Parents are getting creative during COVID-19 isolation
Parents and educators are creating day plans for their kids and helping others navigate the new norm of homeschooling amid coronavirus school closings.
Video Transcript
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KATIE NOVAK: I think it's a big transition time right now. It is the new normal for the foreseeable future, and-- and we're doing the best we can to support our kids through the process, while also supporting our colleagues.
ALISON SANCINITO: I'm Alison Sancinito. I'm an educator, a teacher, currently an assistant principal, educational consultant. But the best part of my job is mommy.
KATIE NOVAK: I am Katie Novak. I am an assistant superintendent of schools, an educational consultant, and mom of these four fabulous kids. Suddenly we were put in the situation where we're trying to get our work done for our jobs, we're trying to, you know, educate our kids, we're trying to do all of this together. What we're realizing is, like, this is-- is challenging to plan.
ALISON SANCINITO: On the onset of this, just trying to balance our responsibilities at-- in the district that we work for and making sure that our teachers, our students, and our families, and some of the-- my students are sitting right in front of me right now, all feel like they have what they need to be successful.
KATIE NOVAK: To schedule pretty rigorously, where it's like, OK, in 10 more minutes, we're going to switch activities. And if they're having a great time, it's flexible, but I find that the predictability is really good. In the morning, I'll share the schedule. Like, this is what we're going to be doing today, these are the times. And even Boden, the little one, will be like, you have four more hours till we're doing this. It's been good because there's a lot of different things that we're doing, and I think that that helps break up the day.
ALISON SANCINITO: So Katie and I had written the schedule. And then when I went through the first day, I realized that it didn't perfectly match up with how we do things. We look over the parts of the schedule, and we sort of plan together. So there are some, like, non-negotiables. Like, we have the two lessons in the morning and afternoon. We're going to have quiet time. We have to eat. We're going to clean all the pieces and parts. And then we kind of together with the kids take out a little whiteboard, and we put it in the order that works for us.
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