Our district is aiming to phase back in-school learning.
The first step is the K-2 kids heading back, this morning.
We’re keeping our youngest online as we have two more, who will be home learning into October/November.
We feel comfortable with our district’s back to school plan. This is a change from how we felt in mid-August.
The university re-opening went as expected – positives blew up and they shifted back to remote learning last week (for at least 14 days). Many have criticized the university but I think they did an excellent job on campus. We learned a lot.
In Boulder, public health placed ~20 private residences, effectively, on house arrest due to the residents ignoring repeated public health orders to chill out with their partying. All 18-22 year old residents are restricted with their ability to gather.
We’re told most of the COVID transmission happened outside of the school environment, which I took as good news.
Throughout the pandemic, culturally, we let things “play out” before we get to actions that appear obvious at the start (masks, frat parties, social distancing, bars).
I remind myself, most populations will not agree to government regulation until they’ve experienced negative consequences from not being regulated. Our governor has done a decent job of working within this reality.
Despite thousands of young adults wandering around with COVID, we are not seeing much serious illness. You can look at the county data, including hospitalizations, here.
Monday Fun Day
Our district set Mondays as a non-student contact day so we’ve shifted our Home School Week to run from Tuesday to Saturday.
Saturday Catch-up Day => whenever one of our kids starts trippin’ about a deadline… we re-assure them, “Saturday is catch up day.”
Sunday/Monday, I’ve tried to get out and enjoy the outdoors. The pics in this piece were taken yesterday in the Collegiate Peaks.
Use It or Lose It
Our girls didn’t do much math August/September. I was surprised how fast they forgot what they learned over the summer.
Concepts learned quickly are forgotten just as fast, if not reinforced frequently.
That said, because Summer School left them ahead, they “forgot” themselves back to grade level. So not a big deal.
We restarted our math tutor for the girls this past Sunday. She’s posting assignments across the week (one page each of Tuesday=>Friday) and runs through the assignments on a zoom call at the end of the week.
Pandemic schooling is like bear market investing => any return over 0% makes me happy.
We are grateful to live in a district with dedicated, and flexible, teachers. As a result, we are doing a lot better than a 0% return!
Sports & Friends
Swimming is one of the few sports operating quasi-normally. We started our middle schooler on a year-round swim team. She’s swimming 5x per week, 1-2 hours per session. In September she swam two meets, one dual & one virtual.
Our other two swim 2-3x per week, lessons with each other, no outside kids.
A friend of the family built a climbing wall on the exterior of their house. Our youngest is part of a “climbing pod,” which struck me as a very Boulder thing.
Soccer, jujitsu, indoor climbing, hiphop dance and all the other stuff we’ve experimented with over the years… all on hold, at least for us.
Feel The Byrn 
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