I homeschooled my kids through 8th and worked part to full time at home at the same time. (Amount of my work fluctuates). It’s not easy balancing homeschooling with work, but, as taverngirl noted, homeschooling is much more flexible than regular schooling. There is no need to have kids spend 8 hours per day homeschooling – the amount of work/learning they do per day takes much less time. We found homeschooling to be much less stressful and more enjoyable than the public school grind (I pulled them out in the middle of their respective K and 1st grade years). I loved having the opportunity to spend more time with my kids, even though it was more stressful for me juggling my work with schooling. By the time my girls were in junior high, they were doing high school work, which did not entail a whole lot more time than gradeschool or middle school. High school kids should be able to be learning more independently, anyway, so high school shouldn’t be any more onerous for homeschoolers than lower grades. We chose to enroll our girls in a university model charter school for high school simply to avoid the hoops that homeschoolers need to jump through in applying for college. It worked well for us because the school only required them to be on campus 2 days per week.
As for the comment about how public schools can do better than homeschoolers – it really depends. We used great curriculum (superior to public schools, imo), and had fantastic results. Fellow homeschoolers I know had similar experiences. Just saying, homeschooling can be awesome. Perhaps that’s not true universally – but brick and mortar schools are not universally awesome, either.
@Knowsstuff @“Cardinal Fang” My student went to the nearby mini-mart to buy something (Tater Tots) and said that another customer came in without a mask and the cashier told that person to leave – which they did. The businesses in downtown Holland seem be supportive of mask and distancing policies.
I’ll attempt to re-post my student’s positive experience so far: my kid’s school is a small college (3K) in a small town (33K) in southwestern MI. They did pre-arrival testing of everyone, and classes started on 8/17. They are doing wastewater testing and surveillance testing 1% of students per day. Every morning students check in to confirm they don’t have symptoms and get clearance to go to class. Anyone who reports symptoms or possible exposure is tested.
Three of my kid’s 5 classes are in person in classrooms big enough for them to sit 6 ’ apart and the professor is behind plexiglass. Two classes are online. Masks are mandatory everywhere except your own dorm room or if outdoors and more than 6’ away from others.
In your own dorm room you’re not allowed to have anyone but your roommate (if you have one). Your “co-hort group” includes people you share a bathroom and I know there are roommate agreements although I haven’t seen them. In the common areas, visitors are allowed with masks and 6’ distancing. But common areas do not include the hallways by bedrooms. The only people who are supposed to be in the hallway are people whose rooms are on that hall. There are other special rules for the cottages and apartments but my kid lives in a traditional dorm.
The food is all grab 'n go and the 2 dining halls have greatly reduced seating capacity. They put a food truck outdoors in a big grassy, shaded area to handle more meal capacity. Fortunately right now the weather is really nice and it’s no hardship to sit outside to eat.
Hope has always had chapel services MWF 10:30 am. They’re voluntary but have usually been well attended (but not by my student, alas). The chapel services this year have been moved fully online. We’re waiting to see what kind of social activities are possible. At least the weather is very nice right now and conducive to being outdoors.
Fully agree. It doesn’t work for everybody. There are people who try and send their parents back to school. Many parents also send their kids back for high school just like @amsunshine
But homeschooling can work really great. It’s hard to beat the flexibility and freedom one gets. After all, how many public schools offer college classes in the 8th grade or even AP classes for high school freshmen?
Taking online classes isn’t the end of the world. There are many high quality online classes with average AP grades significantly higher than regular public schools.
Notre Dame added 74 new cases (out of 494 tests) today (noon updates with previous day numbers). Total cases now at 304.
With such a high positivity rate they need to start testing more, including close contacts of those infected and asymptomatic surveillance testing, but I know everyone here knows that ?
Purdue suspended 36 students for Protect Purdue violations last night. Police responded to a noise complaint and found students at a party without masks and not social distancing. The university response was immediate and the students need to leave campus. I’m so happy that they are being strict!
News quickly made the rounds amongst students.
IMO all schools are going to need to be heavy handed with enforcement.
Good luck to your student. I love Holland Michigan!!
FYI- in Chicago we are seeing high school kids on most likely Cross Country runnning without masks and when stopping very close. Just saw this on my way to work in Naperville Il…
Parents- please make sure your kids know to wear masks at least when they stop running…there is research showing they should wear it running if in groups. Just saying…thx.
