ACPS Asynchronous only when quarantining?

[Anonymous]

Elementary teachers told us today that if kids are supposed to be quarantining they will have only asynchronous work to do and will not be Zooming in to their classrooms at all. In addition, they will be leaving their chromebooks at school, so I’m not completely sure how asynchronous work would be possible for kids who don’t have secondary computers at home. I understand having a Zoom option ongoing might make it easier for some kids to attend virtually when they need to be in person, but this temptation could be mitigated easily and offered only with permission. I just fear with cases increasing even before school starts, quarantine is an inevitable possibility (especially with Delta), and doing Clever busy work for two weeks is not what kids who missed out on so much last year really need.

After my kindergarten preview day drop off chaos (waiting with kids in the rain for 30+ minutes to get temp checked and into the school), I am feeling overwhelmingly negative about how ill-prepared they are for this school year.

[Anonymous]

The way that ACPS (and other local districts from what I understand) handled concurrent zoom means that for kids to participate from home via zoom, ALL kids in the classroom and the teacher also are on zoom so they could all hear each other. It's terrible for everyone. Keeping the kids in school in a real classroom setting is so much better--especially since it sounds like you're talking about Kindergarten.

It's not the system I initially thought it would be (and what some schools I know of in other states did) where the teacher taught normally and kids at home could watch them on zoom.

Yes, if your kid ends up having to quarantine at some point, that 2 weeks won't be ideal. But 2 weeks of asynchronous busywork is not much less in quality than 2 weeks of remote schooling (especially for a 5 year old) and it's much better than a potential year of in school zooming when you have to accommodate everyone else who has to quarantine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Elementary teachers told us today that if kids are supposed to be quarantining they will have only asynchronous work to do and will not be Zooming in to their classrooms at all. In addition, they will be leaving their chromebooks at school, so I’m not completely sure how asynchronous work would be possible for kids who don’t have secondary computers at home. I understand having a Zoom option ongoing might make it easier for some kids to attend virtually when they need to be in person, but this temptation could be mitigated easily and offered only with permission. I just fear with cases increasing even before school starts, quarantine is an inevitable possibility (especially with Delta), and doing Clever busy work for two weeks is not what kids who missed out on so much last year really need.

After my kindergarten preview day drop off chaos (waiting with kids in the rain for 30+ minutes to get temp checked and into the school), I am feeling overwhelmingly negative about how ill-prepared they are for this school year.

This is accurate. Arguing at the SB meeting last night about teachers needing to be vaccinated and when they need to produce the vaccine card bc it's "protected health information"--give me a break.

[Anonymous]

APS is doing the same for quarantining elementary students. Unless a class has more than 50% of the class out at the same time, work during quarantine will be asynchronous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way that ACPS (and other local districts from what I understand) handled concurrent zoom means that for kids to participate from home via zoom, ALL kids in the classroom and the teacher also are on zoom so they could all hear each other. It's terrible for everyone. Keeping the kids in school in a real classroom setting is so much better--especially since it sounds like you're talking about Kindergarten.

It's not the system I initially thought it would be (and what some schools I know of in other states did) where the teacher taught normally and kids at home could watch them on zoom.

Yes, if your kid ends up having to quarantine at some point, that 2 weeks won't be ideal. But 2 weeks of asynchronous busywork is not much less in quality than 2 weeks of remote schooling (especially for a 5 year old) and it's much better than a potential year of in school zooming when you have to accommodate everyone else who has to quarantine.

Well it is if you have an IEP, which we do

[Anonymous]

I have no idea what they are actually going to do at individual schools, but the school division is saying that they will do livestreaming of classes for quarantined students:

http://www.acpsk12.org/news/?p=17606&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=latest-updates-for-back-to-school

[Anonymous]

2 weeks of quarantine/asynchonous work will cause high schoolers to fall behind. Kids will go to school sick.

[Anonymous]

Ugh. Really? Our teacher shared nothing. She was on for five minutes and cut off parents trying to ask questions about encore. I am really worried and can't begin to understand what ACPS leadership has been doing the past 18 months.

[Anonymous]

Please read the link above