How are kids doing in school?

I think this will vary widely geographically. Have you talked to anyone who lives in your district?

We have been in person all year, with a modified schedule. Kids don’t really complain about the masks. Social life is finally picking up, and things are looking a bit better. My middle son just went to prom last weekend and had a blast. The kids are so starved for some normalcy.

School work load has been hard with the shortened schedule. AP classes are being crammed and it seems there is never enough time for homework. But, we are making it. Typical end of the year burnout right now, but, other than that, morale is pretty good. We are a lot more open than most places, though.

Honestly, I think our kids (17 & 15) are going to have a super hard time if they go back to a “normal” schedule next year. It has been so nice to have Wed as a work from home day and to get out early on the other days. I wish that part could last forever.

Wow that is a tiny school! Our elementary k-6 is more than twice that and only half the size of the the largest elementary in our district!

That is tiny. My kid’s elementary has over 800 students and had been operating at about 95% capacity the year before Covid hit. I want to say only the equivalent of one classroom per grade (pre-k through 5th) has opted for 100% virtual for this year so there are still a LOT of kids going in person right now.

My DD’s two best girl friends have been attending hybrid all year and are back in person 100% since the beginning of March. They have not had as good of a school experience as my kid has had this year. When they were on distance learning, they maybe had one 30 minute Zoom with their teacher and classmates per day where my kid is on Zoom calls pretty much all day with the exception of lunch and independent reading time.

Her friends are glad to be back at school, but physical distancing is really not possible with the number of kids in school. They do have assigned seats in class, at lunch and on the bus to help with contact tracing. There have been about 20 confirmed cases and over 400 people possibly exposed/quarantined this year which kind of surprises me since most of the kids haven’t even been in the school building for close to half the year.

I don't have any kids in school anymore.
Our district has been in person since last August. They had/have all sports also. There was a modified plan for spectators, but now that it is all outdoor sports, I do not know if there are any restrictions.

They dropped the mask mandate in the school earlier this month.

Our county numbers sit at zero. Weekly average is zero.

They had Prom last weekend. Everything is going well right now.

I do live in a much lower population area, and this is a huge factor.

2 counties, 2 towns make up our area. They have a population of 5000 people spread out over land bigger than the size of Delaware. We are sparsely populated. There is a K-8 with 85 kids in the other town and a Catholic K-8 school also. So there are a few more kids out there.

Our district has about 750 kids and has reported 33 student positives since the beginning of the school year. I work in the elementary office and feel those numbers are pretty accurate. Only 2 or 3 of those were in the elementary, the rest were from the HS/MS.

As an employee and a mom (ds is in 4th grade) I feel in our building we’re doing a good job. The kids stay with their class only as much as possible (they do have a 2 combined outdoor recesses per day where there are 2 classes together, masks required). Specials teachers come to them vs the class moving and sharing supplies. They eat lunch in their classes. There’s plans in place for contact tracing, if there’s a positive we quarantine the whole class plus those within 6ft on the bus. Due to the increase in cases in our area we’re back to a 14 day quarantine (it was dropped to 10, it’s all based on health department requirements).

Academic wise, while in school it’s good. Unfortunately there were a few times we had to go fully remote for 2 weeks at a time due to the number of bus drivers in quarantine.....things fall apart on remote. Rumor has it there’s a huge amount of HS kids failing bc they consider those remote weeks as vacation and do nothing. Personally I find, through no fault of the teachers, those remote weeks as days full of busy work and nothing really moving the kids forward academically. There’s a significant number of elementary kids who do zero work those weeks and it impacts their grades as well.

I’m all for in person school. That said, keep your expectations reasonable. If you’re expecting a bunch of kids to keep their masks on every second or teachers to remind them the second they forget, it’s not going to happen. If you’re expecting kids to keep 6ft, or even 3ft, apart it’s not going to happen.

