In Which Virtual School is Not the Epic Disaster I Feared It Would Be

 When schools were closed here on March 13th, teachers were basically given no notice. The hope was the we would return to school the second week of April after spring break. The district sent home a flyer with suggested activities by grade level, but none of it was required. Kittygirl's teachers sent home their math workbooks and a few other things. Squirrelboy's teachers didn't sent home anything. I actually made my kids do something educational for those first two weeks before spring break, more for my sake than theirs because I didn't want to deal with bored kids all day long. I think most kids played video games for three weeks.

Once remote school, or NTI (nontraditional instruction) as it's called here in Kentucky, did start, it was pretty much a flop. I truly believe the teachers were trying, but they were coming into it with no prep and no training. Kittygirl hated NTI and learned nothing.

As this summer got underway and virus transmission rates went up instead of down, it finally became obvious to the school system that starting school in person was not going to happen. They made a commitment to get Chromebooks for every student in the district (they're still short 10,000, and they started the school year three weeks ago short a lot more because it seems most districts in the nation are ordering Chromebooks right now). They also bought districtwide license for Zoom (which has itself made improvements since the spring) and invested in training the teachers to teach virtually.

We're on day 12 now. It isn't perfect, but it's been a million times better than I thought it would be. One super helpful thing is that I expanded our pandemic bubble to bring in a classmate for Kittygirl. It's a service to her family because both of her parents are working from home and they were going crazy with two kids at home in the spring. It's a service to our family because Kittygirl is more motivated when she has a classmate with her and she has someone to play with on breaks and when she finishes her work. I even got them matching baskets to keep their school supplies in.

They have zoom meetings for most of the morning, starting at 9 and ending at noon, with some breaks in between. Since they attend a Spanish immersion school, they switch off every other day having their primary zoom block with the English teacher or the Spanish teacher. On alternate days they have a shorter half hour zoom with the other teacher. After a break for lunch and recess (the nice playset Mr. Engineer built when Squirrelboy was little is getting more use than it has in years) they have work to do in Google Classroom and/or SeeSaw (another educational platform). They have to spend at least 20 minutes each doing online math and reading, and then they watch a video made by one of the specials teachers and record their own video in response. I also make them read for 20 minutes. All told, they usually about 90 minutes of work in the afternoon, sometimes more if they take forever to to their specials videos. They sometimes to multiple takes because they want them to be perfect. The classmate, whom I have just now decided to name Pandagirl because she's wearing a panda dress today, is picked up at 4pm and they usually have at least an hour after schoolwork is done to play together. Also, every Friday (except today, which they're treating as a Monday because we were off for Labor Day this past Monday) is a catch up day with just one fun zoom meeting, so they normally only have an hour or so of work to finish after that and are done by lunchtime.

I feel like Kittygirl and Pandagirl have a good balance of direct instruction and independent work. They're learning new things and mostly enjoying school. I don't think Squirrelboy's schedule is as well balanced. Normally they have five classes a day. You would think they could just have those five classes every day via Zoom, but for some reason they've pulled together a weird schedule in which there are 3 classes M/W and 2 classes T/TH. T/TH the first class isn't until 11am. Fridays they have a zoom with their advisory class (it might be called homeroom elsewhere) and then a catchup day. On the bright side, I do feel like the content being presented is as good as it was in person last year. However, I don't think there will be nearly enough time for the teachers to present everything and the students to learn everything if they continue meeting only twice a week for all or most of the semester. Since his school covers in a semester what many schools take a year to cover, that means, for example, that his geometry teacher is supposed to cover it all in 30 lessons. Yeah, I'm sure that will be super effective.

My one concern with Kittygirl and Pandagirl is that they're not getting nearly as much Spanish immersion as they get during a normal school year. Their Spanish will definitely not be at the level it would normally be at by the end of the year. I console myself with the fact that every single Spanish immersion student in the district is in the same boat, so future teachers are bound to be understanding. I also don't think there's a way to do it that's significantly better than what they're doing.

A couple months ago I was seriously considering pulling Kittygirl out of school and homeschooling her this year. I know parents who have made the decision to homeschool for the year instead of doing virtual school or risking sending their kids back in person and I fully support that choice. However, I am pleasantly surprised to report that I have never seriously considered homeschool since I saw this fall's version of virtual school in action. It's not perfect, and I still contend that organized unschooling would be a better use of our time and energy this school year, but, given that there was no way the school system was buying into that idea, I'm pleasantly surprised by the outcome so far.