School starts tomorrow for the big kids! The district is following a model where how the kids will receive instruction is based on the number of new COVID cases in the area. When they made the announcement, we were solidly in the "hybrid" model, which would mean James and Amelie would go to school in person on Mondays and Wednesdays (since their last name is in the first half of the alphabet), the building would be cleaned on Wednesdays and they'd do remote learning the other days of the week. The theory there was that the kids would be able to spread out more with just half in the building at a time. Since the university students returned to town, however, things have gone sideways and we're way up in the "all virtual" zone, even after adjusting the denominator of the equation from 130,000 people to 150,000 people. Here's the chart and the link to the school's tracker.
I'll also be temporarily going into work at the library an hour later on Mondays to get them going and give Sam a chance to squeeze in some more remote work hours before taking over school supervision duties. My library coworker got her kid moved into the Monday/Tuesday group if they go to hybrid since that works better with their family's schedule even though her last name is in the last half of the alphabet, and they did say that they'd keep family groups together going on the same days even if their last names were different.
We picked up the kids' school kits and James's iPad on Wednesday at a parking lot event at the elementary school. We put a sign with their names in the minivan window, and then one of the teachers brought us bags for each kid. They were able to briefly meet their teachers from the minivan, and we found out Amelie's student teacher will be the beloved Mr. Buckner, who used to be the crossing guard at Ridgeway and we turned in some straggling library books. I wasn't familiar with either of the teachers though apparently neither are brand-new to Ridgeway. I think they did some shuffling around.
We got home and opened up the bags and everyone was very curious about what was inside. This is Amelie's, though James's was pretty similar. She had two composition books - one for literacy and one for science/social studies, a regular spiral notebook - for math work and scratch paper for zoom classes, a sketchbook for art, some math manipulatives (unit cubes and fraction circles), some school supplies (pencils, glue stick, stylus), and the pages for unit 1 of her math lessons and what looks like a packet of readings for literacy/social studies. It also included their schedules and the QR codes to get into their various zoom meetings - these were the pages I was most interested in. There were two plain white cloth masks in each bag, and this is the saddest 2020 thing of all - a single Purell wet wipe.
Overall, I was very impressed with how organized everything was! Quite a difference from the madness at the beginning of remote learning last year, when Amelie came home without her math packet at all, though they didn't have much official notice this time either, and there were parents complaining that the entirety of the $27 school supply packets wasn't sent home in the kits. I'm assuming the rest of the supplies are kept at school in hopes the kids will be able to actually go back to school.
I guess the big difference was that James got an iPad and a keyboard - Amelie already had one from last year. Here's James with his new tablet. His came in a bulkier case with a more heavy-duty keyboard to attach.
Look at his face! This is how I feel about remote learning, too!
I made copies of the schedules to put up on the fridge (the originals are in their packets of stuff). Amelie's got blocks scheduled for zoom meetings with each subject and then a block of time for "independent work" after each one. They've both got an hour for lunch/recess, but it isn't at the same time at all! For James it starts at 10:55 and Amelie's starts at noon. It looks like all of their specials will be on Wednesday, with James being done early. We're also still waiting on Amelie's special ed schedule. They'll start each morning with a class meeting at 8am, and it looks like they'll be done between 1:00 and 2:30pm each day, depending on when their one-on-one and small group meetings are. It'll be good to get back into a more structured routine.
Wish us luck!
