Week 3 of #remotelearning, we're finally getting a sense of what this is supposed to look like for the rest of the year. And...I have no idea how anyone thinks this is going to work. A rant.

Our family is in a quite privileged position compared to most. With a lot more flexibility in our schedules and access to the tech basics that are needed to make this work -- Chromebooks and broadband. And even then....

Trying to work two school schedules with a couple hours of video calls plus several hours of asynchronous work for each is daunting. And guess what? In K and 1, most of the work can't be 100% self-directed, so parents have to be there.

I have exactly zero idea how this is sustainable in addition to a full time job. And again, my employer is being incredibly flexible and I only need one job to pay the bills. For most people in this school district, I cannot begin to imagine the stress and sadness.

I don't know that I have a solution, I don't think there is a perfect one. But it does seem like there needs to be a broader admission that this is going to be a lost year for millions of kids and the system needs changes to account for that.

Standards for next year need to be adjusted to acknowledge kids will be behind where they are expected to be. Planning should be done to think about how next summer might be used.

Not every kid can learn through a computer screen, and for some of them, including my kids, the social development is as important as the academic development. Zoom doesn't replace that, and the lack of personal engagement hurts her ability to learn.

The district, and especially, especially, the teachers are doing everything they can, but none of it is going to be enough. Not least of which is due to the fact that many teachers are dealing with these same stresses as parents themselves!

As a society, we have to acknowledge that we failed to manage the pandemic in a way that avoids the need for significant systemic change. Schooling is critically in need of this perspective.

Simply trying to take the classroom and make it virtual won't work. It's unfair to the kids. It's unrealistic for the teachers. It's unsustainable for the parents.

And there will be economic consequences as parents start to strip back from their jobs to try and make this work. It's the start of the school year, it's not too late to make changes, but the clock is ticking.