Tired of people with older kids dominating the conversation around schools and COVID

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, OP. It’s amazing to me that the same crowd can talk about the vital importance of early intervention and totally abandon children that very age for distance learning. The premise of Head Start rests on the very real science showing young children who fall behind academically are permanently handicapped by their early lack of education. At the very least, we ought to stop pretending distance learning in any way isn’t a major sacrifice made by our youngest students. And the children most affected by it will also be of the most economically vulnerable demographic. But hey! 5 year olds don’t matter! They can watch their 5 Minute Scholastic video and maybe the school will pity them enough to print a few worksheets.

They're not falling behind if everyone is doing it.

No, everyone is not doing it. I live in a UMC neighborhood and most of these children did not miss a beat. Between tutors and private school, some children are advancing even beyond grade-level and will be well-prepared to return to school even a year from now. My child never missed a day of school and continued with an academic summer program. The parents who work full-time and cannot afford a nanny-tutor or a SAHP are really in tough shape and I think it is deeply disturbing to witness the utter lack of consideration for them or their children.

No one has a lack of consideration. It sucks for those parents and those kids. What else is there to say? This is the situation we find ourselves in. Not everyone is in the best position in life.

I say this as someone who went from working at a decent job with enough money for a good life and childcare, to working from home with small children and an infant when the economy tanked in 2008. My younger DC didn't get the perks the older ones did, including good childcare, after school enrichment activities, sports, lessons, organic food, etc. Such is life.

Education is not a perk! We aren’t talking about haircuts or gyms or nail salons, we are talking about real American children who are being denied a right that will affect them for life. The data for young elementary students who start off academically behind is staggering and it is not something people are taking seriously enough.

Yes, I understand that. My point is that shitty things happen in life and you have to deal with them. We are in a pandemic. Small kids will not be in school. Suck it up already. We are taking it seriously. We are aware it has negative effects to keep kids home. But kids will be kept home, because there are more important things to deal with right now, like the pandemic.

No, I won't just suck it up. We actually don't have to take for granted that small children will not be in school. This is just the naysayers trying to shut down debate. If day care centers can be open, so can PK through 3. It just takes money, effort and will. For example, if grades 4-12 only do DL, there'd be plenty of building space to spread out our Pk-3 kids for in-person school. It is possible!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, OP. It’s amazing to me that the same crowd can talk about the vital importance of early intervention and totally abandon children that very age for distance learning. The premise of Head Start rests on the very real science showing young children who fall behind academically are permanently handicapped by their early lack of education. At the very least, we ought to stop pretending distance learning in any way isn’t a major sacrifice made by our youngest students. And the children most affected by it will also be of the most economically vulnerable demographic. But hey! 5 year olds don’t matter! They can watch their 5 Minute Scholastic video and maybe the school will pity them enough to print a few worksheets.

They're not falling behind if everyone is doing it.

No, everyone is not doing it. I live in a UMC neighborhood and most of these children did not miss a beat. Between tutors and private school, some children are advancing even beyond grade-level and will be well-prepared to return to school even a year from now. My child never missed a day of school and continued with an academic summer program. The parents who work full-time and cannot afford a nanny-tutor or a SAHP are really in tough shape and I think it is deeply disturbing to witness the utter lack of consideration for them or their children.

No one has a lack of consideration. It sucks for those parents and those kids. What else is there to say? This is the situation we find ourselves in. Not everyone is in the best position in life.

I say this as someone who went from working at a decent job with enough money for a good life and childcare, to working from home with small children and an infant when the economy tanked in 2008. My younger DC didn't get the perks the older ones did, including good childcare, after school enrichment activities, sports, lessons, organic food, etc. Such is life.

Education is not a perk! We aren’t talking about haircuts or gyms or nail salons, we are talking about real American children who are being denied a right that will affect them for life. The data for young elementary students who start off academically behind is staggering and it is not something people are taking seriously enough.

Yes, I understand that. My point is that shitty things happen in life and you have to deal with them. We are in a pandemic. Small kids will not be in school. Suck it up already. We are taking it seriously. We are aware it has negative effects to keep kids home. But kids will be kept home, because there are more important things to deal with right now, like the pandemic.

No, I won't just suck it up. We actually don't have to take for granted that small children will not be in school. This is just the naysayers trying to shut down debate. If day care centers can be open, so can PK through 3. It just takes money, effort and will. For example, if grades 4-12 only do DL, there'd be plenty of building space to spread out our Pk-3 kids for in-person school. It is possible!

And, what about the teachers and staff who will get sick? Are you willing to volunteer when they cannot get subs? Or, are you willing to help pay medical bills of families who catch it from your kids and family? PK is about child care. Suck it up and pay for it. We get you don't want to change your lifestyle and your million dollar house is more of a priority than your kids but you are not entitled to free preschool so grow up and figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope sorry. If your kid is 4 years old, put them in some sort of daycare. This isn’t an education issue, but a childcare issue and something that should have been planned for that didn’t include taxpayers money for babysitting.

