Does anyone else have a high school student who is circling the drain? My dd is in 11th grade, and while she has never been an academic over-achiever, the remote learning is a disaster for her. She is currently failing most of her classes. It's not that she has trouble understanding the content -- she's intelligent and when she does the work she gets very high grades. But she blows off assignments left and right. Her schedule consists of one Zoom class per week per course, and a ton of independent homework. She will never take the initiative to attend Zoom office hours or ask for help, because she's not having difficulty understanding anything. She just finds it all boring and meaningless.
Wait, there's only one zoom class per course per week? WTH!
Yes. Her school was doing blended learning for about 6 weeks in the fall, until the building was shut down due to a COVID outbreak. Because about half the students opted for fully remote and half for hybrid, they set a schedule in which the remote students would have 3 classes a day twice a week by Zoom, and the hybrid students would have 3 live classes a day twice a week in person. So, that's 6 classes per student per week, which the teachers have to teach twice, once remotely and once in person. But they've been fully remote since early November, and they haven't adjusted anything. It's a shit show.
@BrooklynMom Wait so she has only 6 periods of class (what is that like 40 minute each?) a week? That is awful, I'm so sorry.
YIKES! Can you pull her out? Just redo this year and let her do a year of independent study into whatever she finds interesting?
It's the "independent" part that's the problem. She's smart, but not self-motivated or good at time management. And she feels attacked when we try to talk about how to help her, so it just spirals.
@BrooklynMom I hear you, but then she won't have a year's worth of bad grades on her transcript. There are worse things than letting her read books all year.
@Anonymous For HS, you can take the CR grade instead of a letter/number grade so it doesn't affect the average.
Yes, my DS in 12th grade is having the same issues as your DD. It's such a shame, because he's always struggled academically but he really turned it around in high school and now it's all gone down the drain. He's failing English and will probably need to go to summer school if he keeps it up. Not that he'd have a graduation ceremony to attend anyway.
my 10th grader too, complicated by pre-existing depression. I think schools are crazy to not understand how many kids are having big problems with motivation and mental health in general.
Why not let them sit this year out and just do whatever makes them happy?
@Anonymous By law, I don't think you can do that. Aren't they required to go to school?
@Anonymous for my kid, because isolation makes things worse. even the minimal interaction she gets with Zoom (and the bit of in-person school she did have) is better than nothing, and skipping a year so she knows nobody in her classes when she does go back would also be very hard. no good choices, unfortunately.
Have her transfer - High Schools like City-As-School and James Baldwin are amazing for disconnected / disassociated kids. It gets them to rethink what school could be. If you have $$$ - Fusion Academy does 1:1 teaching - there is this route too. Good Luck.
How are these schools handling remote learning though? It may help once school is full time in person but that won't happen till at least Sept if then.
I don't see how this set up could work for any kid and frankly not a lot of adults. Isn't Dalton (on a regular day) like this? Would be a total failure for my kids. They need routine and a clear schedule with explicit expectations. I don't think this is a reflection on your kid or at least not 100%. And I am sorry this is happening.
Thank you for saying that. I tried to have an email exchange to that effect with an AP teacher, and she claimed that this is actually perfect preparation for college, when they will have to learn to manage their time and have self-discipline. Bullshit. Even college students are struggling with the virtual classes.
@BrooklynMom Yes well, we have heard that too. They are not 18 or 19 yet and they are not in college. That year or two before they go off on their own a lot of maturing happens. Its not a fair statement from the AP. They are still CHILDREN.
Sounds just like my teen. I hear some kids are actually doing better in remote but there is data showing more kids in high school are failing classes than ever before. Remember all the early talk that high school kids can do remote and they focused on getting the young kids in? I understand getting young kids in but keeping high school kids remote will have long-term negative effects on many for a long time.
And by the way, we are at a private school and even with all their resources it's a disaster. The teachers are so consumed by all their new work they have no time for empathy.
There was a slew of articles the last week or so about the very high #s of MS and HS kids with at least 2 failing classes, even in wealthy districts like Fairfax VA. Some kids do better in remote (less distractions, no bullying, go at own pace, rewatch lessons as needed, etc.) but many many do not for a variety of reasons. And only now are we seeing the discussions starting to bubble up on the mental health impact for tweens and teens (as well as children). Its not good and its not really being dealt with. I am glad to see the discussion from leadership - Biden, national teachers union, NYC union, Deblasio , Cuomo, Fauci now shifting to the importance of in person school - it gives me hope for September. But September is a long time away. .
@Anonymous I feel like it would be one thing if, as a society, we just chalked this up to a lost year in which no one got an education, and all of the students just picked up where they left off in March 2020. But there are real life consequences to this. How are kids with failing grades and no standardized test scores going to get into college?