Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 16:06     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Parents and teachers:

Let's go ahead and say that school will be virtual next year. Does anybody have any idea how many hours a day the kids will be expected to "be at school"?

My kids will be in PK3 and K..and just trying to figure out/think about a possible schedule.

TIA


There will not be DL for preK


Do not provide misinformation, this has become a ‘maybe.’ We won’t know for sure until Friday.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 15:45     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:Parents and teachers:

Let's go ahead and say that school will be virtual next year. Does anybody have any idea how many hours a day the kids will be expected to "be at school"?

My kids will be in PK3 and K..and just trying to figure out/think about a possible schedule.

TIA


There will not be DL for preK
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 15:42     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:Another DCPS teacher here. My school had zero requirements. There were teachers teaching 2-3 hours a day and others who did no live lessons whatsoever. Some of those teachers also did no videos or any real form of teaching outside of contacting parents. This is one of the reasons some parents are leery of distance learning. As a school district, we need to assure parents that things will be better since we have more knowledge now, and some people are better equipped to emotionally deal with the health crisis. Also, those teachers that didn't teach before because they had young kids to take care of should consider taking a leave of absence if they're unable to find childcare.


This is the root of the problem. As a parent, I am furious about the "distance learning" that occurred in the spring. If DCPS had done a spectacular job, you wouldn't see these angry reactions from parents about distance learning in the fall. But DCPS failed, many teachers didn't pull their weight, and many principals failed to provide the leadership their school community needed. So here we are- parents don't trust that their kids will receive any real education or attention in the fall and they are angry.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:47     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
DL at our DCPS was one 30 minute-1 hour full class show & tell once/week. One 20-30 minute 1-on-1 check-in w/ the teacher /week. And 5-10 minutes of recorded content most days w/ associated work that took my kid 30 minutes max (and sometimes 0). That's it.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:37     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Another DCPS teacher here. My school had zero requirements. There were teachers teaching 2-3 hours a day and others who did no live lessons whatsoever. Some of those teachers also did no videos or any real form of teaching outside of contacting parents. This is one of the reasons some parents are leery of distance learning. As a school district, we need to assure parents that things will be better since we have more knowledge now, and some people are better equipped to emotionally deal with the health crisis. Also, those teachers that didn't teach before because they had young kids to take care of should consider taking a leave of absence if they're unable to find childcare.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:34     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:I'm a DCPS teacher, and I don't have any inside information on the schedule, but from conversations with my colleagues I think we are all planning to do more and require more from students than we did in the spring. For example, in the spring I had live sessions 2-3 times per week, and in the fall they will be 4-5 times per week. In addition, I am planning to pull more small groups and do more individual meetings than I did in the spring. I am expecting that the experience for students will be significantly more robust.


Curious- were your 2-3 live sessions available for all students to log in, if they had access and wanted to? Or was that 2-3 sessions and you divided up your 25 kids, so really they each got 1?
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:19     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:At the elementary level, I have heard there will be 2 days a week with live instruction and 1 day a week for small groups. Depending on grade level, it can be up to 3 hours of instruction on live instruction day. Breaks will be built into the learning.

so distance learning will only be for 3 days per week? WTF. So my kids will have no more than 9 hours per week of instruction whereas before it was 20+?



I think that’s if it’s a hybrid model.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:13     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
I'm a DCPS teacher, and I don't have any inside information on the schedule, but from conversations with my colleagues I think we are all planning to do more and require more from students than we did in the spring. For example, in the spring I had live sessions 2-3 times per week, and in the fall they will be 4-5 times per week. In addition, I am planning to pull more small groups and do more individual meetings than I did in the spring. I am expecting that the experience for students will be significantly more robust.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:08     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It better be more than last time. We got less than two hours of live teaching a week.


Our school had two, 25-min live sessions per week. Insane. It all fell to the parents. We’ve already been engaging the chancellor’s office to make sure our principal doesn’t pull this stunt again.


Was this Hearst?


