Virtual Learning for Elementary School-Description by Our Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher in another district and would find this schedule really disappointing for my own dc.

School is going to be a disappointment in any format this year. As a parent and teacher I have really had to sit with the discomfort of that but it is true.

[Anonymous]

Why on earth are we even still talking about specials being involved in DL or in person? Can't they use that time for something else and their "specials" time can be on the 3 days when they are at home doing busy work? How about they do it like the online summer PE courses where kids have fit bits, etc and do exercising/activities on their own time? I would much rather have my child use the time allotted for PE to work on social studies/science rather than running the pacer with a mask on. What about library time too? Will that be one entire language arts block on one of their in school days and there will be no LA instruction bc of library? Can't art send the child home with materials to create something on one of their "off days" and bring it back the following day? Our principal has not mentioned any proposed schedules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why on earth are we even still talking about specials being involved in DL or in person? Can't they use that time for something else and their "specials" time can be on the 3 days when they are at home doing busy work? How about they do it like the online summer PE courses where kids have fit bits, etc and do exercising/activities on their own time? I would much rather have my child use the time allotted for PE to work on social studies/science rather than running the pacer with a mask on. What about library time too? Will that be one entire language arts block on one of their in school days and there will be no LA instruction bc of library? Can't art send the child home with materials to create something on one of their "off days" and bring it back the following day? Our principal has not mentioned any proposed schedules.

Someone asked our principal earlier this week if there would be material sent home for the virtual learners like art materials, textbooks, chapter books etc. and he said no.

Fitbits would be pretty expensive to provide all the kids. Maybe they can do yoga or zumba or strength exercises. Ball skills with a soccer or basketball. My kids love specials and I'm really hoping their teachers are innovative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a teacher in another district and would find this schedule really disappointing for my own dc.

School is going to be a disappointment in any format this year. As a parent and teacher I have really had to sit with the discomfort of that but it is true.

But this schedule isn't even trying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Teachers provide” 3.5 hours of instruction to include small groups. Not every kid will receive small groups on the same day apparently. This is what happened in the spring to us. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I would push back on your principal. This seems wrong.

I am in agreement that kids should be getting more than 2.5 or 3.5 hours of instruction, although I do think it will be hard for kids to attend to computer instruction for much longer—giving choice boards and independent work gives them a chance to do some work on their own without having to try to engage constantly. Additionally, kids NEED to do work on their own; I am not just dumping knowledge in their heads, I am teaching them to apply it, so they need application opportunities. I would rather see the independent work time bracketed by lessons so they return to the teacher and can be a little more accountable.


Of course kids won’t get small groups on the same day; they don’t in the classroom, either. If I have 60 minutes for guided reading and do 20-minute groups, I can only fit in 3. The other kids have independent reading work I have assigned. Kids also need that independent time—they have to practice reading on their own to get better at it, and not just for homework.

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I think 3.5 hours of live instruction is more than enough, but that’s not what the schedule posted by OP provides. It’s much less! I also agree there needs to be practice time, but that work needs to be reviewed by a teacher in small group time. That didn’t happen last year and it was awful to make our kid do all fo the assignments but never get any feedback. We don’t want to grade his work! He hates us as teachers lol. That’s your job, we are too mean.

PP- laughing at everyone here. I agree the kids need feedback on their work, they will get that with DL as work will be graded. They do NOT need to have the teaching looking at them while doing the work. I honestly wonder if most of the posters here went to school. Do you not remember working on work at your desk? That doesn’t need to be done on a camera. If your child needs that much face time with a teacher in the 6th grade, you should be looking at an IEP. Your 6th grader is either in middle school or headed there and needs to take charge of their own learning. They absolutely should be able to get directions from the teacher, attempt to follow up and be able to email the teacher or ask questions during office hours. IF they can’t, you should be concerned about middle school.

I didn’t say the work needs to be done on camera. I said it needs to be reviewed, preferable in small groups so the child actually gets feedback on areas where they might struggle. Also we are talking about elementary school, not middle school. At least in my case, 3rd grade. 3.5 hours is plenty, like I said. 3 is okay, I’m assuming the office hours make up the extra 30 in the sample. I don’t think it’s a bad schedule if each kid gets one small group and access to office hours every day.

This is way less than 3 hours though?

Is it, looks like about 3 including 1.5 hours of specials, one small group (either math or reading), and 30 minutes of office hours. Did I miss something?

