Originally Posted by Ben E Lou
On the public school side, our county superintendent and her team keep making what appear to be well thought-out decisions given the restrictions from the state that their navigating. The latest is wildly unpopular with many high school parents, but I'm not seeing better arguments than "this is bad for MY kid!"
The plan is to prioritize the youngest kids for in-person instruction, the reasoning being, on the educational side, that it's a more critical stage for learning (sounds reasonable to me, but I'll leave evaluating that one to the experts,) on the practical side, that older kids can navigate the computer themselves and can stay at home while parents go to work. Plus, the county has long had teaching assistants on the payroll for the younger grades, so for classes other than the most critical (math and reading,) if they have more physical space available to them, they can spread the kids out more by having the assistants teach other subjects. So, the superintendent is proposing something like (don't recall the specific grade levels, but you'll get the point,) K-2nd will occupy the elementary buildings, 3-5 will be in middle school buildings, 6-8 in high school buildings, 9-12 remote until January. Under this proposal, K-5 start in-person in October, 5 days per week, and I think middle school does the mixed remote/in-person thing starting in October. High schools return to in-person in January. (There are also other plans being made for issues like special needs kids and those who need individual help.) Sucks for high schoolers, but if you're trying to work out something for everyone under the constraints given, this seems to a solid plan. The school board votes on it in about 10 days, but up to now that has just been a rubber stamp. We watched the most recent meeting where this proposal was put forth for consideration, and all indications are that it'll pass.
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