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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

+1

[Anonymous]

My older pre-k 3 child (just turned 4) is doing great, all things considered.

We go for an early morning walk first thing, before class starts, to get the jitters out. She does morning meeting, has a break, does small group, another break, then storytime. We’re done by 1050 am. Then we go to the park. We skip specials - I can provide better art/storytime/PE/music anyways and she’s over it by that point. We follow that schedule three days a week. On Wednesday’s we have 1:1 which she loves. Then we go on a hike. And on Fridays, our school has a school wife morning meeting, which we skip, but participate in the normal small group and storytime.

She responds well to the routine, and sings and dances, etc. she dislikes when it gets loud with background noise from the other kids and doesn’t like waiting to talk, but I think that’s pretty normal.

And yes my husband and I work. I work early in the morning, and take over once school starts. Then I work during nap and in the evenings.

[Anonymous]

My PK3er is virtual but live with her teacher or a special's teacher from 8:50-11:30. Everyday. It's the perfect amount of time and she loves it.

[Anonymous]

My kid just turned 3 and he runs around all class! He can sit for a few minutes at the beginning, but otherwise usually plays with toys or runs around. An hour is just too long for him. I did give him a tootsie lollipop today and he sat longer than he’s ever sat before.... so maybe I’ll have to do that more often. I’ve notice a lot of parents give their kids snacks during class to keep their kid’s still.

I do cast the computer screen onto the tv so that it is easier for my son to see what’s going on even if he’s walking around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Have you tried calling the parochial schools in the area or high quality daycares? I did that and found a few open spaces one of which we are taking.

[Anonymous]

Yes - last year for Pre-K 3, I got him to come and sit for the session by enticing with snacks!

[Anonymous]

Considering the circumstances, my PK 4 is doing well. Academically, she’s learned a lot. Her morning has 3-4 sessions which keeps her busy until 11:30. She’s not getting the social piece- but we take her to the playground for that.

It’s not perfect but she’s learning and she’s safe.

[Anonymous]

PK here and sent our kid to daycare. We have non stop work meetings during day and can’t accommodate a PK online schedule and care for our kid during day. Unlike others, we kept our spot. We log into Canvas every night before midnight.

[Anonymous]

We abandoned DCPS for in person preschool after 2 weeks. Very glad we pulled the trigger. It was completely pointless. We weren't too concerned about giving up our spot as we didn't get in a super in demand school anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Have you tried calling the parochial schools in the area or high quality daycares? I did that and found a few open spaces one of which we are taking.

Agree. Our day care definitely taught numbers and letters even at 2. They are more expensive than in person pre-school and parochial school, though. I would call around to see if there are any spots available. If you aren't commuting, you may have the ability to drive a bit -- the suburbs have a lot more private preschools since public preK isn't universal. We are in a parochial preK now and are so thankful for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My PK3er is virtual but live with her teacher or a special's teacher from 8:50-11:30. Everyday. It's the perfect amount of time and she loves it.

Do you mind if I ask if you work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My PK3er is virtual but live with her teacher or a special's teacher from 8:50-11:30. Everyday. It's the perfect amount of time and she loves it.

Do you mind if I ask if you work?

DP, but even if the answer is yes, this is an outlier.

Also, my PK kid is a mess but that is partly because the PK program at our school has been a mess. We had a teacher quit a month in. Before she quit, we only had maybe a week and a half of live sessions, and there were almost no kids on them because the district still hadn't distributed devices (we are "lucky" in that my kid can use my work laptop for school, since I certainly am not going to be doing any work while she's doing DL anyway). But then that teacher quit and now we are in another class. It's not even clear to me if we joined another class that had already started or if this was a new class that was formed from multiple others -- it's never really been made clear and it's hard to find a chance to ask. Now there are more than 10 kids in the class, and it's chaos. They are finally adding in small groups and other sessions (in September with the other class it was just morning meeting sometimes), but at this point our kid is so checked out it doesn't matter. She dreads doing the sessions and lives for Wednesdays because we don't have class.

I'm so angry at both our school and DCPS for doing this. We have tried so hard to make DL work for our PKer, I've even scaled back at work to make time, but what am I supposed to do when they can't even keep the teacher or the schedule consistent from week to week? And the thing about kids not having devices or hotspots was unconscionable. The fact that a lot of kids in our school didn't get devices until late September is embarrassing.

Anyway, it's awful. Congrats to people like the PP who are having a great experience -- must be nice to be at a school with a functional administration and enough resources to be able to offer a functional DL program. For the 30% of students in the city it works for, I'm sure it's been great.

[Anonymous]

I think it has everything to do with the teacher. Ours makes it fun and engaging and my daughter is enjoying her class time. She has no issue sitting in front of the iPad in 20 minute spurts (which is all they do). Maybe because we don't allow much screen time in our house.

She's loving the fun activities with her teacher and classmates, and during a pandemic, it's the safest option for our family. We definitely do other things with her, so the virtual classes aren't the only thing she does all day. I think we're fortunate our jobs allow for that flexibility. I realize many don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My PK3er is virtual but live with her teacher or a special's teacher from 8:50-11:30. Everyday. It's the perfect amount of time and she loves it.

Do you mind if I ask if you work?

DP, but even if the answer is yes, this is an outlier.

Also, my PK kid is a mess but that is partly because the PK program at our school has been a mess. We had a teacher quit a month in. Before she quit, we only had maybe a week and a half of live sessions, and there were almost no kids on them because the district still hadn't distributed devices (we are "lucky" in that my kid can use my work laptop for school, since I certainly am not going to be doing any work while she's doing DL anyway). But then that teacher quit and now we are in another class. It's not even clear to me if we joined another class that had already started or if this was a new class that was formed from multiple others -- it's never really been made clear and it's hard to find a chance to ask. Now there are more than 10 kids in the class, and it's chaos. They are finally adding in small groups and other sessions (in September with the other class it was just morning meeting sometimes), but at this point our kid is so checked out it doesn't matter. She dreads doing the sessions and lives for Wednesdays because we don't have class.

I'm so angry at both our school and DCPS for doing this. We have tried so hard to make DL work for our PKer, I've even scaled back at work to make time, but what am I supposed to do when they can't even keep the teacher or the schedule consistent from week to week? And the thing about kids not having devices or hotspots was unconscionable. The fact that a lot of kids in our school didn't get devices until late September is embarrassing.

Anyway, it's awful. Congrats to people like the PP who are having a great experience -- must be nice to be at a school with a functional administration and enough resources to be able to offer a functional DL program. For the 30% of students in the city it works for, I'm sure it's been great.

Jesus. What school is this!!!? I would be livid. I'm so sorry.

[Anonymous]

Another parent who is barely doing DL for prek-3. We are at a charter that has a stricter attendance policy than DCPS - kids have to be present for one live session each day OR do one asynchronous task (video read aloud and drawing submission, etc).

We have a lot of fully absent days because our kid is at daycare.