Plans for schooling in the fall?

[Allegra]

I’ve heard some people say they have already decided to do their own homeschooling with their kids. I’ve also heard some people say they will pull their kids if school resumes and others say they will put their kids if it doesn’t resume without restrictions. There is a mention of the possibility of schools offering the option of online learning for those families that prefer it or are on mandatory quarantine due to a family member testing positive. Would you choose online learning, or if that was the option, would you just say “forget it” and go with a homeschooling curriculum? Are you okay sending your kids to school if they have a lot of modifications such as wearing masks and not allowing students to leave their classrooms? Are you just waiting to see what happens and deal with it when it does? I’m just curious as to how other parents are feeling about it.

 

[jlc2k2]

I’m waiting to see what happens. Both from the perspective of what the schools decide and what we learn about COVID-19 in the coming months. I’m due in July so will have a newborn when school starts back and what we learn about how that age group handles COVID-19 and what our pediatrician recommends will likely be a driving force in my decision.

That said, I’d be willing to send my kids even with restrictions that I personally feel are unnecessary because they need more structure than I can give them here. One of my kids in particular is struggling with the distance learning and I’m not equipped to homeschool her. If we have to do distance learning again in the fall, my husband will have to step up with her at least as he’s the only one that can seem to work with her at home. But my hope is that there is some way to get her back to school.

On the positive side, I will be on maternity leave for the first month or so of school. That should give me the opportunity to lay a solid foundation, no matter what the school year looks like. And there’s a high likelihood that I will be working from home upon my initial return.

 

[aroosi]

Honestly I hope schools will reopen In September (even if part time and with some social distance rules in place). We are dragging homeschooling and I can see my daughter is really missing the interaction with other children of the same age.

 

[KyPerson]

My granddaughter did well with on-line classes. She is a self starter. My grandson rushed through them and I don’t know if he absorbed much. He really needs to be in a classroom. I hope schools open fully in the fall. In my county, there are 134,000 people and we have had 5 deaths, none of them are children. It’s time to get back to school and to work with precautions to protect the vulnerable.

 

[TC3033]

If the schools are open, they’re going. My wife is a teacher, so we don’t have much choice. With that said, even if she wasn’t…they’d go back. It was a struggle for both of them and they miss their friends.

 

[Paul71]

We are struggling with this decision right now. I cannot predict the future, but based on everything I have read, I expect that there will be another wave of COVID-19 in the fall or winter, and I expect that schools will do some period of distance learning. And considering the restrictions that are in place right now (e.g., restaurants limited to 1/3 of indoor capacity, masks required in certain situations, churches having Mass outside or with only 1/3 capacity, etc.), it’s hard for me to see how anything like a normal school experience can resume in the fall. (But maybe it will.)

Most of our kids did very well with online learning at the end of this past school year, so we are considering signing them up for an online homeschool curriculum for next school year. The advantages would be a predictable learning experience for the whole year, a better curriculum than our local Catholic school offers, and more peace of mind about not passing the coronavirus to at-risk relatives.

The biggest disadvantage would be that they would have less interaction with their friends at school, and less interaction with the outside world in general. (This would actually be both an advantage and a disadvantage, as it’s good for them to interact with other kids, but some of those kids are not a good influence.) We are undecided at this point, and two of our kids don’t want to do the classes at home. We will have to decide soon, as online classes are starting to fill up.

 

[Swiftdove]

We are hoping to keep the children home until there is a safety net of some sort from coronavirus, be it an available vaccine or a promising treatment. My daughter has asthma, and we have several young children and will have a newborn in August. My daughter didnt like the online schooling but she did well. It won’t be permanent and as much as I would love to be a homeschooling family, my daughter is not for it. She misses her friends and the classroom experience.
Not worried about restrictions at school,more concerned that they may open up even with the virus largely spreading.

 

[gracepoole]

We started homeschooling last October so the only question for us is whether our co-op will run. But this is essentially a no-win situation for many parents. Even if they worry about the safety of their children, if both parents work outside the home, they’ll likely have little to no choice but to send them back. If they don’t have any worries, school still is likely not to look as it did before the pandemic. I’m seeing proposed regulations like desks 6 feet apart and other social distancing measures, masks worn at all times, etc. That in and of itself would be a major shift with its own mental, emotional, and physical implications for children.

And then there are the teachers, who are struggling through all of this as well. They won’t have any choice in the matter – doubly so if they also have children in the school system.

 

[Allegra]

Would any families consider hiring a tutor/nanny that would supervise the online education, or even teach a customized homeschool curriculum while they worked? I currently pay my children’s childcare facility over $700 a week for my three children, one of which is only for three hours in the afternoon. I’m certain I could find a good nanny for that much, but I wonder if I could find one that could supervise a homeschool curriculum with my 1st grader and pre-schooler, which still caring for the toddler.

 

[blackforest]

I speak as a parent who has homeschooled and is now doing school-at-home through my children’s school. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that homeschooling is not the same thing that we’re doing now.

With homeschooling, you’re totally in the driver’s seat as the parent. There are as many different approaches to homeschool as there are stars in the sky.

During non-COVID times, your children absolutely can homeschool and make homeschooled friends.

To answer the OP’s question, I will absolutely go back to homeschooling if the schools remained closed, and quite likely if they remain open with masks, (which I don’t trust).

 

[blackforest]

It depends. If I needed to work full-time, it’s something I’d consider. (Some states allow only the parents or legal guardians to homeschool, so it’s important to check on laws).

There’s increasingly a movement of “cottage schools,” or ways of homeschooling away from home. In some states, they call themselves something like “learning centers” so as to avoid a lot of the legal red tape that comes with being a school. Here’s a Catholic one that’s taking off. https://www.rcahybrid.org/

The drawback is that students aren’t enrolled full-time, meaning that a single-parent or one parent can only work part-time if they have younger children. Places like this also come with tuition, although they’ll be cheaper than Catholic or other private schools because students only attend 2-3 days per week. Logically, however, they’d come with the same COVID-19 restrictions.

 

[Katie777]

My daughter will be attending the high school she chose which is catholic.
She may have virtual classes or not depending on the diocese.

 

[Allegra]

Missouri has very little regulation of homeschooling at all. Anyway, if the children are too young to stay home alone, you call the nanny a childcare provider and make sure that the parent turns in all the paperwork.