Office hours are not going to be every day. Your child is not going to get small group time every day. It will probably be once per week per subject. If its not his day, it's 50 minutes of instruction with the teacher. That's it.

That’s not what the schedule says though? I mean you can say this, but it’s not true. Looks like teacher will do math and reading groups daily, and the kids will get one of the two each day. So 2 reading group days and 2 math days. Plus 1.5 hours of specials. Plus morning meeting, office hours, and 50 mins of instruction in math, language arts, and social studies. I get that you want to feel good about sending your kid In person but this DL schedule is not as bad as you are making it out to be.

[Anonymous]

This schedule is a lot less instruction than our kids had in the spring!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This schedule is a lot less instruction than our kids had in the spring!

Your kids had 1.5 hours of specials on top of their language arts and math instruction? Wow. We did not! Wish we had.

[Anonymous]

For language arts, it unclear how many groups can meet each day (one hour, right? maybe two groups?). There's only 20 minute for math group--that can only be time enough for one group.

It depends on how big the classes are and how many kids are in each group. For simplicity sake, my best guess is the teacher will try to do four groups of each and do one group each day for LA/math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This schedule is a lot less instruction than our kids had in the spring!

Your kids had 1.5 hours of specials on top of their language arts and math instruction? Wow. We did not! Wish we had.

The schedule posted by OP has 30 minutes of specials per day.

[Anonymous]

Thinking of our elementary school, if they moved specials instructions to the "off days", that would free up 6 full size classrooms (including the gym, music rooms and Spanish classrooms and art rooms). They could go back to being normal classrooms. I don't even think all FCPS have Spanish class in elem.

[Anonymous]

My child was 3rd grade at Willow Springs. In the spring she had, live with the teachers:

20 minute of math
10 minutes of morning meeting
20 minutes of reading
20 minutes of writing
30 minutes small group meeting (not every day for her)
and then a specials block for 30 min that was FLES, Art, Music, and PE each week.

The independent work was done outside of the live school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This schedule is a lot less instruction than our kids had in the spring!

Your kids had 1.5 hours of specials on top of their language arts and math instruction? Wow. We did not! Wish we had.

The schedule posted by OP has 30 minutes of specials per day.

Oh my mistake, dang. Well then yeah, this is not enough for anyone other than k-2.

[Anonymous]

^^Also STEAM class once a week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Teachers provide” 3.5 hours of instruction to include small groups. Not every kid will receive small groups on the same day apparently. This is what happened in the spring to us. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I would push back on your principal. This seems wrong.

I am in agreement that kids should be getting more than 2.5 or 3.5 hours of instruction, although I do think it will be hard for kids to attend to computer instruction for much longer—giving choice boards and independent work gives them a chance to do some work on their own without having to try to engage constantly. Additionally, kids NEED to do work on their own; I am not just dumping knowledge in their heads, I am teaching them to apply it, so they need application opportunities. I would rather see the independent work time bracketed by lessons so they return to the teacher and can be a little more accountable.


Of course kids won’t get small groups on the same day; they don’t in the classroom, either. If I have 60 minutes for guided reading and do 20-minute groups, I can only fit in 3. The other kids have independent reading work I have assigned. Kids also need that independent time—they have to practice reading on their own to get better at it, and not just for homework.

I think 3.5 hours of live instruction is more than enough, but that’s not what the schedule posted by OP provides. It’s much less! I also agree there needs to be practice time, but that work needs to be reviewed by a teacher in small group time. That didn’t happen last year and it was awful to make our kid do all fo the assignments but never get any feedback. We don’t want to grade his work! He hates us as teachers lol. That’s your job, we are too mean.

PP- laughing at everyone here. I agree the kids need feedback on their work, they will get that with DL as work will be graded. They do NOT need to have the teaching looking at them while doing the work. I honestly wonder if most of the posters here went to school. Do you not remember working on work at your desk? That doesn’t need to be done on a camera. If your child needs that much face time with a teacher in the 6th grade, you should be looking at an IEP. Your 6th grader is either in middle school or headed there and needs to take charge of their own learning. They absolutely should be able to get directions from the teacher, attempt to follow up and be able to email the teacher or ask questions during office hours. IF they can’t, you should be concerned about middle school.

I don't want small reading groups for my 5th grader, I want discussion, Socratic seminar, book club, etc. Real instruction and real school.

Uh, you want private school

[Anonymous]

We have that in 5th grade in FCPS, in real school. It is one of the few activities that translates well to virtual school.