Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was a sample schedule for upper grades released by our principal, with a total listed as 4 hours of synchronous instruction.

10:00-11:15: Morning Meeting/LA
11:15-12:00 Science/Social Studies
LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Math instruction
BREAK
1:45-2:45 or 2:50-3:50 Specials

The assumption was that kids would do assignments after their synchronous time had completed as well.

OP, sounds like your school is choosing to do less than they could.

Our kids might be at the same ES. During the meeting, he said that this is the sort of schedule that a group of principals had gotten together and developed (as a rough outline), so maybe there will be a bunch of ES with similar schedules.

May I ask which elementary school this is? This looks like a good schedule for DL. I didn't hear anything from our principal. No meeting or emails

Anonymous wrote:I would be more likely to choose DL if i knew it was NOT up to the individual schools/principals to implement and the program was ran by a DL unit for FCPS. Our school, which is highly rated on great schools, did a terrible job with DL. Teachers did whatever they wanted and there was zero oversight. There was ONE hour of instruction a day for 4 days. No office hours. No small groups, nothing. No one was even getting pulled by specialists or even resource teachers. The principal was told and did nothing. We ended up finding resources online that other counties were posting for their students and had my child do those. We got a tutor who teaches at our school to help DURING spring DL. I'm choosing hybrid bc I can't risk that again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This actually sounds about right. People who thinks it is a straight 2.5 or 3.5 hours don't know how the kids are learning in school. Most of the time is spent doing independent/center work while the teacher works with different groups on different things. HS will look different because of their schedules and kids are already split based on specific classes. But ES has always been like this in regular times when kids were in school. Independent work is considered instruction time in the school, regardless of how you feel about it. Yeah, teachers could give feedback in the "small group" days that your child gets, but that also takes time. I mean, your kid is not the only kid in the class. The teacher can go over the activities in the small group and give all student feedback, but all this does is ensure that your particular small group will be seen maybe once a week, possibly once every 2 weeks depending on how many kids are in the class.

You are making pp's point that 100% virtual school day needs to be thought about differently. You can't recreate the in person school day online, and just cut out all the interactive parts. You have to be more creative.

This is the crux of the issue and why there will be MANY complaints this fall. Teachers are just doing what they did in the classroom but online. Teachers think it’s reasonable to count a child working alone offline as “teaching time”. Parents do not and will be expecting 3.5 hours a day of a live teacher on screen interacting with their child. FCPS needs to be clear what the expectations are either way before parents are locked in for a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was a sample schedule for upper grades released by our principal, with a total listed as 4 hours of synchronous instruction.

10:00-11:15: Morning Meeting/LA
11:15-12:00 Science/Social Studies
LUNCH
12:30-1:30 Math instruction
BREAK
1:45-2:45 or 2:50-3:50 Specials

The assumption was that kids would do assignments after their synchronous time had completed as well.

OP, sounds like your school is choosing to do less than they could.

Our kids might be at the same ES. During the meeting, he said that this is the sort of schedule that a group of principals had gotten together and developed (as a rough outline), so maybe there will be a bunch of ES with similar schedules.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This actually sounds about right. People who thinks it is a straight 2.5 or 3.5 hours don't know how the kids are learning in school. Most of the time is spent doing independent/center work while the teacher works with different groups on different things. HS will look different because of their schedules and kids are already split based on specific classes. But ES has always been like this in regular times when kids were in school. Independent work is considered instruction time in the school, regardless of how you feel about it. Yeah, teachers could give feedback in the "small group" days that your child gets, but that also takes time. I mean, your kid is not the only kid in the class. The teacher can go over the activities in the small group and give all student feedback, but all this does is ensure that your particular small group will be seen maybe once a week, possibly once every 2 weeks depending on how many kids are in the class.

You are making pp's point that 100% virtual school day needs to be thought about differently. You can't recreate the in person school day online, and just cut out all the interactive parts. You have to be more creative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you counting the reading and math time? Sometimes it’s independent work and sometimes it’s teacher- led, but it still would count as instruction. That adds up to about 3 hours. I’m guessing that the science, social studies, and perhaps other instruction periods would include activities that could add up to a total of 3.5.

I don’t get your math. If the child is working alone, that’s not instructional time. Even on OPs schedule, if it’s the child’s day for both reading and math groups, it’s well below 3.5 hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you counting the reading and math time? Sometimes it’s independent work and sometimes it’s teacher- led, but it still would count as instruction. That adds up to about 3 hours. I’m guessing that the science, social studies, and perhaps other instruction periods would include activities that could add up to a total of 3.5.

If a child logs off to do work independently while the teacher meets virtually with other
kids, then no—I would not consider what that child is doing alone to be “instructional time”. Do you? They are working alone at home.[/quote

In most classes there are multiple groups. Teachers are actively instructing one reading group, for example, while the other two are reading or doing independent group in the classroom. If the independent work is the same, would you view it as "instructional time"?