Currently listening in on a Seattle Public Schools preschool program livestream about the upcoming school year (which starts in 8 days). Run by six obviously smart, capable women, in a decently well-funded district, in a rational state.

It's still a total shit show.

Specifically: each program is running a different blend of in-person and remote.

It's not clear yet what the daily schedule will be. Each program decides and nobody has yet.

The district is sending students tablets/laptops for learning. No estimated delivery date.

I know everyone is doing their absolute best. No criticism of the people running these programs.

But this is SO MANY unanswered questions eight days out from launch, in a system with... I don't even know how many kids, parents, teachers, and staff.

Oof.

Oh hey, what a nightmare!

Love 2 carve out an hour of my day off to figure out how to log in to my kid’s new preschool account and try to figure out whether I owe any paperwork and whether he’s expected to dial in for classes tomorrow on the “first” day of “school”

“day”

I now have login credentials for something called The Source, something called Schoology, and performed a hex on my existing Microsoft credentials to get 365 access. Unsure how this works with Teams. Also filled out a PDF form that was, oops, web-based when I went to submit it.

Oh and something called Seesaw which is apparently a blog my kid will write while at school (in his bedroom, fifteen feet from me) that I'm supposed to download an app to read. And then ask him questions about.

Unsure what problem this one is solving.

If I had the energy I'd attempt to diagram how these "portals" and "platforms" are related.

Feels like this school year is going to radicalize a lot of parents.

My 4-year-old and I are each expected to maintain our own Office 365 credentials; this was not initially clear to me