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Is anyone else’s grade schooler doing this? We’re in a 50/50 hybrid model in our district. How are your kids handling it? How are you handling it? Do they work independently?

I’ve got a 2nd grader that isn’t so hot on this format. Looking for other stories from the trenches, I guess.

I am a teacher. My kids are grown.

In my district there are 3 options. In person, virtual synchronous and virtual asynchronous. Synchronous for those of you not doing this means there is a teacher teaching the entire time. Kids are in front of the computer for the entire day with their teacher. This has all sorts of interesting issues with behaviors. Kids taking over the screens, Kids disappearing or muting, etc.etc.etc.

Asynchronous means its online with videos and students can complete the work at their own pace and whenever they want.

If I had elementary age kids and did not wan to send them to brick and mortar school I would not chose the district synchronous online version of school because the district and teachers are building the plane as they are flying it. Lots and lots of problems. Sometime the plane completely crashes, the connection fails, the teachers are learning the online platform...it's a hot mess but getting better day by day.

I would chose an established online program that is up to speed, slick and professional. There are national versions such as K12 or Connections Academy. Some states have Online Virtual schools that already function well that would also be worth a look.

In my state the districts don't want to lose the funding they get for each kid so they are cobbling together online options and "acting" as if they know what they are doing. They don't...it is a work in progress.

From deep in the trenches. I have 3 kids - 7th grade, 3rd grade and 2nd grade. My 3rd grade is diagnosed proprioceptive sensory seeking. Also, I teach. Currently, our schedule is insane. Mom-Thurs, I am home (teaching virtually) from 8-11:30. Then, I’m on campus from 11:45-3:15. My oldest is 100% virtual still. My younger kids are hybrid - M/T at home, W/Th at school. Fridays are virtual for everyone. I have scheduled and checklists. I know all their logins, so I can monitor their google classrooms. We have tears and breakdowns, but we have seen good success too. In fact, my 3rd grade boy is top of his class right now because he doesn’t have as many people to distract him (he struggles with attention seeking behavior and also with proper peer to peer interactions). I am exhausted every single day and my house is a disaster zone. But we are plugging along!

I guess I could be considered hybrid. At least for one of my kids their teacher is setting up all homework on google classroom instead of sending it home with them. She said that they are getting this set up now "in case" we go back to a full time online learning platform.

Because we live in an area with limited and well crappy internet the online stuff didn't work for us for the remainder of last year. All work was printed by the school and I picked it up for the week.

For the older kids it wasnt so bad, they would sit at the table and work at it usually independently. The younger two i sat with.

If we need up back at home learning the online portion will be a disaster as we have only one computer and we do not have home internet. I have limited data on my phone I can use to hotspot the computer but it wouldn't be enough to do class learning with the teachers for four kids.

If we go back to being sent home paper copies then I'll be structuring the day like school so that theres no missing work.

My kids (2nd, 9th, and 11th grade) are all still virtual. They had a good hybrid plan in place to begin mid August. Then our governor pushed back in-person start to Sept. 28th. Then they decided only transitional year students will attend in person on that same hybrid schedule. Meaning kindergarten, 6th grade, and 9th grade will attend in 2 groups. Group A will attend Mon & Tues, everyone virtual on Wednesdays, Group B will attend on Thurs & Fri. My kids need and want to go back. They NEED it. My freshman boy attended for 2 hours last week (so the kids could acclimate to the building/classrooms/teachers). He's now decided to go full virtual because as much as he wants to see his friends and learn in person, there are a total of 4 kids in his English class. They are also now required to wear the masks the entire day, not just while they are moving between classes or unable to distance. I am keeping my 2nd grader home because I do not feel it's healthy for them to be wearing masks all day long.

Either way, life is in a (somewhat depressing) routine for them and schooling. My older boy is struggling with 2 classes, work, drivers permit, etc. I am concerned for all of them, but most especially for him.

This whole thing sucks.

My son is in the 5th grade and he's doing all virtual learning right now through his school. His learning is independent and he's okay with it but he's looking forward to (hopefully) going back to school in November. He does get live virtual lessons with his teachers for band and choir and I also add some fun classes through Outschool so he still gets interaction with other kids. Outschool is a website that has all different kinds of classes for kids and you just sign up on your own. Kids can learn about all kinds of subjects but they can also take just fun classes, such as on magic tricks and Legos (a couple my son likes ).

I work at home right now too so he's set up at one desk and I'm at another so he works independently but he can bounce questions off me. It's still...different. And stressful. He doesn't have a firm schedule, just lessons and tests he has to complete by the end of this quarter, so I sit down every night and plan his schedule for the next day. If there's something new for him, we save it for when I'm done working and review it together. Long days, lots of planning, and just taking it day by day .

Big Mister is in 3rd grade. His district is completely distance right now. I really like his teacher and I feel like the 3rd grade team has built a plane that flies pretty well most of the time. They use a software called, "Schoology" and it works pretty well. The teacher "drops" the assignments and lessons early in the morning and the kids can work at them at their discretion. They have a Google Meet for the class every day at 10:30 and goes for a little over a half hour. Big Mister is in an Immersion program, so all the programming is in Spanish. The whole third grade team works together, so his teacher does a video math lesson, and two other teachers do writing and reading. So Big Mister gets his reading and writing instruction from teachers other than his main teacher. But again, the team is strong.

(There is no science or social studies at this time). The teachers have "office hours" from 2:00pm-2:30(?) so if the kids have questions, they can log into a google meet and talk with the teacher. Big Mister has done this twice that I know of. Once that I encouraged him to do, and once that he took the initiative and did himself.

The specials are the same for the whole week- so this week, he has gym. Last week he had music. Next week he has art.

On the mornings he wakes up with me, I take him to work with me and he does his school on an iPad in my office. He is getting better about not needing me to hover over him. He is getting better at asking me when he needs help. Sometimes, though, when he doesn't understand something, (could be the concept, could be the assignment expectations, could be the Spanish, could be the technology), he will sit and look at his iPad for an hour. (this has happened a few times) He is figuring out to knock out the more work intensive ones first. On the mornings he wakes up at XW's house, he does school with her. (She is a school social worker and working remotely until October 1st, then will be be hybrid in her district).

At the beginning, I was ready to punch a nun because of frustrated with him not being able to do simple things I thought he should do, but I got over it. (No nuns or anyone else were harmed in the making of this posting) And I'm actually pretty proud of him now.