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Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

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Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#91
I recently quit my job as a programmer and have taken the task of overseeing the kids education while my wife works. She is on Zoom meetings literally all day and then works until midnight, so me quitting alleviates most of the stress on the both of us.

We are home schooling them full time and pulled them out of private school. We are right now going through the process of figuring out their schedule, but we have also hired a home school consultant who is simply invaluable. We are trying to come up with a schedule for the school year as we speak.

Our son is profoundly gifted with behavior issues so he has special needs that frankly make it easier when he's home schooled, but the pandemic is making his social isolation worse, so we need to figure that out. This year will probably be messed up for everyone so experimenting this year won't be that much worse even if we mess up home schooling.

We also have resources available through Davidson and John Hopkins' CTY, so they will be taking courses through that. We'll try our best but we also know that this is a once in a decade situation that everyone is suffering from, so we're not putting too much pressure on ourselves to get it perfect. Most notably is the social isolation, so figuring that out is important for us.

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#92
Home schooling. We live in one of the better school districts in the region (and pay dearly for it), and we were pretty displeased with the public schools already.

Between politics being increasingly injected into public school curriculum, lack of ability to come up with a workable solution during COVID19, and just overall poor performance of the program we've had enough and have decided to opt out.

Luckily we're able to afford having my spouse be a stay at home parent, and we plan to move to get out of the high COL associated with the supposedly great schools.

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#93
I'm a little confused at the current situation in the US. It seems in the UK that the priority will be to get schools back full time in September. My kids have been in school 2 days for the last few weeks before summer and just had a couple of days in a tennis camp. Are most US schools going remote for the foreseeable future?

I'm a single parent so have been working a full time software architect job from home while looking after the kids 3 days a week. To start with we did quite a lot of learning but it dropped off to survival half way through lockdown, they were 4 and 6 so couldn't work independently. It's been a tough year so feeling pleased we've done as well as we have. I really feel getting the kids back in some kind of social environment with some kind of education is an absolute priority for us right now. Let's see what happens!

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#94
Full-time tech worker in Seattle in a stressful job, wife works full-time, one 9yo.

We are going to get an Alexa or Google smart speaker to help maintain schedules and screen-allowance timers. Maintaining a set schedule is key.

We have tried white-boards, but they get messy with lots of other priorities we try to organize (shopping, garbage night, bills, etc).

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#95

Single dad here in a small apartment with a 7yo whose school went fully remote. I switched to a reduced-hours contractor status at my day job and went "full-time" on my side project so I can make my own schedule. I do the bulk of my focused work either after my kid goes to bed or before she starts school for the day. During the day when she's in class, it seems like every class period, there's at least one or two tec…

This is how I am working also. I have requested that all meetings in the future happen after 3, so the kids will be done with their schooling.

Today was the first day of school and my kids are in 3rd grade.

Just like you said, there was at least four times that I needed to come over and fix tech support issues. And help them figure out how to do something.

I am trying to figure out which is better right now, with using ipad, laptop, or chromebooks.

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#96
Among other things, trying to teach my offspring reminds me of how profoundly unqualified I am to be a father. It feels like I've thrown everything plus the kitchen sink at the wall to see what sticks. I do not claim to do a good job. They've maintained wikis for a while with us, and that has been something I hold in high regard. Feel free to HMU, https://philosopher.life/, if you want to talk.

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#97
I'm another +1 for Modulo.app, our 6yo is really enjoying "Kids Club" as well as a number of zoom classes. We sometimes supplement with outschool too, but at this point we have built up a nice roster of instructors who work 1:1 over zoom.

It doesn't seem likely to me that schools will be able to safely reopen in the US anytime soon, so I'd encourage everyone to take a look at the emerging startups appearing in this area, like Prenda, Primer, Dexter [full disclosure, I'm an investor]

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#98
post #50

Which Home school program are people following? Especially looking for California and 2nd-3rd graders.. Is there a curriculum that you follow and use books? Or is there an online Home school thing.. Looking for pointers...

Math: https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-best-math-programs-...

Reading: https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-5-best-programs-to-...

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#99
private kindergarten - 3 weeks virtual only, then 100% in school (10 kids)

private 2nd, 7th - 3 weeks virtual only, then hybrid model. One week on, one week off, 10 kids in class.

I ran calculations for the probability of a serious infection and it is something like

1% prevalence * 5% transmission rate 1% hospitalization rate

.0005% chance per contact of being hospitalized

chance your child doesnt get hospitalized per extended contact .99995

with 10 children in the class plus a teacher, the probability of being hospitalized is .99995^10 or 1/20,000

I can work from home and my wife is a stay at home. I know a little about a lot of things so can teach them pretty much anything. We had a lot of fun in the spring.

I dont love the pandemic, but it has been great for us as a family.

Re: Ask HN: Parents, what are you doing for school this fall?

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a very packed schedule. Well done on managing your time.

Thanks! Before everything locked down, I was lucky to have a lot of day-to-day support from my family, friends, and colleagues. One of the ways I tried to demonstrate appreciation for their help was by actively working to structure my life and career so I could be less reliant on them in the future. I had no idea how soon I wouldn't have any choice, but my preparation for self-employment and plan to minimize outside…

It's so natural and normal to rely on extended family and community for help. For some reason, I think American culture encourages us to be more independent and self-sufficient as the end game. I bet it brought your family, friends and colleagues a lot of joy to be involved in your children's lives. We are two and I do not know how we'd do it without grandparents and honorary grandparents.
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