PK parents: two months in, what does DL look like for you?

[Anonymous]

We are in PK 4 and it's just awful. The teacher is even less motivated than the kids. It's painful for everyone. Sometimes "class" is dismissed after 7 minutes. They get about 30 minutes a day total. I can't switch out because it was a lottery seat at a highly regarded DCPS where my older son has done great.

I had to enroll her in 4 outschool classes, which show that virtual learning CAN work for this age. She loves her "princess PK" and "Playdoh Club" and "Animal Alphabet".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in PK 4 and it's just awful. The teacher is even less motivated than the kids. It's painful for everyone. Sometimes "class" is dismissed after 7 minutes. They get about 30 minutes a day total. I can't switch out because it was a lottery seat at a highly regarded DCPS where my older son has done great.

I had to enroll her in 4 outschool classes, which show that virtual learning CAN work for this age. She loves her "princess PK" and "Playdoh Club" and "Animal Alphabet".

Oh so that happens in other classes too? Yeah, both of my kid's main teachers rarely stay on for more than 15 minutes and there's clearly no lesson plan. Library is usually less than 10, which is less time than it takes me to get the child seated and still in front of the computer! Our "PE" teacher has stopped logging in other than to say "watch the YouTube video I posted!"

What are these people being paid to do?

[Anonymous]

We pulled our daughter out of DCPS mostly due to switch to virtual and kept her in pre-k in her daycare. And it's going pretty well.

I think your question was more about people who kept kids in, but not an option for us.

For those of you doing prek at home, do you work and how do you handle that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We pulled our daughter out of DCPS mostly due to switch to virtual and kept her in pre-k in her daycare. And it's going pretty well.

I think your question was more about people who kept kids in, but not an option for us.

For those of you doing prek at home, do you work and how do you handle that?

Sorry "kept kids in virtual learning programs"

[Anonymous]

We hired a babysitter because we also have a K kid at home who needs assistance. Our PK3 teacher is fantastic. I adore her. We have max 3 20 minute sessions a day, including specials. I think that’s about all our kid could handle. I think she’s learning a little and connecting with her teachers. They seem to be working incredibly hard as well. But is it worth it for DCPS to put all these resources into virtual PK3? I’m not so sure. We do it because it’s there and we are getting some benefit. But it’s a huge bummer all around - even with a great teacher, a relatively compliant kid, and a full time babysitter.

[Anonymous]

Not particularly well for us in PK4. We've scaled back to just attending the 1 on 1 sessions and small groups. My kid likes those because he likes talking to his teachers, but really if he didn't I wouldn't mind skipping them either--they just practice writing two letters then call it quits. Shrug. Thank God it's PK and not an older grade.

[Anonymous]

It is very ridiculous that preK kids can't go to school. They are the least risky in terms of coronavirus, and also the least likely to get anything out of distance learning. Thanks teachers' union! Can you please let me three-year old go to school now?

[Anonymous]

We are in a small in-home daycare and my son logs in for the morning meeting and 2 small groups a week. From what I can tell, he is pretty engaged in class, but he does not participate or talk much. I think that is his shyness and not been able to form a close relationship with the teacher. It is a Spanish immersion PreK 4 and he is a native speaker so I'm sure that helps with his attention and engagement. He also has daily SeeSaw activities which I do at home with him and I like being able to work on that with him and helps me feel connected (except when he has to write his last name which he hates.)

[Anonymous]

My children's teachers are really trying, but the virtual learning is not working for us. I enrolled my kids in a parochial preschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will respond as an outlier. It’s going truly fine for my prek3 child. She’s excited about logging in to her live sessions each day and is engaged in the content even though she’s never met her teachers or classmates in person. From what I can tell about 80% of her classmates are also logging in regularly to both the large group and small group sessions, which is much higher than I anticipated. Some of the other kids are pretty disengaged but most are good at participating.

It’s not a substitute for actual school and I cannot wait until she is actually back full time, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the experience.

Same here. Our PK3 son has the same teacher and teaching assistant that his older sister had, so there was a little familiarity. He sings songs, dances, plays games, and absolutely loves the 1:1 time. It's not a lot....4 morning meetings/week, plus 1 or 2 1:1 sessions. It is much better than I anticipated.

