Proposed Hybrid for HS and MS would be one day a week. Is it worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One day a week is better than none. Labs, presentations, q&a - much better in person.

yes, but if you're doing this with 25% of the class on each of the 4 days, what is the other 75% of the class doing on each of these days???
Who is teaching them at home?
Are they just doing homework?

Yeah, that's my question too. I would prefer five days of in-person school, of course, but ... if it's ONE day of in-person school with no social stuff (no recess, lunch in the classroom, no after school activities) plus four days of working on homework/tests/whatever, then I'd rather have five days where they're actually SEEING their teachers and interacting with them. Maybe it makes sense for high school - as the parent of a middle-schooler, I felt that language learning and science class were probably the least suited to distance learning, but they aren't really doing big time lab work in 6th-7th grade. (though they were doing some fun experiments! I'm trying to supplement that a little bit at home with some science kits and lots and lots of NOVA but it isn't the same of course.)

High school and middle school don't have recess. And of course they will be social kids talk to each other in class and at lunch.
One day keep everyone accountable to do the work on the other days. Any amount of actual face time, checking in, time for in person questions, labs, hands on projects is important. Of course the school needs to completely change the scope of the school and prioritize what schools need to be teaching on the in person day and the online days .

PP here. middle school ABSOLUTELY has recess, at the very least in 6th grade. They have one period that’s lunch and recess and my kid would scarf his lunch as quickly as possible to go out and play basketball (and sometimes go to GRIT during the lunch part so he could play basketball for a little while.) And ... we don’t WANT kids talking to each other during class because they’re supposed to be learning and they will be maskless at lunch so we don’t want them talking and spreading germs there. We just went for a hike with a friend of my rising 7th grader - they had to be reminded constantly to keep their distance and the other kid had to be reminded to pull his mask up over his nose. This was a little glimpse into what will be happening for 6 hours every day they are back in school.

[Anonymous]

If students are coming just one day a week, then on the other 4 days, students would need to do what normally would be done in school on those 4 days or even 5 days, basically homework. On that one day, students would have one 50 minute session for each of their 6 subjects. What can a student learn in a 50 minute session? What can a teacher introduce or review in a 50 minute session? It would end up being a social and emotional check in and get to know you kind of session probnably for the first month. At this stage it looks 100% DL. The hybrid model would only work to slowly introduce students and teachers to each other and to the school and eventually get back to a 5 day a week in-person school, but only when the numbers decline and it is deemed safe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see how they will have staffing for this. It will require almost 100% of the teachers to come back to teach in person. If even 10% can't teach in person because of being high risk they won't have the teachers to be able to have 25% of the kids each come in one day per week.

Also, if the teachers are teaching 25% of the kids 4 days of the week, what do the 75% who are home on each of those days do?? Are they just doing homework? They can't tune into the in-person quarter because I assume they will be taking tests, doing presentations, etc.

How in the world does staffing work for this?

None of this makes sense. It's not unique to DCPS (I'm not jumping on them). It was the problem with all the hybrid models that other districts were proposing.

DCPS middle school teacher here. This is what keeps me up at night. We’ve received zero information about what our teacher schedule would look like in a hybrid scenario, making it impossible to plan. I am assuming under this model I would be in the building every day with a different cohort of 12 (numbers-wise it seems like the only way...although I’m still confused how they would have staffing for this given that in a normal school day I would teach 100 kids a day). However if I’m teaching kids all day in the building, I can’t be doing live instruction for the cohorts at home or even efficiently answering email/text questions about curriculum. It’s a logistical nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see how they will have staffing for this. It will require almost 100% of the teachers to come back to teach in person. If even 10% can't teach in person because of being high risk they won't have the teachers to be able to have 25% of the kids each come in one day per week.

Also, if the teachers are teaching 25% of the kids 4 days of the week, what do the 75% who are home on each of those days do?? Are they just doing homework? They can't tune into the in-person quarter because I assume they will be taking tests, doing presentations, etc.

How in the world does staffing work for this?

None of this makes sense. It's not unique to DCPS (I'm not jumping on them). It was the problem with all the hybrid models that other districts were proposing.

DCPS middle school teacher here. This is what keeps me up at night. We’ve received zero information about what our teacher schedule would look like in a hybrid scenario, making it impossible to plan. I am assuming under this model I would be in the building every day with a different cohort of 12 (numbers-wise it seems like the only way...although I’m still confused how they would have staffing for this given that in a normal school day I would teach 100 kids a day). However if I’m teaching kids all day in the building, I can’t be doing live instruction for the cohorts at home or even efficiently answering email/text questions about curriculum. It’s a logistical nightmare.

