, Today while picking up my child from school I witnessed a few mask breaks in the front of white building. The children have such a small space to move about and enjoy the fresh air. Along with this many of the children were playing and being very close to each other while playing with their now off masks. The teachers did not seem to try to separate the students. Times are hard and we all know policing children during this time will be really hard. But these kids were face to face maskless chatting it up and playing.

I am not sure what could be done here, but maybe markers on the ground could help. I think the kids are treating this like recess. My son loves going to school and to see his classmates but he also brought this up to me and said PE class was also the same. That kids would not stay away from him while he was participating in both mask breaks and PE.

I am not here to blame or point fingers,everyone has been amazing so far but I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how the mask breaks were looking to onlookers while waiting for dismissal.

This is the reply I got back
Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. We have been trying our best to fulfill every guideline placed upon us. The tent area is really for shelter and to have a designated area. I have communicated to educators that they can spread out and utilize all areas (minus construction area) to walk and attain space. It is a balance and shift in thinking to create a socially distant space that would be considered ideal. The irony is I observe them walk across the crosswalk at the end of the school day and social distancing is obsolete. I observe students piling into a neighbor's car and masks are off, etc. I bring these points up to emphasize that to keep them at a distance and fully vested in our new norm is almost impossible. We will continue to do all we can, and I will surely share your concerns at an upcoming meeting with JFK educators. My only solution for P/Gs who are not comfortable with hybrid is 100% remote learning but this isn't ideal either...it is a really challenging time.

We will continue to try our best to accommodate the almost impossible challenge placed upon our public school systems during this pandemic.

This principal made me feel less safe for my son with this reply. I understand times are hard but to tell parents they cant do much and to go full distance if you dont like it is a bit much for me.

Sorry this is very long

We had an outdoor socially distanced family visit today. There were two teachers there , a doctor , a nurse practitioner and we are all parents. We were all in agreement with what the principal has said in this email. The protocols and new rules sound great but are practically impossible to maintain when you add in human behaivour . Schools will do their best, but there’s just too much being asked of schools and it’s not able to be done at all times , in all instances. Cohorts are designed to stop the spread of an outbreak when it happens. But there is no way it won’t happen.
I understand your concern but I do think he gave you honest advice and I agree with what he’s saying. It’s not that they aren't trying , it’s that it can’t be done. Covid exists ..it’s here.. we can only slow the spread. It can’t be stopped completely in a school environment and people who are not willing to take that risk should consider the online learning.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I would love to share my story here for why I have taken my child out of school and is now full distance. A little backstory, this school is under construction so only 2 wings outta the old 5 are able to be used. The auditorium is now the cafe and its just a tiny place for the amount of children.

My email to the principal
Hello, Today while picking up my child from school I witnessed a few mask breaks in the front of white building. The children have such a small space to move about and enjoy the fresh air. Along with this many of the children were playing and being very close to each other while playing with their now off masks. The teachers did not seem to try to separate the students. Times are hard and we all know policing children during this time will be really hard. But these kids were face to face maskless chatting it up and playing.

I am not sure what could be done here, but maybe markers on the ground could help. I think the kids are treating this like recess. My son loves going to school and to see his classmates but he also brought this up to me and said PE class was also the same. That kids would not stay away from him while he was participating in both mask breaks and PE.

I am not here to blame or point fingers,everyone has been amazing so far but I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how the mask breaks were looking to onlookers while waiting for dismissal.

This is the reply I got back
Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. We have been trying our best to fulfill every guideline placed upon us. The tent area is really for shelter and to have a designated area. I have communicated to educators that they can spread out and utilize all areas (minus construction area) to walk and attain space. It is a balance and shift in thinking to create a socially distant space that would be considered ideal. The irony is I observe them walk across the crosswalk at the end of the school day and social distancing is obsolete. I observe students piling into a neighbor's car and masks are off, etc. I bring these points up to emphasize that to keep them at a distance and fully vested in our new norm is almost impossible. We will continue to do all we can, and I will surely share your concerns at an upcoming meeting with JFK educators. My only solution for P/Gs who are not comfortable with hybrid is 100% remote learning but this isn't ideal either...it is a really challenging time.

We will continue to try our best to accommodate the almost impossible challenge placed upon our public school systems during this pandemic.

This principal made me feel less safe for my son with this reply. I understand times are hard but to tell parents they cant do much and to go full distance if you dont like it is a bit much for me.

Sorry this is very long

I respect the honesty of the principal. It’s an impossible thing they’ve been tasked with to try and ensure kids stay socially distanced 100% of the time.