Actually, DC's universal pre-K, and Kindergarten in general, are programs that were explicitly designed to provide parents with childcare so that they can work. These are taxpayer-funded initiatives that were always intended to address the lack of adequate, affordable childcare for young children. And lots of families make decisions on where to live and where to work based on the availability of these programs. If you don't know that, maybe you shouldn't be weighing on on policy discussions about the education system.

Well, that's super cool, but they can't provide free childcare during a pandemic, so you'll just need to adjust both your expectations and your choices accordingly.

What is really sad is those free pk spots should be income based and go to families who really need it. People who overspend on housing and vacations and other choices, including the number of kids are not entitled to free child care and are being greedy and selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, OP. It’s amazing to me that the same crowd can talk about the vital importance of early intervention and totally abandon children that very age for distance learning. The premise of Head Start rests on the very real science showing young children who fall behind academically are permanently handicapped by their early lack of education. At the very least, we ought to stop pretending distance learning in any way isn’t a major sacrifice made by our youngest students. And the children most affected by it will also be of the most economically vulnerable demographic. But hey! 5 year olds don’t matter! They can watch their 5 Minute Scholastic video and maybe the school will pity them enough to print a few worksheets.

They're not falling behind if everyone is doing it.

No, everyone is not doing it. I live in a UMC neighborhood and most of these children did not miss a beat. Between tutors and private school, some children are advancing even beyond grade-level and will be well-prepared to return to school even a year from now. My child never missed a day of school and continued with an academic summer program. The parents who work full-time and cannot afford a nanny-tutor or a SAHP are really in tough shape and I think it is deeply disturbing to witness the utter lack of consideration for them or their children.

No one has a lack of consideration. It sucks for those parents and those kids. What else is there to say? This is the situation we find ourselves in. Not everyone is in the best position in life.

I say this as someone who went from working at a decent job with enough money for a good life and childcare, to working from home with small children and an infant when the economy tanked in 2008. My younger DC didn't get the perks the older ones did, including good childcare, after school enrichment activities, sports, lessons, organic food, etc. Such is life.

Education is not a perk! We aren’t talking about haircuts or gyms or nail salons, we are talking about real American children who are being denied a right that will affect them for life. The data for young elementary students who start off academically behind is staggering and it is not something people are taking seriously enough.

Yes, I understand that. My point is that shitty things happen in life and you have to deal with them. We are in a pandemic. Small kids will not be in school. Suck it up already. We are taking it seriously. We are aware it has negative effects to keep kids home. But kids will be kept home, because there are more important things to deal with right now, like the pandemic.

No, I won't just suck it up. We actually don't have to take for granted that small children will not be in school. This is just the naysayers trying to shut down debate. If day care centers can be open, so can PK through 3. It just takes money, effort and will. For example, if grades 4-12 only do DL, there'd be plenty of building space to spread out our Pk-3 kids for in-person school. It is possible!

You realize that even if the kids go back to school, if anyone in the families of any kids in your child's class gets tested positive, that your class will all be on home quarantine. So, if your child is in a class with someone who has to work in a supermarket or Home Depot or hospital and contracts Covid and tests positive, all children in that classroom will be home. Are you willing to have your child in school for 3 weeks and then find that the classroom has to shut down and you have to pivot to distance learning, and have your family self-quarantine for 14 days. For families that have to work out of the house, that means that those people who work outside the home will no longer be able to go to work. So, basically if any family in the extended bubble of the classroom gets infected, all families go on home quarantine.

Now, add the hybrid model and the teacher is now exposed to 24 or so families and all of them are in the bubble. This is a highly contagious disease that is asymptomatic but infectious for days before symptoms appear. It's very reckless to expose teachers, school staff and families to this disease.

[Anonymous]

What is really sad is those free pk spots should be income based and go to families who really need it. People who overspend on housing and vacations and other choices, including the number of kids are not entitled to free child care and are being greedy and selfish.

The trouble with this is that some people choose to live or stay in DC, where you are pretty much guaranteed to have to "overspend" on housing, specifically because the city offers universal PK. We absolutely would have moved out of the city a few years ago, simply to lower our mortgage payments, but knowing that we could send our kid to free PK was a reason to stay. In other words, that "free" PK was built into the cost of our home.

The irony of your statement is that we have gone without vacations, date nights, new clothes, take-out, and all manner of material goods for years in order to afford the higher cost of living in the city, all because we felt being in the city would be better for our kids. And now we are still paying those high costs, my hours and income have been cut in half, all the museums are closed, just walking down the block in our busy neighborhood is anxiety-inducing, PK is going to be cancelled, and we still can't go on vacation.