Obviously everyone is different depending on your district but this is our story.
We live in a really small town but our HS is in the adjacent town, 2300+ students and 250+ staff, 8 towns send their kids there. We have 3 cohorts, A is in person Monday-Tuesday, campus is closed for deep cleaning Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Cohort B is in person Thursday-Friday. Cohort C is all online. Surprisingly most of our positive cases have been cohort C.
We had limited fall and winter sports, no spectators. We have spring sports with limited spectators. All clubs went virtual.
Masks are to be worn all day even during sports. My DD is a runner, they wear the mask until their actual event the it goes right back on when they are finished. The hallways for each building are one way traffic as are the walkways outside. DD is at school from 7am to 4.30pm and she does ok wearing a mask. Her concentration is better in person with the mask and worse when online. Now ironically when the kids are in person they will log into their computers because the kids say it’s just easier for all of them to be in one location. So even though the teacher is standing in front of them, they watch as a class from their computers. They do utilize the open spaces on campus and take the kids outside for mask breaks too. One specific thing is choir is only allowed 30 minutes of singing and they kids have to be 6 feet apart side by side and 9 feet apart front to back and all facing the same direction while singing. I think band is doing the same but kids who don’t use their mouth for their instrument keep their masks on.

They replaced the tables in the cafeteria with desks spaced 4 feet apart and all facing the same direction. If you are talking and not eating the mask has to go back on. They do encourage the kids to eat outside if the weather is nice just so they aren’t all in the same space at once. We did open a second location to buy grab and go food too, just to ease congestion. They are adding lunch waves as the kids come back in person too.

All of our staff has been vaccinated as of last week. They did their second doses the Friday before April vacation. Now this week we are going back to 4 days a week. This week it’s the seniors returning to campus, next week will be the freshman, then the week after juniors, then sophomores. They are doing a slow roll out to see if we get any spikes in positive cases. The school sent out a survey and then a form to say if you would be going all online or all in school. If you are all online you can not participate in sports.
We opted to do cohort A for the hybrid and fully in person for DD. She struggled academically online and it took a heavy emotional toll on her. She needs people. She even joined a sport she had no intention of doing just to have human interaction and she’s made some really positive changes since joining, to the point that she’s giving up the spring musical to stay on the track team all 4 years.

Depending on vaccine roll out and positive cases I think fall will be back to 5 days a week and most likely masks until Christmas. That’s the speculation at the school right now. Our state floats between top 4 and top 7 for vaccines so I suspect things will start to go back to some kind of normal by fall.

We started the school year 100% virtual, the district started phasing in hybrid (2 days a week) in January. The district is now (there is supposed to be an announcement today) considering going to 4 days a week hybrid...

We chose to stay virtual. When hybrid started teachers were still not eligible to get the vaccine, and I did not want to deal with schedule changes (like going from 2 to 4 days a week, or going back to virtual if there was an outbreak.) 3 of my 4 kids ride the bus which is its own issue but I did not want to spend 4 hours a day carting kids to and from school (four kids in four schools in four different directions with staggered start and end times.)

The kids are doing OK gradewise, but the virtual kids get ignored with teachers teaching both hybrid and virtual at the same time. Socially my kids are bored but we're on schedule A and everyone we know is on schedule B, so they wouldn't see their friends at school anyway...

I'm not sure about next year, the 16-year-old is getting vaccinated today so she'll go back in September. The other 3 aren't old enough for vaccines yet, so I don't know.

Dd 15 is in gr 10 and it’s been a pretty good year considering. They wear masks all day except for 15 min to eat. If dd wants to eat a snack I tell her to walk outside between classes. During most of the year she ate in the lunchroom for lunch. Now that the weather is nice she’s eating outside in the courtyard. For two weeks I brought her home at lunch because cases in the community were on the rise. She’s happy at school. She is doing after school activities plus school sports. She’s also dancing 4x week at her dance studio. Without school I don’t think she’d be as happy.

Dd 12 is in gr 7. She’s same campus different building. In fall her grade was masks recommended. She wore hers all day. Since November her grade has been masks mandatory. She is allowed to take hers off for gym but she doesn’t. Lunch is inside only. They sit at reduced capacity tables. She’s so happy at school. She does after school activities and sports like debate, field hockey, volleyball and outside of school she dances 4x day.

Both of my girls are in full day school and have been since sept. They are happy and motivated and are fulfilling the curriculum. We are lucky that our gov’t would close down absolutely everything just to keep schools open. Older dd had 5 cases in her school since sept. Younger dd has had 1 in her school since sept. It is clear that kids in school has reduced cases amongst kids here. I know in some communities where spread was greater that schools had more issues.

