(I apologize at the outset for the long rant)
My son will by starting 5th grade this year. He's an incredibly bright, inquisitive child who has a real thirst for not only taking in knowledge, but retaining that knowledge and putting it to use. (Case in point: during quarantine, we played NBA2K on PS4 many nights. He became fascinated with learning all he could about NBA greats to the point that he can literally hold a discussion about which players he might want in which positions and why on his historic team; ie Kobe has to play SF so that Jerry West and John Havlicek can split SG, and Bill Russell and Shaq as centers. Sigh, I could go on and on). During the lock down in our state, our son did remarkably well with online learning and, in some ways, it encouraged him to prioritize and organize his time to get the necessary work completed.
In less than three weeks, our schools will be returning in our very red suburb of Nashville. The county has opted for a "hybrid model" where children will be divided by last name into two groups with one group going Mon/Thurs and the second groups going Tues/Fri with Wednesday being on online learning day. For parents who wish to keep their kids at home there is an online "virtual learning" option.
Sounds ok on the surface, but, for us, our situation becomes a bit more complicated. Our son attends the county's magnet school. He worked very hard to get into that program and has thoroughly enjoyed that school. The parents had a "Zoom" meeting with the principal last night in which night he outlined the "hybrid plan" and we were informed that, while the virtual learning option would still be available to us and we would not lose our spot in the magnet school if we chose that route, the virtual learning option would not be a magnet teacher, it would not include any magnet options, we would not have access to the Google classrooms at his magnet school, and if we opted into that program we were committing for nine weeks at a time, regardless of what the Covid status of the county may be.
This school is K-12 and is top rated in the state and nationally. We want our child to be able to have the education they offer, but at what cost?! As parents, we're currently feeling guilted into accepting this "hybrid plan". The extra scary part is that the county is only doing that model in two week increments, so they may be sitting in a full classroom in mid August. If we commit to online only, our child will be in that plan for nine weeks at a time. If we commit to the in person model, we're stuck with whatever the county may decide as far as when to open or close schools.
This is such an incredibly overwhelming time for parents. I'm happy we have the options we have, but it does feel like we're being ask to roll the dice on our child's health vs education.
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