Parents How is your gymnast holding up so far?

[FlippinPrincess]

So have the kids just been sent home with no work to do? Are the parents expected to home school?

Our schools are all still open in Australia, but the teachers are preparing to do all their lessons online when and if schools close.

Our state announced school closings at 11 pm on a Thursday. Some districts went to school on Friday but others were done immediately with some parents finding out via a text. There was no time to prepare and no work can be made mandatory because some kids in our district do not have access to the internet.

 

[GymDadWA]

On day 1 my DD put her metal hydroflask in the microwave to melt the ice. Not sure we are going to make it.....

In a way we have too much at home gym stuff, started doing @coachp workouts, then DD's gym sent home a daily workout, plus she really wanted to start doing a strength program with me. For now we are making it work, but she misses her gym and friends, I know I'm not nearly as interesting of company as the older girls that she admires.

 

[raenndrops]

At least speaking for the schools where I am, the teachers and kids were on Spring Break when this all happened. And it went from "we're not closing schools" to "school is closed" in about a heartbeat. And even when they closed, it went from one-two weeks to now maybe the end of the year practically overnight. So districts and teachers are working to get everything online that they need but it's not really like that's a quick and easy process. And of course not all children have devices or internet access.

For our students without reliable Internet access, they can pick up paper packets to do. Spectrum, the cable company, is offering free Internet to those without home internet ... but with the rural areas, they may have to run lines first. In our districtm children in grades 5 - 12 are given laptops to use for the school year.
Our teachers had a Professional Development Day (actually 2 of them) this week and one of the classes was on how to set up and use Google Classroom. And many of the teachers were already using Schoology or Google Classroom.

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

I was just responding to Aussie Coach about why there was a lag in home education being ready. None of these things were ready to roll over spring break when the orders came down here.

 

[mommyof1]

Our district started out by posting ungraded enrichment work on its existing platform, with paper packets available as an alternative. Schools were overwhelmed by the number of families picking up paper packets. I’m not sure whether this resulted from a lack of computer and internet access or just a lack of printing capacity (some of the assignments had to be printed), but it does not bode well for actual on-line teaching.

Our elementary and middle school curricula are so shallow and slow-moving that I don’t think it will be a huge problem for those kids to miss the last three months of the school year, but students will get behind in high school courses and teachers will have to play catch-up next year. I think the district should be prioritizing implementation of e-learning at the high school level, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Closures that extend into the next school year will be an even bigger problem. I am already looking into on-line alternatives. Unfortunately, the program I like requires a school employee to proctor exams if the student is to receive course credit, which doesn’t seem possible if schools are closed.