Private schools offering online-only options?
We're very lucky that we're in a private school with high quality teachers who have managed teaching on zoom decently. We are also a high risk family, and will not be able to put our kids in in-person school now that schools are reopening. Some schools, like ours, are offering a hybrid model that I worry will work very poorly for the kids at home. Other schools, I hear, have surveyed parents and created separate in-person and all-online pods. Is anyone at a school that offers online-only sections for this year? Would you recommend your this?
Oct 19, 2020
Parent Replies
We are at Crestmont School, which is a co-op school in Richmond. The school leadership did do several surveys to determine the plan for each grade. We are a small school and they were able to come up with plans that worked for each family and teacher. We have a mixed grade of 2nd and 3rd graders that will remain online for the remainder of the year while some of the school returns to campus. There are spaces available in that class. My daughter is in a different class, so I can't speak to that class particularly, but I've heard nothing but positive things from all families at our school about the class experience. Teachers are doing a great job of making it a creative and connected experience. You don't mention what grade you are looking for, but if that might be a good fit, you can get more information by emailing admissions [at] crestmontschool.org
It's such a logistical challenge for schools to figure this out. I have heard from other teacher friends and parent friends that the hybrid model (where there is simultaneous teaching of kids who are in-person and remote does not work well, especially for young kids). We made the switch to Ecole Bilingue earlier this year, having experienced home learning at another private school last spring, and at a Berkeley Public School for a few weeks this fall, and we are so happy with our decision and grateful we were able to make the switch. Ecole Bilingue surveyed families at the start of the year and offered both home-based and in-person learning options. There are separate pods with separate teachers and the curriculum is coordinated so that when the kids are all eventually back to school together they won't have been learning different things, but the curriculum is not identical because the school realized the home-learning curriculum needed to be adjusted to the specific circumstances of home learning. Parents have to commit to home-based learning for a specific academic calendar cycle so as to maintain the integrity of the pods and then can opt to switch to in-person or continue to stay at home. We've been very impressed with the home-based learning option and with the school on the whole. What we experienced at the other two schools was adequate, and I'm loathe to critique any school these days since it's such a challenging time and public schools especially are working miracles with limited resources, but our experience since making the switch has been really eye-opening in terms of what home-based learning can be. Before, we were underwhelmed and worried about how much our son was missing out on (and frankly we'd been underwhelmed pre-COVID). Now we can't believe how much he is learning and how effective and well-thought out the curriculum is.