Back to School 2020

The big question all summer was what the schools would be doing this year in educating students and combating COVID-19 at the same time. In the middle of March every school in the nation closed down. Our school district went immediately to online delivery while some other areas took a while to figure things out. The big mistake our district made was saying that everybody would pass no matter how much work they did. So a lot of students just checked out. I really struggled with our youngest child in getting her to do her schoolwork. My goal this summer was to figure out a way to motivate her to do her work no matter where she was doing school. So far things are going much better.

For the fall, our school district decided to give students the option of in-person or online schooling. Most parents picked in-person, having already experienced the drawbacks of online in the spring. The only difference is that every day is the early-out Monday schedule. I'm grateful our school district made that decision. Some other school districts opted for all online or part-time online and that definitely puts a bigger burden on parents. So far it is working out at least for us. All the students wear masks and nobody has been quarantined at our house yet. However the state of Utah experienced its biggest numbers ever yesterday; hopefully we can keep going.

These two started back on August 20. I'm doing part-time homeschool with Camille to give her more one-on-one personalized instruction. Mindy is doing full-time school with only math online.

Talmage moved into the dorms at the University of Utah on August 21. He had to come back on Friday to get a hand surgery (too much skateboarding) but seems to be recovering pretty well.

This hand injury followed a foot injury, also from skateboarding. The week after his surgery he broke his glasses and then got in a motorcycle accident getting a large amount of road rash. So it was a pretty rough start to the school year. But he's hanging in there with his classes and we're grateful the accident wasn't worse.

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