Two of the nephews were living with us most of last year during lock down. They have a single mother who is a nurse (father died of cancer), so they were with us so we could make sure they did their schooling, etc. Fortunately, they're both in high school and vaccinated now. The county is demanding masks and distancing last I heard.
With those precautions, they have to go back. Last year was an educational disaster. My partner and I both work at home, and he tends to be busier than I am during the day. So, it fell on me to supervise their education much of the time.
These kids did not learn nearly as much as they should have. I know. I listened in on Zoom classes, went over their homework with them, made sure everything they needed to get done was done.
They learned almost jack and shit all year. The instruction was surface, the homework barely existent. These are bright kids and it's a good school district, but it very much felt the teachers were like, "Eh, lockdown, what can ya do? Here. Go watch these YouTube videos and write two paragraphs about it." I mean, it was almost insulting. I could not believe how little work they were given. And the teachers did not care whether or not the students were paying any attention during class. At one point, it became house policy that phones and things like the Nintendo Switch were on my desk during online classes.
And that was me home supervising. Imagine the kids who didn't have that attention or reinforcement.
There just can't be a repeat this year. As far as I'm concerned, my nephews lost a year of education.
Repeating it is unfair to them, and it will be an electoral disaster for us.
For schools where students cannot be vaccinated yet, I don't know. I'm glad I'm not in the position to have to decide. That's a very messy question.
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