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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?

#151

Post by actfrench »

roel_v wrote: post #61
Haul4ss wrote: post #17

My kids will be in 9th and 7th grade. My school district is starting 100% distance learning. I did opt for hybrid when it's available. I'm setting up study areas in the house for the kids that are away from each other and me. I'm going to get comfortable headphones for their school-issued Chromebooks. The plan is instructional blocks that include webinars, basically, along with some study time with the teacher availa…

"I'm going to get comfortable headphones for their school-issued Chromebooks" Have you researched this yet? I'm having a hard time finding good headphones for children.

We tried out everything available and ultimately went with Airpod pro. They seemed to be the most comfortable for kids and also easiest to jump and move around. Wirecutter also wrote an article on this. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-kids-headpho...

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

#152

Post by HaloZero »

whafro wrote: post #22

I have a first grader. Our public school system, which is ordinarily great, has a very vague plan that begins with a hybrid system that operates two mornings a week. In response, we teamed up with five other families of first graders in our area, and have contracted with a tutor to handle the other three-and-two-half days of the week. We may switch to the remote learning option, since it seems like 75% of their class…

Whoa. Must be interesting on the pandemic pods. I haven't heard first hand about this in any of the articles I've been reading about it.

Do all 5 families have some kind of agreement about safety and rules about exposing yourself? Or is it some friends that you trust? I'm always curious about the dynamics there.

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

#154

Post by shaftway »

actfrench wrote: post #106
shaftway wrote: post #49

Background: We're in the bay area and our kids are 10 and 8. We were lucky enough to get an au pair right before the lockdowns started in our area (literally picked him up the night before local lockdowns went into effect). We've had really positive experiences with the au pair program in the past, and our current one has been great, so we've treated him really well. Because of that he's agreed to extend until next s…

Do your students use any digital learning tools like Khan Academy, Math Tango or Prodigy? Is it the same experience having difficulty getting them to focus/respect boundaries as it is when they have to do school work?

They use Google Classroom for tracking work and Zoom for various video calls (full class, small groups, student 1:1, and teacher 1:1). The work is often assigned on other sites:

- Nearpod

- Classdojo

- Raz Kids

- BetterChinese

- Zearn

Probably others too.

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

#155

Post by seneca »

actfrench wrote: post #116
seneca wrote: post #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 abl…

This crisis has exacerbated many of the problems that already existed in the school system: increased spread of disease, poor social engagement (bullying/racism), non-inclusive approach to history and politics and failure to teach things to form their own framework of values and think critically (or involve their parents in that process). None of these problems are new, it's just becoming more socially acceptable to…

Can't say I particularly agree with you. Things like an "[inclusive] approach to history and politics", and everything that implies, are a large part of why we pulled our kids out of public schools.

I fully respect other adults' right to hold their own opinions. I am not a fan of high-jacking education of children as a way to push those views, which has unfortunately become common place from both ends of the political spectrum.

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

#156

Post by danans »

jeffrallen wrote: post #129
danans wrote: post #54

Taking things one day at a time, and learning to be patient with everyone: the teachers, my kids, ourselves. We have shifted our kids' babysitter toward more teaching-assistant type duties. Also, I'm trying use my free time to teach the kids intellectually stimulating stuff they wouldn't learn in a classroom - like how to play poker, how to calculate flooring area from an architectural plan, how a wall is constructed…

Since your babysitter's responsibility is growing is his/her pay also growing? Sorry for the rude question, but "essential workers" have rights and needs too...

Yes, it is.

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

#157

Post by Tempest1981 »

bertjk wrote: post #57
jwally wrote: post #39

Texas, Dallas: Nothing ground breaking, but I'll provide my anecdote as a possible antidote to survivor-bias: I have 3 kids (5,3,1). The 5 year old was supposed to start public school this year, but her pre-school opened up a private kindergarten and we opted in. When the pandemic first broke, we pulled our kids out for 2 months and it was hard for us and them. My wife worked in the morning when I had the kids and we…

> we'd plop them in front of the TV then struggle pulling them away from it afterwards (google wifi is great for deus-ex-machina internet outages...). I can totally relate. One day our kids will figure out that our fiber internet service is actually quite reliable, and that I've been using the ASUS router app to disconnect specific devices at needed times. My 9 year old is starting to suspect something is amiss. "Dad…

Really struggling with Zoom on a Dell Chromebook. It's 7-10 FPS, and outbound audio quality is often unusable. It shows this warning: "You CPU usage is affecting meeting quality". I guess it lacks a decent CPU to do video.

Closing all other apps helps a bit; I guess it lacks RAM too, or is using CPU to compress RAM? Still, sometimes outbound audio gets 5-30 seconds behind. Very disjoint experience. Not meant for the Zoom era.

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

#158

Post by thorin »

actfrench wrote: post #109
thorin wrote: post #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…

I think a lot of people in the US are concerned about health risks and the way social distancing policies are being put in place. We have still far from flattened the curve in this country - and there is a lot of new research showing that kids carry the disease as much as adults. As a teacher, this doesn't surprise me since little kid diseases always seem to affect us adults much worse than it does them.

I can't assume there will be much social distancing at school. My ex-wife has had the illness once but suffered no ill affects, slight cold for 2 days so it's possible the kids and I have had it although they isolated for 2 weeks with me around then. She works in a busy hospital. I have very little contact with anyone as a work from home dev.

Any contact with the grandparents is likely to be carefully controlled and they won't stay in our house. Things do seem to be improving now in Europe, but going downhill in American, good luck guys.

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

#159

Post by mke »

shaftway wrote: post #77
PenguinCoder wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the cost and experience of having an au pair, like ?

This is actually our 10th au pair, so we've had a wide variety of experiences. Some good. Some bad. The cost and contractual obligations are easy. Agency fees are usually around $9000 for a year for a brand new au pair (it's cheaper if you extend). That covers them overseeing all aspects of the program, like background checks, facilitating contact, and organizing events for the au pairs. You pay the au pair $200 / we…

Which agencies have you used?
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