In mid-March, with the coronavirus crisis breaking in Utah, Governor Gary Herbert announced that all of Utah’s K-12 public schools would close and learning would go online. That’s 1,200 schools closed.
Almost 667,000 students are now stuck at home, more than 36,000 educators are trying to teach those kids remotely and hundreds of thousands of parents are caught in the middle. Nobody saw this coming, and now everybody is trying to figure out, on the fly, how school happens online. Friday at 11 a.m. MDT, we’re talking about this massive social experiment and exploring how teachers, kids and parents are dealing with what one school administrator calls “a perfect storm of learning.”
Tips for parents with school-age children at home (in no particular order):
- Work with your partner and your kids to build a daily routine that works for everybody
- Get the family outside!
- Build regular screen-time breaks into your family's schedule
- Focus on learning and work quality, not time spent at the desk
- Create dedicated spaces in your home where your kids can do school work and you can do your work
- Think about how or if you could sacrifice some work productivity for the good of your family and your sanity
- Get dressed!
- Allow yourself breaks to do tasks around the house and with your kids.
GUESTS:
- Benjamin Bombard, producer for RadioWest
- Spencer Campbell, assistant principal at Elk Ridge Middle School, South Jordan
- Aliyah Bacca, English teacher at Northwest Middle School, Salt Lake City
- Dr. Matt Swenson, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Intermountain Healthcare. Dr. Swenson recommends that parents looking for addition resources to go to everydaystrong.org.