[Anonymous]

PK4 at a charter, and I think it's going ok. My kid can handle a max of 10-15 minutes at a time, and our classes are usually no longer than that anyway. Some days are better than others, but I think he's getting something out of it. But if in-person were an option, we'd switch in a heartbeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in PK 4 and it's just awful. The teacher is even less motivated than the kids. It's painful for everyone. Sometimes "class" is dismissed after 7 minutes. They get about 30 minutes a day total. I can't switch out because it was a lottery seat at a highly regarded DCPS where my older son has done great.

I had to enroll her in 4 outschool classes, which show that virtual learning CAN work for this age. She loves her "princess PK" and "Playdoh Club" and "Animal Alphabet".

Oh so that happens in other classes too? Yeah, both of my kid's main teachers rarely stay on for more than 15 minutes and there's clearly no lesson plan. Library is usually less than 10, which is less time than it takes me to get the child seated and still in front of the computer! Our "PE" teacher has stopped logging in other than to say "watch the YouTube video I posted!"

What are these people being paid to do?

Just an FYI your kid isn't the only kid in the classroom. I can't speak for other teachers but my pk students get 70 minutes everyday, including Wednesday. They also don't cry anymore, which is great. We've really gotten into a routine. And thank god for props!!

[Anonymous]

My DCPS PK3 kid is doing really well. Her teachers are so hard-working and put in so much effort with the kids. She usually gets about 3 hours/day that's broken up into 30 minute increments with breaks in between. Sometimes it's difficult because some children are loud and don't participate, but overall she's been getting a lot out of it, especially since she gets a good amount of 1-on-1. Not to say she wouldn't prefer to be in class, but for DL I am really impressed with the teachers and lesson plans.

[Anonymous]

It is not working out for our PK3 kid. I have kind of given up. We do DL two days a week and our kid is in group care 2 days, and then we each take off one morning a week to be with her (we can usually muddle through the afternoon with lunch, nap-time, and taking turns with her, and still get in a half-day of work).

The DL is chaotic. It's frustrating because it's clear our daughter is really interested in learning her letters and in getting interaction with the teacher and other kids. But there is so much happening on the screen, it is so loud (SO much background noise from the other kid's mics) and there are constant technical issues. I still think she gets something out of it, because she will bring up the letter of the day and talk about it and practice writing it on her own when we aren't on DL. But the actual experience of doing the live lessons via DL feels tortuous. We have a bunch of lessons back to back and usually we just do the first one and then tap out. At that point, we all need a break and my kid needs to move around and talk. It feels really unkind to try and make her sit in front of a screen for long periods of time.

It doesn't feel sustainable. I'm not happy with her group care setting either -- I don't think she's getting much stimulation despite promises of music and art and nature walks. It was the best we could find that we could afford and had availability.

I would jump at in-person PK in a heartbeat. Our family will do whatever we need to do to make that option viable. My main focus right now is to try and keep my kid from hating school too much, so that she has an opportunity to go to actual school, she might actually enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in PK 4 and it's just awful. The teacher is even less motivated than the kids. It's painful for everyone. Sometimes "class" is dismissed after 7 minutes. They get about 30 minutes a day total. I can't switch out because it was a lottery seat at a highly regarded DCPS where my older son has done great.

I had to enroll her in 4 outschool classes, which show that virtual learning CAN work for this age. She loves her "princess PK" and "Playdoh Club" and "Animal Alphabet".

Oh so that happens in other classes too? Yeah, both of my kid's main teachers rarely stay on for more than 15 minutes and there's clearly no lesson plan. Library is usually less than 10, which is less time than it takes me to get the child seated and still in front of the computer! Our "PE" teacher has stopped logging in other than to say "watch the YouTube video I posted!"

What are these people being paid to do?

Just an FYI your kid isn't the only kid in the classroom. I can't speak for other teachers but my pk students get 70 minutes everyday, including Wednesday. They also don't cry anymore, which is great. We've really gotten into a routine. And thank god for props!!

Uh at no point did I imply that my kid was the only one. In fact, I didn't refer to my child for anything other than the amount of time it takes to get the kid seated. Great. I'm glad you apparently spend the full amount of time in the classroom, but I have four different teachers at one school who really don't seem to be putting the effort in. These are the lessons that ALL of the students are getting. It's not a one on one.