I’m a NP, my kids go to Hearst and this sounds like what they got! It was really horrific and better not happen again.


At our DCPS elementary school, we had NO live teaching. AT ALL.

At our elementary, we had one 20 minute meeting for our 1st grader live. The rest was about 10-20 minutes of recorded video per day, except fridays which was nothing.

It was fine given the emergency situation, but not fine for the fall.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:07     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:At the elementary level, I have heard there will be 2 days a week with live instruction and 1 day a week for small groups. Depending on grade level, it can be up to 3 hours of instruction on live instruction day. Breaks will be built into the learning.

so distance learning will only be for 3 days per week? WTF. So my kids will have no more than 9 hours per week of instruction whereas before it was 20+?
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 13:03     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It better be more than last time. We got less than two hours of live teaching a week.


Our school had two, 25-min live sessions per week. Insane. It all fell to the parents. We’ve already been engaging the chancellor’s office to make sure our principal doesn’t pull this stunt again.


Was this Hearst?


I’m a NP, my kids go to Hearst and this sounds like what they got! It was really horrific and better not happen again.


At our DCPS elementary school, we had NO live teaching. AT ALL.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 12:32     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Another Hearst parent here. Our kids got 1 hour total of teacher instruction per week in the spring. And yes, I blame it on the principal. Lack of leadership or outright telling teachers not to provide instruction. Not sure which but either way, I blame her.

But why not look to the district... that offered zero guidance so each school just made it up?
DCPS planning is like Trumps federal response to the pandemic... non existent.


So DCPS leadership is definitely to blame, however you also have to blame school leadership.

My school required at least 30 minutes live a day and 3 recorded lessons a week, which is definitely not enough and most teachers went way beyond that. Even if they couldn’t teach new material (district orders)


I’m sure other leadership at other schools did even better. School leadership 100% matters in this case.

Ok- but your response highlights my point. District said no live AND no new content. Your school choose to abide by one part of the rule & not the other. Some schools did all live & only review. Leadership is key.
FWIW my school charged ahead with new content. Because... DCPS literately hid behind a desk for 3 months
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 12:17     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Our charter school already announced next year’s schedule. It’s almost exactly the same hours as normal: 8:45 to 3-something. I really like how they’ve divvied up the hours. This is a middle school, and they’re doing 30 mins synchronous learning/45 mins asynchronous/15 minute break, three times a day. Plus lunch. That’s three classes per day. The next day, they do the same schedule but with the other three classes. Teachers are available for an hour after school each day for individual help.


I think this is a great plan. They can keep the same schedule whether school or individual kids are is in-person or virtual.


Yes, the distance learning plan was intentionally designed to align with hybrid learning in case they have to switch back and forth.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 09:55     Subject: DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:Our charter school already announced next year’s schedule. It’s almost exactly the same hours as normal: 8:45 to 3-something. I really like how they’ve divvied up the hours. This is a middle school, and they’re doing 30 mins synchronous learning/45 mins asynchronous/15 minute break, three times a day. Plus lunch. That’s three classes per day. The next day, they do the same schedule but with the other three classes. Teachers are available for an hour after school each day for individual help.


I think this is a great plan. They can keep the same schedule whether school or individual kids are is in-person or virtual.
Anonymous
Post 07/28/2020 09:50     Subject: Re:DL: How many hours a day?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Another Hearst parent here. Our kids got 1 hour total of teacher instruction per week in the spring. And yes, I blame it on the principal. Lack of leadership or outright telling teachers not to provide instruction. Not sure which but either way, I blame her.

But why not look to the district... that offered zero guidance so each school just made it up?
DCPS planning is like Trumps federal response to the pandemic... non existent.


So DCPS leadership is definitely to blame, however you also have to blame school leadership.

My school required at least 30 minutes live a day and 3 recorded lessons a week, which is definitely not enough and most teachers went way beyond that. Even if they couldn’t teach new material (district orders)


I’m sure other leadership at other schools did even better. School leadership 100% matters in this case.