If you’re wondering if you should do online learning or in-person learning for the 20/21 school year check out this post where I share pros/cons. See some ways to make a decision that is best for your family. Here is why I decided on remote/online learning.
Deciding to do online learning for our 3 kids was not an easy decision. It took weeks of going back and forth on options before I felt comfortable with our choice. For some families, online learning won’t be an option because of work situations. I was once in that situation as a single parent and it’s a hard situation to be in, so I know how y’all feel.
I’m very thankful that my husband’s job allows me to be a stay at home parent. Because I am a stay at home parent online learning is an option we were able to consider. When our school district sent out emails earlier this month asking us to choose I originally picked in-person learning. I can see how quarantine is affecting our kids and didn’t want that to go on for the next school year.
I wanted our kids to be in school learning with their new teacher. I wanted them to have some socialization from friends, and I needed that break for work and our home. However, the decision to send our kids to school for in-person learning just didn’t feel right to me. For 2 weeks after filling out the form I didn’t feel right about our decision. It was a constant nag in the back of my mind that I made the wrong choice. Thankfully our district extended the decision time and seeing that things with COVID are not getting better I changed our choice to online.
Things That Helped Me Decide
Here are a few of my reasons for why we choose to do online learning. These are my opinions and I don’t expect anyone else to express the same ones I do. I do want to share mine in case someone else is in the same situation that I was and torn on what to do. Maybe some outside perspective will help you make the choice best for your family.
You should weight both situations and how they will affect your family. There is no right or wrong choice in this situation. We all have to pick the lesser of two “evils” and do what we feel is best for our families. For what it’s worth, I hated doing remote learning, and coming to the decision to do online learning for the year was not an easy choice. I’m not cut out to be a teacher to my kids and I know that this school year will have its up and downs for us, but we are going to make it work.
- I didn’t want my kids to be stuck in a face mask all day. We know and understand the importance of face masks, and I wear one anytime I go into a store. Don’t worry, I am not going to turn this into a face mask debate. I don’t like wearing one, but I do it to help protect our community. I don’t like wearing a mask for 10 minutes in a store and I can’t imagine wearing one all day while in a stuffy classroom or while playing. This wasn’t a huge factor in my decision, but it was something I considered. Our county has a face mask mandate in place so masks would be required at our school. And our state just passed a mask mandate as well, masks must be worn for all adults and kids over 10.
- The school year is probably going to start remotely. As of now, they are aiming for school to start Aug 17th, but a few districts here have pushed their start date back a week or two. I’ve also seen in other states where they have stated school is going to start remotely. It wouldn’t be surprising if our district started remotely as well since cases aren’t going down. I don’t want my kids flip-flopping between remote learning and in-person. I also didn’t want to get their hopes up about attending school with their friends and then that doesn’t happen. Most of all, I didn’t want them switching back and forth between in-person and online. I want them to have some consistency with the school year.
- COVID is not going away. COVID is only getting worse in the US and it’s starting to affect children more. There are many unknowns about the virus and healthy people are getting extremely sick from it. Our family is healthy, but since there is no telling how the virus will react to your/our system, getting sick could turn out badly. That is something I would like to reduce our risk to.
- We have the option to do online. To me, it seems selfish to send my kids to school when I have the option to keep them home for online learning. I’m not judging anyone who has the option to keep their kids home but sends them to school. So please don’t take my comment like that. I know a lot of people don’t have the option to do online learning and I hope that by keeping my kids home it helps to reduce class sizes at their school. I hope that enough parents choose to do online learning so that classes are small. Smaller classes mean they’ll be able to properly social distance. It also means that students and teachers will have a smaller contamination risk and sanitation will be easier on school staff.
- My husband is essential and this would make our contamination circle bigger. I look at it like this. If he’s going to work he risks getting sick every day that he is there. If he was to get sick and not know or not show symptoms and then my kids picked that up and took it to school the circle for those exposed would be big. Or if my kids brought something home from school and he took it to work. While schools are talking about keeping kids to only their classroom they are still coming into contact with a teacher and other students who are all in contact with people in their homes, stores, ect. By keeping our kids home our only contamination risk is my husband at work. He’s switched to a schedule where there are significantly fewer people on his shift, thus reducing his risk by a lot. I hope all this makes sense.
Here’s What I’m Looking Forward To
Online learning will be a new experience for us. However, I am trying to go into it with an open mind. I will try to stick to a COVID school-friendly schedule and make it fun.
- Those class parties they’ll miss out on? We’ll boo our neighbors for Halloween, drop off cookies for Christmas, and send Valentine’s for Valentine’s Day.
- I’ll decorate our “school area” aka the dining room to make it fun and colorful for the kids
- We’ll get our school work done and then get outside for some fresh air.
- We’ll eat lunch on the deck.
- We won’t feel as rushed in the mornings.
- We can go to school in our pajamas if we want.
- We’ll have more time together as a family.
- They’ll have more time to just be kids.
- We’ll learn in fun ways like watching movies, playing games, and doing fun projects. Outside of the school curriculum.
- We’ll cook and bake together.
- We’ll have fun…
None of us signed up for this and we sure as heck don’t want it. We all want our normal lives back, but for now, we have to make some adjustments. Hopefully, COVID won’t change our lives forever, but since it is for now we have to adapt. Be gracious and understanding to yourself, your kids, your family, and friends. Don’t judge others for whatever decision they choose for the school year. Instead, support their choice and help them when you can.
Whether you’re a stay at home parent. work from home parent, or working parent the choices and decisions are going to be hard. We’re going to have to make sacrifices for the sake of our families. We might not like those sacrifices, but we’ll do anything for the sake of our kids, right?
When you’re having a bad day, take a break and do something fun or relaxing. Breathe. Then get back to it. We’re all in this together and we’ll get through this. Make the decision that you feel is best for your family and let’s make the best of this.
I hope you all stay happy, healthy, and are able to make a decision that you feel comfortable with.