Anonymous wrote:Thinking about letting one child graduate early. It’s doable if we use summer school strategically.

With all the redshirting, this might become more common- kids that have been bored for years because they were held back as kinders want to graduate HS before they are nearly 20 years old!!

Anonymous wrote:I am strongly considering homeschool, at least through elementary. After seeing what is really going on in schools this past year, I truly believe I can teach my child everything they need to know academically through 5th grade and maybe even through middle school, with the possible exception of higher level science labs.

Through my research of homeschooling in the DC area, I have learned of so many opportunities for academic classes, enrichment, activities, socialization etc. I don’t think I am the only one coming to this conclusion.

We're COVID homeschoolers and I'm seriously considering continuing it for my younger child next year. My older child is also thriving, but he misses his classmates. Otherwise, I'd continue for him as well. The public school model is not structured around how children actually learn best. It's mostly behavior management and busy work.

Anonymous wrote:Pods are child care. Nothing has changed for us except 5he format of school.

The question is what will you change going forward. Will you keep the pod?

Permanent move to private.

We won’t do anything differently but we’re even more grateful that we had our kids in private school before all this started. They’ve been in-person with constant testing since August and it’s been amazing. Worth every penny.

We have little faith in public schools now, just in general, so realize we need to be able to be more self-reliant and mercenary when it comes to educating our kids. We had been planning on leaving NoVA after the kids graduated from high school because we thought it was worth the cost of living to stay for the public schools. Now actively job searching out of state. My job has always been 100% WFH and DH's is transferable. Looking in a lower cost area where the schools are good but we could also afford to pay for private high school and dual enrollment with the state university is a much bigger thing in the public districts.

Getting a tutor. I had no idea DD was doing so poorly in school. (She’s in sixth so this is her first time having grades and I can see how reluctant she is to put forth effort)

Anonymous wrote:Applying and planning to send my children to Catholic school if they are accepted. It’s something I had strongly considered before (we are practicing Catholics) but ultimately decided against since our public school is highly rated. However, their commitment and ability to execute in person education this year when our local publics dropped the ball was definitely a tipping point.

+1. We were considering taking our kids out of private Catholic school (we’re Catholic but far from practicing) until this hit. Our school has been amazing and incredibly responsible through out this pandemic when the public school simply closed with crappy online school.

For one of my children, I'm going to be spending a lot of money at a Christian school for the forseeable future.

For the kids we have remaining in public, spouse had a touching faith in the expensive fancy education system our county runs; having to sit with children during DL got spouse entirely on board with the need for them to have a *lot* more supplementation time.

I am strongly considering homeschool, at least through elementary. After seeing what is really going on in schools this past year, I truly believe I can teach my child everything they need to know academically through 5th grade and maybe even through middle school, with the possible exception of higher level science labs.

Through my research of homeschooling in the DC area, I have learned of so many opportunities for academic classes, enrichment, activities, socialization etc. I don’t think I am the only one coming to this conclusion.

Applying and planning to send my children to Catholic school if they are accepted. It’s something I had strongly considered before (we are practicing Catholics) but ultimately decided against since our public school is highly rated. However, their commitment and ability to execute in person education this year when our local publics dropped the ball was definitely a tipping point.

Pods are child care. Nothing has changed for us except 5he format of school.

Thinking about letting one child graduate early. It’s doable if we use summer school strategically.

Will you do something differently post-pandemic? For example, we were invited to a preschool pod which hired the teachers from a local in-demand Montessori. The mom said it was working so well for everyone they would continue it beyond the pandemic.

For us, we home schooled for awhile, then switched states to be in a different public school, and for the future are considering public virtual charters, pods, homeschooling while traveling (world schooling), things I never would’ve considered before the pandemic.