I'm not sure I'll ever understand this weird attitude have that it's "selfish" or "greedy" to want broadly available social services like universal PK, or healthcare for that matter, that we all pay for via our taxes. It's not greedy, it's efficient. You pay either way, but this way more people have access and there are fewer rent seekers in the system. That's socialized services! They are great!

[Anonymous]

I hear you, OP.

Online learning for small children is useless. I hate the pod ideas. I’m not hiring a tutor to supplement ridiculous DL expectations. I am so fed up with following the roller coaster of school news. It’s stressful and it feels like nobody puts the best practices of the children first. I suppose I’ll have to find a way to homeschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure what or where you are reading but I am a parent of three high school aged kids who has been arguing in many threads that we should focus on returning the populations you mention to in person learning. I have seen other parents of older kids who agree. Don’t lump us all together.

Agreed- my kids are younger, but I was talking to a neighbor who has kids in middle and high school who didn't find DL very effective this spring either. I think part of it was that the subject matter was harder and they felt less like they could help their kids. They've already hired a tutor for the subject their son struggled the most with (math) but can't hire tutors for everything. And many families can't afford to do that at all.

This is where the barter economy comes in. I could not afford to professionally braid older DD’s hair when she was in K-5, but I could scrub toilets, bake pies, weed gardens and do a lot of other things that I bartered for those 2-3 hours of braiding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am on your side on this but I also don't think that it's helpful to pit "parents with older kids" against "parents with younger kids." The whole situation sucks for everyone but in different ways.

I have young kids (2YO and 5YO, rising kindergartner) and there is an approximately 0% chance that "distance learning" for my kindergartner will teach him squat. He is a smart kid, but doesn't interact with his teachers through fuzzy zoom connections with crosstalk in the same way he does in the classroom. It gives me heart palpitations to consider teaching him at home full time, because now he actually is supposed to learn things like reading and I don't think I can fathom just plunking him in front of a tv all day since although I will be working full time at home (as will my husband) I actually have a job to do.

Fact of the matter, regardless of how much people will disagree, is that distance learning is just not tenable for kindergarten, 4-7yoish education without an involved and present adult. Teachers have been expected by parents and communities to be those adults which has allowed women to go into the workforce, but now that many are working full time, we cannot just sub back in to that role without major adjustments and costs. The options for parents of young kids are to find an adult to care for and educate your kid, be that adult, or sacrifice education.

And to all the parents of rising juniors, etc = a neurotypical 16 year old can 100% learn online. There are whole curricula designed for that and students in rural locations (think: parts of Alaska, rural Montana, etc) have been doing this for decades. It's far from ideal, but older kids can get more from dl and also can do so without needing full-time attention from their parents.

Additionally, and this will start a firestorm I'm sure, younger kids do.not.transmit.covid.to.the.same.degree.that.older.kids.do (ote: I'm not saying they don't transmit! Or that they don't get sick! Just that they don't transmit *as much* and don't get sick *as much*, or *as sick*). And, despite what people assume, IME, younger kids are totally fine with masks. My kids are both at daycare and although it isn't required all the kids I have seen at pickup have been masked. So, the need is higher for those kids (and for those parents) for in-person ed, AND the risks are lower. And yet, many districts and states seem to be going with something closer to one-size-fits-all. It's frustrating.

You sound annoying. Most of K is to prep them for school for future years. With involved parents, DL can be fine for K. It is on the parents to teach them to read, write and math and most parents aren't willing to teach their kids. You don't have to sacrifice education. You have to teach them yourself which you should be doing as its part of parenting.

Gosh, thanks hon. I guess I'll just pull my tax dollars from public education (I mean, it's my job, right?) and tell my friends who teach K that I can probably do their jobs just as well as they can despite never having taken an education class in my entire life.

And, like I said, you *can* can teach your kids yourself. Many people do this. But you *can not* teach your kids yourself well AND work a full time job.

Regardless of school you should be working with your kids either way. You can spare 30-60 minutes a day with a few workbooks. They can do workbooks while they sit next to you if you are working at home. Its not that hard. Its about priorities and you figuring out how to balance them. Or, hire a tutor. We worked with our kids so they were reading, did basic math and writing before K. We started teaching reading at 3. They also went to a more academic preschool which helped. You can either find excuses or figure it out. I don't get why people like you have kids, especially multiple kids and then give up your parenting role to the school and expect them to do everything.

Right, the only people who should have kids are those who decided 10 years ago to choose a paper pushing job where they are able to work from home while supervising their kids during a completely unprecedented pandemic. Definitely doctors, nurses, law enforcement, judges, epidemiologists etc should not be having children. Especially because, you know, those jobs don’t pay much. You sound like you live in an entitled bubble. Do you understand how many people work very hard just so that our society keeps working? You are completely out of touch. I guess we should just all be out there serving those parents who had the good sense of choosing some non essential paper monkey job.