We had the option to be online but not through our school. Only through the district. One would have had to dis-enroll from school.

My 15 year old just went back yesterday. The school offered a 30 minute tour of the school last week for freshman so they would have a general idea of where their classes were located. DD went but right before the tour felt extremely anxious. Yesterday, I didn’t see any anxiousness when I dropped her off other than 1st day of school feelings. The school only has capacity for about 1/3 of the total students due to social distancing which ends up being about a 1,000 kids. DD said the hallways were pretty packed and she can’t imagine how passing periods work when all the students are there.

In our area all the kids are used to wearing masks whenever they go anywhere so wearing a mask for 5-ish hours is not a big deal at all . Haven’t heard one complaint or concern about that. I picked DD up yesterday after her last class and many of the kids wore their masks all the way to their parked cars. In other words, the weren’t ripping them off the second they stepped outside.

For high school, the schedule has been set so that lunch is the final period of the day. The kids can stay for lunch or are free to leave after their last class.

They do have assigned seating in every class but I believe all of DD’s teachers let the kids pick their seats. I don’t know if assigned seating is normal in a high school...I can’t remember that far back. Otherwise, no cohorts that I am aware of.

One interesting thing about going back to school is that I believe all schoolwork and tests will continue to be done on the computer. I don’t think there will be any work that gets handed in to the teacher and tests will be administered online. We were not even asked to send a pen or pencil in for the first day.

My kids 6 and 13 have been in person learning. There have been a few shut-downs, where they are made to go remote. We are currently remote, and will probably be until the end of the school year. We have to work and day cares are closed, so it's a bit of a shitshow

Mine are much happier in person than remote. The masks are easy and you get used to them. They used to take them off when they went outside, but most of the kids kept them on anyway, so they changed it. They eat in smaller cohorts and outside play is in smaller cohorts. Lunch is socially distanced.

Neither of my kids had any issues with masks- my son has made me promise he can still wear them after COVID on numerous occasions. He thinks they are great fashion accessories, and may possibly give him ninja powers.

Good luck with whatever you choose. Hopefully, September will bring more semblance of normal.

I have a HS senior and a college senior.  Both have been home and distance learning since March 2020.  The HS had an easy year, 4 classes, and did well fall semester but definitely done with HS at this point.  I need to poke him and check grades to make sure he's doing well enough.
College senior had a very rough spring semester (5 very intense classes) but will get mostly As and a few BS like always.  He really hates it online and will go back to Chico for his last semester, no matter what they do.

My 8YO son has been in person since the middle of August. It's the best place for him. Did I worry about him getting it? Yes. Did I worry about us giving it to his classmates/teachers? Yes. Did I worry about his ability to wear a mask all day? Yes. But there is no comparison for him between distance learning and in person. For a variety of reasons, it's a much better situation for him to be in person.

They wear masks almost all day. Only off to eat and certain gym activities. He's not even allowed to take it off for speech therapy - God bless his speech teacher. I don't know how she's doing it.

They do build in "mask breaks" when they are physically distanced from each other by more than 6 feet. And I get the impression the students can ask for a mask break if their mask is bothering them for some reason. They stay only with their class. They go to recess only with their class and eat in pairs only with other people in their class. I worried about him wearing a mask all day, but he's very used to it and sometimes forgets to take it off once he's at home.

There was a period in the fall when the district's numbers were too high and they sent all of high school home in our district, but that hasn't happened since Sept/Oct.

And the worst did happen. My DH got COVID and then I had DS tested and lo' and behold he had COVID. Zero symptoms. We wouldn't have known if we hadn't have gotten him tested. We of course pulled him out and he did distance learning for two weeks, but there was absolutely no comparison of the level of engagement and instruction between distance learning and in person. Don't get me wrong - his teacher did a fantastic job incorporating her few distance learners (they also sent his lunch buddy home to quarantine and they still had 1 student left who is full time distance learning in his class). But it was a couple of 15-20 minute lessons with some homework we turned in digitally rather than him being engaged with the interaction in the classroom and immersed in the process.

I don't know that they've said yet, but I don't think distance learning is going to be an option for the 2021-2022 school year. I've heard they're pushing a bit to try to get the few remaining full time distance learners back in the classroom before the end of our school year in five weeks.