Question to parents of kids doing DL

[Anonymous]

We didn't. School has online clubs and boy scouts is mostly online.

[Anonymous]

No. It was in the spring but the faculty gave up, watered down the curriculum to make it easier, and now I am partially homeschooling.

[Anonymous]

It’s not good for my 9 year old with SN. He was mainstreamed almost 100% last year and doing so well. Now he can’t move around because of distance learning so he is in his SN class all day. We see behavior regressions. We don’t see academic regressions because he likes to learn so he reads a lot and does math for fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you took away all of the supplemental enrichment activities and tutors you have for your kids and only looked at the DL your child is getting, do you think DL is as good as regular school pre Covid?

I think it is better, actually. We do not have any supplemental enrichment activities and tutors. The kids are working in the schoolroom we've set up in a bedroom (had to kick out a kid so now two boys are bunking together to do it). We did not hire a tutor or anything like that. My husband and I take turns being in the schoolroom with the kids, working from our own desk, in 2-hour shifts so that we have time outside of the schoolroom for phone calls and our own Zoom meetings.

I've posted about this on a few threads but my kids go to schools that their older siblings also attended. I've saved materials from each kid and those are in binders in the schoolroom. I can tell by going through the binders that the teachers are covering the expected material in basically the same time frame. If anything even though they only have synchronous classes two days a week, I think the kids are covering the same material but MORE THOROUGHLY in those two days a week than the older kids did in five-days-a-week. The difference seems to be that the teachers aren't having to manage bad behavior in students and that used to bog them down.

We're very happy with DL and the way that our kids' schools are functioning during this very challenging time. Our kids are happy and thriving. They actually seem less stressed than their siblings were because they have a lot more flexibility and down time. They have a ton more ability to stand and stretch or take bathroom breaks and their classes have a lot less wasted time. It has been win-win for us.

[Anonymous]

I think it's going really well. We don't have tutors or anything, but my kids use Khan Academy sometimes if that counts. They probably aren't supposed to, but I allow that or independent reading during SEL lessons or if they don't feel like doing ST Math. Three kids, one in AAP, two in Gen Ed, all in ES. I feel like the younger two are learning the same stuff their older sibling did at the same pace. I'm actually thinking about putting the two in Gen Ed in k-12 for the rest of the year if their school does that concurrent mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you took away all of the supplemental enrichment activities and tutors you have for your kids and only looked at the DL your child is getting, do you think DL is as good as regular school pre Covid?

Of course not. They're not learning how to problem solve in a group, how to share materials, how to do a project without adult involvement etc.

Then stop helping your kid. You claim the teachers aren’t helping. If that’s true and you also stop, then no adult is involved!

[Anonymous]

Of course it's not as good. And guess what? the education wasn't good in-person either, so you can only imagine how terrible it is now.

[Anonymous]

Of course not. I have not expectations that it should be.

[Anonymous]

It’s painfully clear that my first grader has learned absolutely nothing from DL this year. Despite my best efforts to put a positive spin on it for her, my dd is bored stiff, has grown to hate school, and regularly asks me why her teacher only teaches things they already learned last year. My biggest parenting regret is not pursuing sending her to in person Catholic school this year when we had the chance.

[Anonymous]

Well my kid is PK (we're in DCPS) and the answer is that DL is useless for this age group. I guess you could say we "supplement" in that we spend time with our kid and read to her sing songs and do activities where she learns things. But we'd be doing that if she was in in-person PK. I don't like how much screen time she gets with DL and thus we don't do much of it.

The truth is that we budgeted for her to be in public PK this year and since she is not, this has been a big challenge for us. We did not have the money for private PK or daycare in the fall. We've managed to piece together funds for the spring semester, but now we are on multiple waitlists and I'm not holding my breath for a spot (though you never know). So for us, the biggest deficiency really is childcare, followed closely by socialization for our DD, though I don't worry as much about that because I don't think it's a big deal if she doesn't get it until next year. But the loss of childcare has been pretty challenging.

[Anonymous]

One child isn't learning very much from DL school, but, in fairness, he wouldn't have learned much in-person.

Another child, in language immersion, is definitely learning significantly less in DL than she would have in-person.

However, we have a *lot* more time to supplement, so academically it's a net win.

[Anonymous]

One kid is doing great - probably better. Combination of her personality suiting it, her teachers being great (DS had them before and they were great then), teachers adapting to virtual environment, perfect age (still does everything she is asked), etc. She does extra work for fun, just to fill up her time. I think she is actually learning at a faster pace and will be far ahead because of this.

Other, older kid, isn’t great. He is lazy and not self motivated, he misses the social aspect, thrives with competition, etc. His teachers are fine (probably would have been fine but not great in person). The teachers are ok with virtual, but not great. He is at an age where he is pushing a lot of limits- and basically does the bare minimum. As soon as a teacher mentions something is optional- he won’t do it. Cuts corners. Etc. Hard to tell what permanent ramifications this will have on him.. but it can’t be good.

[Anonymous]

My children are not doing any supplemental learning OP.

I don't see any difference in teaching, but my 10th grader's teachers are saying that they don't have time to teach everything they usually teach for these subjects. One even went so far as to say that he couldn't recommend anyone take AP Physics for next year because he didn't have time to include his introduction to that course in his Honors Chem class.

So... make of that what you will.

Personally, I'm happy with DL because I can see my children are less stressed. They can sleep in later every day instead of wasting precious morning sleep in busing to school. That's priceless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you took away all of the supplemental enrichment activities and tutors you have for your kids and only looked at the DL your child is getting, do you think DL is as good as regular school pre Covid?

It was never going to be "as good" as in person. It is a safe, intelligent alternative to putting people into prolonged indoor exposure for 6+ hours a day during a pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s painfully clear that my first grader has learned absolutely nothing from DL this year. Despite my best efforts to put a positive spin on it for her, my dd is bored stiff, has grown to hate school, and regularly asks me why her teacher only teaches things they already learned last year. My biggest parenting regret is not pursuing sending her to in person Catholic school this year when we had the chance.

My DC had the same complaint when she attended Catholic school prior to the pandemic.