"Virtual" school experiences

[XutvJet]

Update:

- My 11 y/o and 15 y/o absolutely hate virtual learning. They find it boring sitting in front the computer all day and also distracting because of idiotic students interrupting class, especially at the elementary level.

- Our district will be starting hybrid at the elementary schools on 10/5 and will go full time in-person in early November. The mass exodus of students from the district to either private school (in-person) or moving out of the district entirely is screwing with their budgets. The district had it's lowest enrollment in decades.

- The public school district that adjoins ours (same county) announced yesterday that middle school and HS will go hybrid on 10/5 and full time in-person in early November, matching their plan for elementary schools. All sports are on.

- The two districts noted above had originally set a gating criteria of 5% or less positive tests before going to in-person learning. The county is at 12%+. The thing is though, the ones testing positive are by in large in the sub 39 y/o group. COVID deaths in the county are 143, 95+% of which were people 70 and older, the majority in the 80+ range (most of which had other issues). Very few are being cared for in the hospitals. The death by age group percentages for our county pretty much match the national and global death category data. These factors might have something to do the district's change in moving to in-person learning.........and also money.

[smyles]

Originally Posted by DocL

We can deal with it, our kids can't. The stress and anxiety that an 8yr old has because of this nonsense is causing all sorts of behavioral problems.

Child psychs are making a killing right now.

And I imagine it will only get worse, with shorter daylight and colder weather. Sports cancellations don't help either.

[DocL]

Originally Posted by smyles

And I imagine it will only get worse, with shorter daylight and colder weather. Sports cancellations don't help either.

Some principals won't even let the kids outside for recess without them wearing masks and having to be 6ft socially distant. Other principals are letting kids outside without masks, and some have banned outside recreation all together. So which is it? Mask? No mask? Inside? Outside?

But what do you expect from Palm Beach County? Remember the hanging chads from the Bush-Gore election?

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by DocL

They spent $25mil for new laptop computers for every student. The computers aren't going to be here untl the end of October so the kids are using the computers already owned by the school.

This is a common problem, and one that I posted about here back in March. COVID hit China first, you know, where all of our consumer electronics are made. The supply chain was disrupted enough from that, and now there has been an all-out blitz on since the spring from K-12 schools trying to buy truckloads of Chromebooks to hand out to every single student. In addition, the inner-city schools need to give out free 4G/LTE mobile hotspots to all of the kids who don't have high-speed broadband at home. I haven't checked recently, but those were nearly unobtanium back in July.

Feel free to read the available supply of Chromebooks for yourself, straight from this vendor's web site who is one of the larger sources for government/educational equipment:

https://www.cdwg.com/search/computer...romebook&akr=0

As you can see, every option is on perpetual backorder or 4-6 weeks out.....

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

This is a common problem, and one that I posted about here back in March. COVID hit China first, you know, where all of our consumer electronics are made. The supply chain was disrupted enough from that, and now there has been an all-out blitz on since the spring from K-12 schools trying to buy truckloads of Chromebooks to hand out to every single student. In addition, the inner-city schools need to give out free 4G/LTE mobile hotspots to all of the kids who don't have high-speed broadband at home. I haven't checked recently, but those were nearly unobtanium back in July.

Feel free to read the available supply of Chromebooks for yourself, straight from this vendor's web site who is one of the larger sources for government/educational equipment:

https://www.cdwg.com/search/computer...romebook&akr=0

As you can see, every option is on perpetual backorder or 4-6 weeks out.....

We got several Dells from their returns site at the beginning. Back to 4-10 days, depending on processor, for items to ship out now. Still getting desktops too.

[DocL]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

...As you can see, every option is on perpetual backorder or 4-6 weeks out.....

But now the kids are back in school and they already have computers to use. The school board was very misguided.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by DocL

But now the kids are back in school and they already have computers to use. The school board was very misguided.

Not really misguided, just opportunistic. They capitalized on the generous "emergency" funding to procure one computer per child, which even wealthier districts sometimes cannot afford.

Give them some credit for not buying iPads for every child, because those are nothing but status symbols in K-12.....

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

This is a common problem, and one that I posted about here back in March. COVID hit China first, you know, where all of our consumer electronics are made. The supply chain was disrupted enough from that, and now there has been an all-out blitz on since the spring from K-12 schools trying to buy truckloads of Chromebooks to hand out to every single student. In addition, the inner-city schools need to give out free 4G/LTE mobile hotspots to all of the kids who don't have high-speed broadband at home. I haven't checked recently, but those were nearly unobtanium back in July.

Feel free to read the available supply of Chromebooks for yourself, straight from this vendor's web site who is one of the larger sources for government/educational equipment:

https://www.cdwg.com/search/computer...romebook&akr=0

As you can see, every option is on perpetual backorder or 4-6 weeks out.....

I do IT sales into some of the Fed agencies. They've been experiencing the same back order issue everyone else has.

[zx10guy]

As I said earlier in this thread, I expected this all to be a total cluster.

So glad my daughter is in private school and has been doing well with 5 days a week of in person class. Sadly, I'm starting to expect possibly having to keep her in private school into 1st grade.

[smyles]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

... Sadly, I'm starting to expect possibly having to keep her in private school into 1st grade.

Same here. You know where your public school system priorities are when they pay $20k for a 45 min Zoom lecture on critical race theory, while whining how they don't have money for school supplies and masks for teachers.