I’ve done my best to teach my daughter how to do this but knowing it won’t always happen was something I needed to weigh heavily into my decision for her to return to school.

 

[Daisy*Duck*y]

We are in BC and things are going well for us.

Here, we only have to keep our children home the exact day they have any of the symptoms. The child does not need a negative Covid test in order to return to school.

If you do want to test your child for Covid, there is now a spit test (instead of the nose test) for children that is just becoming available. There is also a plan to make the new test available for adults in addition to children.

Edit: The spit test might be for children age 4+, and not for younger children. (They have to alternate at 5 second intervals between gargling and swishing, perhaps?)

Adults can be tested at Children’s Hospital if they call ahead and pre-register. Presumably so that you can go with your children to be tested.

 

[hdrolfe]

4 schools in ottawa closing for 14 days quarantine

One of those classes has now caused the school to close. It's in our neighbourhood but not the one my son was at. I am glad now I pulled him out of the school for the year. I'm sure more schools will follow.

 

[MoreTravels]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

 

[scrappinginontario]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

I will say I put more weight on our local numbers than in the provincial numbers. The cases in the province have climbed substantially but although our local numbers have changed, it isn’t at the same rate.

Also personally, I don’t believe a certain number will make me switch to virtual as I need to weigh in how this would disrupt my daughter’s learning. Where we live, virtual learning happens in entirely different ‘schools.’ I would liken switching her to virtual to moving her mid-year to a brand new school. New teacher, new classmates, new style of learning, risking missing materials that may already have been covered, leaving her current friends, etc.

I have faith (and this is just me) that before I feel it would be worth disrupting my child in this way that the government would move everyone/certain areas to virtual learning which would allow her to keep her sane teacher, classmates, etc both for the current time and possibly if things settled, when they moved back into the school again.

Another consideration is if I pull her to virtual then at some point want her back in the classroom, there is no guarantee she’d go back into her original class which would be disruption to her again.

I guess when I look at it closely, I don’t really have a ‘number’ that would cause me to switch learning platforms. If I felt she was unsafe I would but for me that is not triggered by a number.

We have already had a case reported yesterday in a school just a few kms from us. While it does make it more ‘real’ it doesn’t make me question where we are at. Reality is quickly showing that cases are already popping up in schools. For this reason we’re spending this weekend setting up a desk area for her to work at should her class/school be moved to virtual learning at some point. I’m guessing that is only a matter of time either for a short term or extended period of time.

 

[pigletto]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

I’m not sure what my threshold is but it’s not a specific number. Our board has a document online. Of the 96 schools on the document, there is one case. One case in one school. So we are good for now.

As I’ve mentioned in my other posts DS16 had a say in whether or not he returned in person. His dad and I were leaning more toward learning online but he really felt he wanted the benefit of in person instruction. So we are trying. We will continue to reevaluate. If at some point the ship appears to be sinking we can switch pretty easily.

 

[quandrea]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

For me, we are already there. I cancelled a hair appointment for Tuesday. The numbers have me altering my behaviour again. We have community spread and our positivity rate is between 4 and 5 which means we are probably missing cases. It should be noted that we are a high risk family though and exercise great caution.

 

[Disneylover99]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

There is no set number for me. It depends on many factors. Cases within my children’s school would probably be the number one deciding factor.

@scrappinginontario makes some excellent points to consider when deciding to switch to virtual.

 

[Minniemoo15]

We are two weeks in here in NB and things have been going very very smoothly. My Kindergarten students have adapted so well to the new routines (though for them, they don’t know any different anyway!) They are learning, playing, laughing - it all feels somewhat normal in this crazy world. I feel completely safe as an educator. Nothing is without risk, but we have a very well thought out plan and I feel lucky that our risk of community transmission here is NB is so low.

My own two DDs (7 and 5) are so happy to be back at school. I have noticed my DD7’s anxiety is now completely gone. She was really struggling the past few months and now is the happiest kid on the playground. I can’t tell you how relieved and grateful I am for that.

Here in NB, you need 2 symptoms to be excluded from school. That makes it a bit easier. If they have just a runny nose for example - they can go to school. If they have a runny nose and cough, they need to stay home until they are better. I will also say parents are taking this seriously. I had several students out on Friday because they had common cold symptoms. That’s the system working and parents doing their part.

It will be a different year - but I am increasingly optimistic that it will be a really great year as well.

 

[Silvermist999]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

I will be looking at the trend over a period of time because there will be variation day to day. If the case count is consistently high and continue to climb then that is concerning enough for me. Even if it isn’t as high in my specific area, I will seriously consider switching my children to virtual school at the next opportunity provided by the school board.