What’s your elementary school plan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is doing:
K - 4 days in person with teacher
1-2 - 4 days in person with teacher or "overflow" room with a monitor
3-5 A/B week rotation

Ours is the same, except they were explicit that 1-2 and would be 2 days with teacher and 2 days with monitor.

Poster you are replying to. I wish our school was that explicit. It's not clear to me if my 2nd grader will be in an overflow with a mix of other kids from other classes, or if he will just be with the same 12 kids all day regardless of teacher/monitor. If it is the former, I might just keep him home on monitor days so he's not exposed to more people. I do have to say that our ES is trying really hard and I appreciate all they are doing.

[Anonymous]

To all the people saying "our school" just say the schools name...you are on an anonymous board!

[Anonymous]

OK, so what am I missing. Our school is doing concurrent for 1st grade (kids in class with teacher, who is also teaching on Zoom). Are we really to expect 1st graders not to interact with the teacher (and vice versa? It's HARD for little kids to be taught from afar). One presentation indicated that the teacher will be largely at the Prometheon and students will do assignments on Chromebook but they will watch her in person? Like are they not supposed to watch a teacher who's right in front of them?

I can't picture this logistically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is doing:
K - 4 days in person with teacher
1-2 - 4 days in person with teacher or "overflow" room with a monitor
3-5 A/B week rotation

Ours is the same, except they were explicit that 1-2 and would be 2 days with teacher and 2 days with monitor.

Poster you are replying to. I wish our school was that explicit. It's not clear to me if my 2nd grader will be in an overflow with a mix of other kids from other classes, or if he will just be with the same 12 kids all day regardless of teacher/monitor. If it is the former, I might just keep him home on monitor days so he's not exposed to more people. I do have to say that our ES is trying really hard and I appreciate all they are doing.

It also seems possible that they would be able to have your kid with the teacher more than 2 days per week. Say they just needed to remove a few kids per class per day to get to the required numbers. Theoretically they could take turns having a few kids pulled over to the monitor. You would have mixing with a greater number of kids -- which does create a bit more risk -- but you would also have an actual teacher more than half the time.

I'd probably be willing to take that trade off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is doing:
K - 4 days in person with teacher
1-2 - 4 days in person with teacher or "overflow" room with a monitor
3-5 A/B week rotation

Ours is the same, except they were explicit that 1-2 and would be 2 days with teacher and 2 days with monitor.

Poster you are replying to. I wish our school was that explicit. It's not clear to me if my 2nd grader will be in an overflow with a mix of other kids from other classes, or if he will just be with the same 12 kids all day regardless of teacher/monitor. If it is the former, I might just keep him home on monitor days so he's not exposed to more people. I do have to say that our ES is trying really hard and I appreciate all they are doing.

It also seems possible that they would be able to have your kid with the teacher more than 2 days per week. Say they just needed to remove a few kids per class per day to get to the required numbers. Theoretically they could take turns having a few kids pulled over to the monitor. You would have mixing with a greater number of kids -- which does create a bit more risk -- but you would also have an actual teacher more than half the time.

Poster you are quoting. Agreed!

I'd probably be willing to take that trade off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our elementary school is doing:
K - 4 days in person with teacher
1-2 - 4 days in person with teacher or "overflow" room with a monitor
3-5 A/B week rotation

Ours is the same, except they were explicit that 1-2 and would be 2 days with teacher and 2 days with monitor.

Poster you are replying to. I wish our school was that explicit. It's not clear to me if my 2nd grader will be in an overflow with a mix of other kids from other classes, or if he will just be with the same 12 kids all day regardless of teacher/monitor. If it is the former, I might just keep him home on monitor days so he's not exposed to more people. I do have to say that our ES is trying really hard and I appreciate all they are doing.

It also seems possible that they would be able to have your kid with the teacher more than 2 days per week. Say they just needed to remove a few kids per class per day to get to the required numbers. Theoretically they could take turns having a few kids pulled over to the monitor. You would have mixing with a greater number of kids -- which does create a bit more risk -- but you would also have an actual teacher more than half the time.

I'd probably be willing to take that trade off.

Poster you are quoting. Agreed!

[Anonymous]

We still haven’t heard anything from our school, fox chapel, is anyone else in the same boat?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We still haven’t heard anything from our school, fox chapel, is anyone else in the same boat?

CCES has a meeting on Monday to provide more info. Otherwise, no info.

