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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm curious about the situations of the people on here who are adamant that teachers and kids of middle and high schoolers should immediately or near-immediately return to school?  Are the people who are having a really rough time with this here:

* work from home parents who have high powered jobs and are having trouble either balancing everything or hiring additional people to come in and managing that exposure (or maybe pay their nannies more); 
* [b]same, except essential workers who have to report to work;[/b]
* parents who have lost their jobs and need everything to get back to normal so they can find work;
* stay at home parents who are good people but are just out of their depth assisting with virtual school;
* parents who are working relatively low wage jobs and cannot afford to go on like this much longer;
* [b]parents who have seen their kids academic performance severely deteriorate and just really need help from teachers to get things back on track.[/b]
* parents of three or more kids who could manage this for a while but all the demands, all the meals at home, all the homework help, all the tech help, multiplied by however many kids there is just too much at this point.
[/quote]

I'm not demanding anything, and truth be told, I'm pretty resigned that my MS kid won't be back in school til fall at the earliest.  But yes, I am an "essential" worker, and yes, my kids are doing poorly.  My MS kid went from nearly straight As (MP1) to failing 2 classes, and barely getting Cs in the rest.  He barely gets out of bed or eats most days and weighs less than 70lbs.  For all of the claims that APS teachers are doing such an amazing job, I never heard a peep (nor did my kid) about numerous missing assignments.  Even on the 2/19 asynchronous day in which we were assured kids would get "outreach" if they had Ds-Es, there was nothing apart from "office hours" (which often happen simultaneously).  I arranged a meeting with his guidance counselor who chuckled when I asked if there was any consideration of relaxing some of the standards for kids who are having a time this year due to mental health issues and/or minimal parent availability/support.  My ES kid has been shamed, called out, emailed directly by teachers saying "you didn't turn in XYZ worksheet," etc etc--to the point that I emailed to ask them to stop.  There are days when she and I were doing school work until 8-9pm and I can't do that anymore.  Many of the teachers in her grade do not appear to know the kids' names, halfway through.  I do believe that kids could have been in school with the mitigations APS has outlined, in detail, since the fall.  But at this point, I have had to just try to figure out how to get through the day/week/month until...I don't know, maybe the fall?  Not even confident they will pull off 5 days a week by August so, I have to start considering other options.  But it has been truly awful for some of us and I hope those whose kids are doing well or at least okay can know that some of us aren't mean or entitled, just struggling, every day.   [/quote]

Which schools? Maybe you could bubble up with another family with kids in the same schools to have more connections?

If I knew another family at our schools were struggling so much I'd offer to take the kids during the day. 
[/quote]

I appreciate this.  We have discussed it many times and it is not something I think we can work out.  For one thing, my own kids are largely unsupervised during the day and so my partner is not comfortable with having additional kids in the mix.  We are fortunate to have 1 parent able to WFH but, while not "high-pressure" in the typical DCUM sense, there is not enough flexibility to allow for much in the way of helping during the school day.  (FWIW I have also shared this repeatedly with both kids' teachers and...no one cares.)[/quote]

Is your partner concerned about the virus?

Maybe reach out to the counselors at the schools?

At one of our schools (ES), one teacher started a lunch bunch as a way to connect with kids and the kids LOVED it. And in MS small groups have been a highlight for my child. Maybe the counselors would have ideas on connecting with other people in a more casual, smaller group? 
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