Yep. Now that this happened and so quickly hopefully the remaining kids will get the memo…Cant even imagine what those parents are going through now…agh…
From August 1 - August 17 they administered 2105 tests to undergrads on campus. 7 tested positive. One tested positive from a recent prior infection and is not considered contagious. Have since found out that 2 of the positives were actually false positives (Kids got positives on rapid tests upon arrival and both got negatives on 2 followup PCR tests.). S0, that’s only 4 positive students so far. Kids took rapid tests at arrival and then are getting PCR tests weekly. D has been there 10 days and has been tested 3 times but is done now until next week. D got last test results back in about 12 hours.
Currently only freshmen and a few hundred upper classmen on campus. Rest of upperclassmen coming back this weekend and classes start Monday. That’s when the true test will start. Also hearing rumors about some quarantines happening. Not sure what that’s about. Maybe some positives happening in follow-up tests? The false positives are concerning because those are less likely to occur with the rapid tests than the false negatives.
So far the freshmen seem to be having a good experience despite all the restrictions. After a couple of positive tests they moved all tables out of the common areas to until followup testing was completed so meals are only happening in rooms or distanced outside. Kids can’t interact with kids from other dorms for the rest of the week. Curious to see how the numbers change in the next day or 2 since all freshman should have their second tests completed by then.
@PetraMC and @MwFan1921 - Notre Dame has announced plans to randomly test to see if they have more asymptomatic cases (likely). They have not stated when that testing will start.
As to isolation/quarantine - I saw a number like 74 beds available - which they have already surpassed. They left at least one dorm - the family one- largely or completely empty to house students in these categories. We have no idea how many are in the two groups right now. It might not be as high as you think. It could be that the 304 were all in the initial contact tracing from the off-campus party. Say the party had 50 people. Each partier had contact with 6 people. The total is 350 (50 partiers and 300 contacts). I have not seen numbers tracking numbers in and out of isolation and quarantine.
My son shared that ‘the word’ at school is that the party was a group of seniors from Mendoza Business School. The Finance majors and Business Consulting majors have a reputation for being risk takers (think wanna be investment bankers or stock brokers), which kind of fits with this colossal error in judgement. My fingers are crossed that we are seeing a plateau in the growth of new cases. The last three days have seen 89, 73 and 75, respectively.
Not necessarily. It’s only day ten right now and I assume they need two negative tests. Plus, there must be a lot of kids who were contacts of those kids in quarantine now and some of them may come down with it. I’m not sure how ND is handling isolation (which I assume is a dorm) versus quarantine. Does anyone know? Are the quarantined in their own dorm rooms?
There are 300 positive cases not 300 kids in isolation/quarantine. With 300 cases and just two contacts per case, we are looking at an additional 600 kids in quarantine. I made that number up but surely each student has at least two close contacts?
The 304 are all positive cases though (isolation), not contacts (quarantine). There would have to be hundreds of kids quarantined unless you are saying that you think the students testing positive only had contact with each other (closer than 6 ft for 15 minutes, etc.) I guess that’s possible but seems unlikely.
Quarantine is 14 days. Isolation is generally 10-14 days, depending on symptoms (if any.)
@MBNC1755 One difference: NC State is saying that all students are “welcome” to stay in dorms. They believe that without in-person classes, they can reduce the spread of the virus (I am very doubtful). Though they did say if the situation gets a lot worse, they may need to limit campus housing to those with special circumstances (like UNC).
I give it a few days considering this quote from the chancellor-
"We have also recently witnessed the negative impacts caused by those who did not take personal responsibility. We’ve had reports of large parties in off-campus apartments. In the last two days alone, we’ve identified three COVID-19 clusters in off-campus and Greek Village houses that can be traced to parties and behavior outside of our community standards and the governor’s mandates. We’re seeing significant infections in Greek life, and at this time there have been another seven Greek houses that have been quarantined due to a number of additional positive cases.
Battling the spread of COVID-19 is a challenging endeavor even when everyone is practicing safety measures. Unfortunately, the actions of a few are jeopardizing the health and safety of the larger community.
This week we’ve seen a rapidly increasing trend in COVID-19 infections in the NC State community, including the clusters mentioned above. As of today, through our aggressive contact tracing program we have more than 500 students in quarantine and isolation, mostly off campus, who have either tested positive or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive. We are also investigating other potential off-campus clusters."
The classes are likely the least concerning activity happening on or off-campus.