Pp, I’m a fed as well. My husband and I are sharing childcare duties for our 3 year old. It means we work a chunk, cover childcare, then work in the evenings after kids go to bed. Will your agency let you do this?

For the posters saying they love Wednesdays because it’s more time they get to spend hiking with their kids: can I ask if you work, and is so, what your job is? I’d sure love if my employer (a federal agency) would be cool with me being even more unavailable for huge chunks of time during business hours than I am already as a result of virtual learning.

My K doesn’t do homework. It’s not developmentally appropriate, pandemic or not. Agree with PP who said OP should send an email to the teacher stating what your kid will and won’t be submitting. Unfortunately I’ve done that (a few times) and am still getting stern emails from my kid’s teacher pointing out what he hasn’t done. It’s clearly a CYA move on the teacher’s part.

I don’t care whether teachers are working more or less in an online environment. Virtual K is not a thing. It’s not working. This is so ridiculous. Get kids back in school.

Reality check is needed here. I’m a tired parent too, but this is hard for everyone, and there are literally families who have loved ones passing away. We need el get a grip

Wednesdays are the best days of the week. It's the day we do music lessons, have medical appointments, go hiking, get homework done, do projects, etc. Kids need a break from hours of zoom calls, and I'm happy for it.

School is a total joke this year. My bright 7th grader is keeping herself sane by writing a novel (!). But she is learning precious little in school. It's absurd. I wish I could pull her out and let her read books and play music instead of useless hours on zoom. Like an hour of "PE" discussing electric cars?? What gives?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

Shaming really?

You have a lot of children so you know what to expect for a 5 year old?

Anything the student does now is HOMEwork. If they can't follow without you standing on top of them its fine - they aren't developmentally supposed to be able to do it solo and the teacher knows that. She can't say don't worry about it en masse because some can. But if you can't - tell the teacher. Its called communication and you must have been able to do that to get the 5 year old in the first place.

I've told my kid's teachers I won't be asking him to do extra work other than class. if he wants to fine but I won't push him. I also won't learn new apps - get new logins etc. I will take photos and email them.

No teacher has shamed me.


My sister teaches in FCPS. She loves the parents in her kid's school (she teaches 6th grade). She emails the parents the kids click two buttons and the parents see the kid did the assignment on their side. But what the kid has done is clicked a link and then not done the work (she can see how long they were logged in for). This problem lasted as long as it took for her to identify it. Parent's got an email and kids were punished and done and dusted.

Anonymous wrote:It’s ridiculous they don’t have any school on Wed. The last several weeks my sons school has given less and less work. Now, I have to find a way to supplement for whatever reason. We’ll be attending private the rest of his school career after this. Even virtual they don’t water down the workload.

These threads make me laugh. The large number of people complaining on here that their kids are having too. much. screen. time. (Junior is in 3rd grade, but has NEVER been on a screen.)

Even pre-pandemic a friend and I would shake our heads at the ridiculousness of school parents: half said there is TOO MUCH HOMEWORK, while the other half said there is TOO LITTLE HOMEWORK.

It was never just right. Never.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that. We are in the same boat but there’s no shaming.

Oh please, like the teacher is 'shaming,' they are probably asking them to do the homework. Hardly counts as 'shaming,' some of you look for sympathy wherever you can get it. It's pathetic.

If you can't do the homework talk to the teacher and communicate, that's what adults do to solve issues...

I teach older students but I email parents because I have to create a paper trail that the student isn’t submitting work. It’s not shaming, it’s what is required as part of my job. If the parents ignore my emails, which some do, there’s not much I can do. But they know their kid isn’t submitting work.

Montgomery County and Fairfax are also 4 days per week.
Same with my child's $49K "top" DC private.

It seems to be the norm this year.
I actually love having Wednesdays off. The kids (middle and high school) need the Zoom break and the day to do homework.

Anonymous wrote:

Why is there no school on Wednesdays?

The real answer is
(1) there is a pandemic
(2) the Trump administration and Republicans have massively mishandled the pandemic. Therefore your kid is not at school. So they have no school on Wednesdays.

If we wanted our kids to have school on Wednesdays, then the most impactful thing all of us could have done to control that is:
Voted for Hillary Clinton.

<realtalk>

This!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that. We are in the same boat but there’s no shaming.

Oh please, like the teacher is 'shaming,' they are probably asking them to do the homework. Hardly counts as 'shaming,' some of you look for sympathy wherever you can get it. It's pathetic.

If you can't do the homework talk to the teacher and communicate, that's what adults do to solve issues...

I think a lot depends on the homework - tons of workbook pages, especially if your child completely understands the concept is ridiculous. Creating a shape robot as they are doing the shape unit - that is assigned even with "regular school" and each student shares it in the meetings. Same with any books they are working on during their live sessions - if they need 3 pages of their book completed and only do 2 during live work time. The next day when everyone is back together to share - yes the teacher will ask what did you add on your third page. That isn't shaming - that is making sure the student is keeping up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that. We are in the same boat but there’s no shaming.

Oh please, like the teacher is 'shaming,' they are probably asking them to do the homework. Hardly counts as 'shaming,' some of you look for sympathy wherever you can get it. It's pathetic.

If you can't do the homework talk to the teacher and communicate, that's what adults do to solve issues...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

Yikes. Sorry to hear that. We are in the same boat but there’s no shaming.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason doesn't matter, don't make your K do a bunch of homework they don't want to do. Use it as another weekend day.

OP here. This has been our approach. However the teachers have started shaming the kids (and parents) who do not complete the assignments. I’m ok with the no school on Wednesdays thing if there’s a good reason behind it but I am absolutely not ok with a teacher shaming 5 year olds bc their parents didn’t have time to do the mandatory homework.

send a sternly worded email. I’ve informed the teachers exactly what we can and cannot support at home. My child is older so I actually don’t mind if they “shame” him into completely asynchronous work on his own, but that’s between him and the teachers.

The amount of work being taught has increasingly gone down over the past 3 weeks. My kid hasn’t nothing to do on Wednesday’s now so I have to find something to supplement. It’s a total joke and I’m just going to bite the bullet and do private next year even it’s virtual.