I guess the kids are teaching themselves 3 out of 4 days.

[Anonymous]

It would be worth it if DCPS planned to do actual instruction on that day. If you read the presentation, you will see that elementary students would have core instruction during their in person days, but grades 6-12 would still have all core instruction delivered virtually. The in-school day was for something like “academic support and social emotion learning”. I think this is the natural result of the cohort issue - for contract tracing purposes, they are going to isolate kids into groups of 10 that are in person with the same adult all day long. Better for isolating COVID, but at this level where students switch classes, it does not lend itself to delivering academic instruction.

So that means my middle and high school kids would still need to complete all of their course work on the other 4 days of the week, and would spend one day sitting in a classroom doing who knows what? Something like study hall mixed with sessions about their feelings? Seems miserable and not a good enough reason to expose them to potential virus. I am willing to take the risk for academic instruction but I don’t think DCPS plans to deliver academic instruction to the 6-12 graders under their hybrid model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be worth it if DCPS planned to do actual instruction on that day. If you read the presentation, you will see that elementary students would have core instruction during their in person days, but grades 6-12 would still have all core instruction delivered virtually. The in-school day was for something like “academic support and social emotion learning”. I think this is the natural result of the cohort issue - for contract tracing purposes, they are going to isolate kids into groups of 10 that are in person with the same adult all day long. Better for isolating COVID, but at this level where students switch classes, it does not lend itself to delivering academic instruction.

So that means my middle and high school kids would still need to complete all of their course work on the other 4 days of the week, and would spend one day sitting in a classroom doing who knows what? Something like study hall mixed with sessions about their feelings? Seems miserable and not a good enough reason to expose them to potential virus. I am willing to take the risk for academic instruction but I don’t think DCPS plans to deliver academic instruction to the 6-12 graders under their hybrid model.

They would get help with work they don’t understand, in person.

As well as emotional support.

Getting in person help, some peer interactions, and free therapy 1x a week seems worth it to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be worth it if DCPS planned to do actual instruction on that day. If you read the presentation, you will see that elementary students would have core instruction during their in person days, but grades 6-12 would still have all core instruction delivered virtually. The in-school day was for something like “academic support and social emotion learning”. I think this is the natural result of the cohort issue - for contract tracing purposes, they are going to isolate kids into groups of 10 that are in person with the same adult all day long. Better for isolating COVID, but at this level where students switch classes, it does not lend itself to delivering academic instruction.

So that means my middle and high school kids would still need to complete all of their course work on the other 4 days of the week, and would spend one day sitting in a classroom doing who knows what? Something like study hall mixed with sessions about their feelings? Seems miserable and not a good enough reason to expose them to potential virus. I am willing to take the risk for academic instruction but I don’t think DCPS plans to deliver academic instruction to the 6-12 graders under their hybrid model.

They would get help with work they don’t understand, in person.

As well as emotional support.

Getting in person help, some peer interactions, and free therapy 1x a week seems worth it to me.

NP but I don't see how they could get in person help and stay within their cohort. Kids have all different schedules, especially at the high school level. I think they wouldn't get in person support.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t u set estimate the value of students having a touchstone in person with the school especially since the year is starting virtual. For some kids who are getting good support at home and are doing well with motivation it is likely not necessary. Other students might have a huge boost in motivation by actually being in the school 1 day a week even if no content instruction is happening. Social-emotional support, tech support, help making a personal schedule of their virtual learning are all things an adult in the school building could do. Again- not necessary for all kids but potentially the difference to allow for engagement for others.

[Anonymous]

"They would get help with work they don’t understand, in person.

As well as emotional support.

Getting in person help, some peer interactions, and free therapy 1x a week seems worth it to me."

I don't get how the one teacher would be able to give them help with work they don't understand unless it happens to be in their discipline. Suppose the one teacher for a cohort is a geometry teacher--how are they doing to provide help with French, English, etc? Seems more likely it will be nonacademic content and I'm having a hard time imagining what that would be to fill 6 hours. Also wondering if they plan to have them in the room for six hours solid including lunch and recess. That sounds pretty miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"They would get help with work they don’t understand, in person.

As well as emotional support.

Getting in person help, some peer interactions, and free therapy 1x a week seems worth it to me."

I don't get how the one teacher would be able to give them help with work they don't understand unless it happens to be in their discipline. Suppose the one teacher for a cohort is a geometry teacher--how are they doing to provide help with French, English, etc? Seems more likely it will be nonacademic content and I'm having a hard time imagining what that would be to fill 6 hours. Also wondering if they plan to have them in the room for six hours solid including lunch and recess. That sounds pretty miserable.

This is why it will be DL for high school. This just doesn't work.