Virtual Learning for Elementary School-Description by Our Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did y’all really read the DL info sheet for ES closely? It seems like you didn’t.

It’s says FCPS staff (not just the teachers— special, guidance lessons, etc count too) will provide 2.5 to 3.5 hours of direct, synchronous instruction (whole group, small group, individual).

The 2.5 to 3.5 hours is the time a teacher or staff member spends teaching that day. Not the amount of direct contact time your kid has. Especially since ES does not do well with 3.5 hours of a teacher lecturing the whole class.

So, 3.5 hours for 4th grade might well be a 20 minute morning meeting, 1 hour of actual instruction (20 LA, 20 math, 20 science or SS), 1 hour of small groups for reading and math, and if it’s not your kids day they log off (because the teacher can’t monitor, and groups will happen less often with larger class sizes). 30 minutes of specials. And 40 minutes of office hours during which the teacher works 1:1 or with small groups in areas where they are struggling.

If your kid doesn’t happen to have small group scheduled or need 1:1 that day, their direct contact time is more like 2 hours, morning meeting, 1 hour of direct instruction, and specials. The rest of the time they are doing worksheets and reinforcing concepts.

So, OP’s schedule is dead on. When they say an hour of La, they don’t mean an hour of Hs or college level English lit lecture. They mean 20 minutes of ABCs and sight words and group learning and 40 minutes of reading groups.

And BTW, that’s what a kid in class gets too— a 15 minute lesson, then work on stations or a worksheet during reading groups. you kid don’t get 3.5 hours of actual academic instruction during normal times in school until late ES/MS.

If you read the actual language of what you were promised, that’s it.

Thanks so much for the clarification! It certainly has helped me make up my mind about what my option will be this fall. We'll be going hybrid.

[Anonymous]

So what you are saying is there is no minimum amount of time a child is required to be taught under the virtual model? Here, there is only 50 minutes of instruction by the classroom teacher, 20 minutes of morning meeting, and 30 minutes of specials (which may or may not be live, but we will count them). That’s 100 minutes at most of the child doesn’t have small group meetings. Less than 2 hours. Even the small group meetings would only add maybe 20 more minutes of time with the teacher. So that gets your child to 2 hours, total. Far less than 3.5.

If you are saying this plan was described from the perspective of the school system (staff will be teaching 3.5 hours each day), and not from the perspective of the student (child will receive 3.5 hours a day of instruction).....well, that was an odd choice by FCPS.

[Anonymous]

This schedule has 135 minutes of teaching by the classroom teacher (including small groups and morning meeting) and 30 minutes by the specials teacher. Even assuming the promised 3.5 hours was from the perspective of hours taught by teachers and not hours taught to each student....that’s not 3.5 hours.

[Anonymous]

How what bs, 15 minutes here and there, looks like the trump administration is going to cause fcps to open up more in person. Devos is right these virtual online offerings are subpar garbage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys. An elementary aged kid can't listen to a teacher talk for 2.5 - 3 hours out of the day and actually absorb what is being said. Middle elementary kids have attention spans of like 15 minutes. Then they need to practice things a little or take a break. It would be absurd to have a 2.5 - 3.5 hour chunk of time with the teacher talking to the kids over the computer continuously the entire time. And your kid would hate it and not learn much. In school, they do a little mini lesson on the rug, then they get up and do independent work such as rotating stations with worksheets, computer work, math games, group work, etc.

You can’t recreate in person school online. You are right-it doesn’t work. That’s what people are saying all through the thread. You have to be creative and use your imagination. FCPS should have talk to the teachers who did a great job in spring, find out what they did, and replicate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How what bs, 15 minutes here and there, looks like the trump administration is going to cause fcps to open up more in person. Devos is right these virtual online offerings are subpar garbage.

FCPS won’t do anything because of trump and DeVos.
No one gives a crap what either of them think. Please see your way out and let the adults talk.

[Anonymous]

Our principal confirmed last night that each child will receive 2.5 to 3.5 hours of live instruction every day. So the PP above is incorrect. If your principal is not providing that, definitely push back.

[Anonymous]

Why would FCPS write the description of the program for families based on the amount of hours it expected staff to be working each day online? That theory doesn’t make sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our principal confirmed last night that each child will receive 2.5 to 3.5 hours of live instruction every day. So the PP above is incorrect. If your principal is not providing that, definitely push back.

And it was 2.5 hours for K-2 and 3.5 hours for gr 3-6, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our principal confirmed last night that each child will receive 2.5 to 3.5 hours of live instruction every day. So the PP above is incorrect. If your principal is not providing that, definitely push back.

does that include small group time (when you child presumably will not be receiving instruction when they are not a part of the group), or is there just no small group time? If the total time for a day is 3.5 hours, and there is any break out time, your child will not receive 3.5 hours

[Anonymous]

wow - that schedule sucks - especially for the older elementary kids. How are people on this thread saying it looks okay??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This schedule has 135 minutes of teaching by the classroom teacher (including small groups and morning meeting) and 30 minutes by the specials teacher. Even assuming the promised 3.5 hours was from the perspective of hours taught by teachers and not hours taught to each student....that’s not 3.5 hours.

Exactly. What a colossal fail by FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our principal confirmed last night that each child will receive 2.5 to 3.5 hours of live instruction every day. So the PP above is incorrect. If your principal is not providing that, definitely push back.

does that include small group time (when you child presumably will not be receiving instruction when they are not a part of the group), or is there just no small group time? If the total time for a day is 3.5 hours, and there is any break out time, your child will not receive 3.5 hours

I think most people would be OK with less than 3.5 hours if their child’s math and language arts small group met with the teacher daily.

[Anonymous]

Agree, or if what was being provided was very high quality, innovative, engaging, effective. No one wants their kid staring at a screen watching 30 minutes of show and tell and positivity project and teachers playing videos of other teachers doing read alouds.

[Anonymous]

I'd this much different that what they get in person?

If so, then our kids are getting shortchanged to begin with.