[Anonymous]

Rosemary Hills shared information this morning. Starting with a Support-to-Virtual model so kids in classrooms on laptops with headphones. Teacher may or may not be in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

The takeaway here is that the reopening plan is left to each school to determine given the differences in numbers, space, teachers willing/able to return. That makes sense, I guess, but I feel for the families with weak principals. But then again, a weak principal here and there is probably better than MCPS forcing a one size fits all model on all of the schools.

I really like the idea of reshuffling classes so one group is 100% virtual and the other is 100% in person because it is very difficult for teachers to teach both groups of kids at one time--especially for younger kids. Yes, it's complicated, but everything about this return to school plan is beyond complicated so this seems like a bit more work up front for simplicity down the road. It doesn't sound like a lot of schools are doing this though.

Our principal mentioned that she can't require teachers, paras, staff etc to get vaccinated before they return to school. She said "it's a personal choice." Setting aside issues with vaccine availability, how can this be left to "personal choice"? Private schools require every single human in the building to be vaccinated as a condition of their contract. It's a safety issue every bit as much as certain industries like construction requiring drug testing for construction workers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The takeaway here is that the reopening plan is left to each school to determine given the differences in numbers, space, teachers willing/able to return. That makes sense, I guess, but I feel for the families with weak principals. But then again, a weak principal here and there is probably better than MCPS forcing a one size fits all model on all of the schools.

I really like the idea of reshuffling classes so one group is 100% virtual and the other is 100% in person because it is very difficult for teachers to teach both groups of kids at one time--especially for younger kids. Yes, it's complicated, but everything about this return to school plan is beyond complicated so this seems like a bit more work up front for simplicity down the road. It doesn't sound like a lot of schools are doing this though.

Our principal mentioned that she can't require teachers, paras, staff etc to get vaccinated before they return to school. She said "it's a personal choice." Setting aside issues with vaccine availability, how can this be left to "personal choice"? Private schools require every single human in the building to be vaccinated as a condition of their contract. It's a safety issue every bit as much as certain industries like construction requiring drug testing for construction workers.

I mean, it’s a little more complicated than “do you want to be vaccinated?” Getting a shot right now involves a pretty good dose of luck and persistence. MCPS has told staff they won’t have any more to offer for another month, so staff have to find their own appointments if they don’t want to wait. I got lucky and found an appointment, but supply just won’t allow everyone to do that before we reopen. - a paraeducator

[Anonymous]

Of course it's more complicated than do you want to be vaccinated but the PP said "setting aside access issues." It's probably not feasible to get everyone who works at a school vaccinated before kids start coming back, but what about "you must be vaccinated by return to school in Fall 2021"?

FWIW--I have friends who teach at private schools and the administrations are aggressively working to get people vaccinated. Not that I'd expect BOE to do the same for MCPS employees....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To all the people saying "our school" just say the schools name...you are on an anonymous board!

But what difference does it make which specific school is doing what? It's not like anyone here has an option to pick schools based on what they are planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's more complicated than do you want to be vaccinated but the PP said "setting aside access issues." It's probably not feasible to get everyone who works at a school vaccinated before kids start coming back, but what about "you must be vaccinated by return to school in Fall 2021"?

FWIW--I have friends who teach at private schools and the administrations are aggressively working to get people vaccinated. Not that I'd expect BOE to do the same for MCPS employees....

What does aggressively trying to get people vaccinated mean? Do they have people frantically clicking on appointment websites to try to get people appointments?

I have trouble believing that private school administrators would have access to some special vaccine supply that would get around the issues relating to the difficult of finding appointments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it's more complicated than do you want to be vaccinated but the PP said "setting aside access issues." It's probably not feasible to get everyone who works at a school vaccinated before kids start coming back, but what about "you must be vaccinated by return to school in Fall 2021"?

FWIW--I have friends who teach at private schools and the administrations are aggressively working to get people vaccinated. Not that I'd expect BOE to do the same for MCPS employees....

What does aggressively trying to get people vaccinated mean? Do they have people frantically clicking on appointment websites to try to get people appointments?

I have trouble believing that private school administrators would have access to some special vaccine supply that would get around the issues relating to the difficult of finding appointments.

NP here. Private school administrators are helping their staff navigate the registration process by keeping them up to date on what's happening when and where and sharing experiences and best practices. They fought hard to get a dedicated avenue for their staff to get vaccinations (vs playing the lottery with Giant, CVS, etc). Now that Johns Hopkins is handling vaccinations for all educators, private schools are making sure their staff is registered with the Johns Hopkins system so that they actually receive the vaccination invitation when their number comes up. As I understand it, if you are not already a Johns Hopkins patient, you have to set up an account. I wonder if anyone is explaining that to the public school teachers and staff?