Just thought it could be worth a try- neutral points doesn’t effect their points in anyway, just gives a notification to parents.
I don’t use points for anything this year either except the neutral points for attendance.

I love Dojo and have used it for years. I'm actually a mentor in both my buildings. I haven't done points; positive, negative or neutral this year. I think one P would be fine with whatever I did, but I think my other P would have kittens if I tried tying attendance to Dojo in anyway, shape or form.

I agree with #1-2 and #3 I’m going to change to “parental value on education.”

If a student has all the tools in the world and a quiet & focused environment but the parent doesn’t value education, the child mostly won’t value education and nothing we do is going to get him on the computer and working.

If a student lives in a chaotic environment and has to help out with younger siblings and moves from location to location frequently but has a parent who values education, they are going to do so much better than the student above.

Of course the ideal is a calm, focused environment with parent who values education, but I’ll take Student B over Student A any day and I’d bet money on Student B’s success over Student A’s post-covid.

I agree with the technology piece, but somewhat disagree with #3. For my class it's not the parental control at home but the home living situation. My kids that are alone in their quiet room for our meetings, with parents who are there to help them with their independent work, are much more successful than my babies who are living in chaos with grandma, a crying baby, and two siblings on zoom meetings all at the same time and parents who are both working.

The divide is always big, but right now it feels like it's getting wider and wider every day.

With virtual learning, I find my small groups to be far more effective and productive, because I am focused solely on those kids and don't have worry about managing the rest of the students.

My district also provided computers and hot spots.
#3 is the issue here..
I had one student today (third grade) show up with color changing LED lights on in her background and her TV on. I could see her continually looking at the TV while teaching- I told her 4 times to please turn it off, she left the meeting. When I reached out to mom she said that I “called her out and made her feel anxious so she left class.”


GreyhoundGirl...
Do you use ClassDojo? I made “neutral points” for my students. One of them is for showing up late to a live lesson and the other is for missing a live lesson. It takes 2 second to quickly click them at the end of each lesson and parents immediately get an alert.
It stopped any attendance issues pretty quickly. It also gives me documentation if students are not passing.

My district also provides #1 an #2. As a sped teacher I'm responsible for calling, emailing and texting parents if kids don't come to class. I can't even tell you how much I resent that and how much it angers me. And I posted on my Sped FB page and everyone agreed that I should be doing it.

Maybe it's the gen ed teacher in me. Maybe it's because I'm a shrew, but just no. I'm not the parent. It's not my responsibility. I did it the first 2 weeks. After that my 3rd graders and/or the parents can be responsible for it.

And yes, the kids who were a problem before are going to be out of control after. I agree with pp's grandson, it's been amazing. When kids leave a Meet they can just go. I don't care. When they're disruptive, I just mute them. It's amazing. But you know they've been home since March with no rules or boundaries. It's going to be a nightmare when they come back.

I would agree and #3 is really the one that schools can't do a blessed thing about. Students who come from families that value education and can provide some stability will do just fine with remote learning in most cases. Students whose families bash schools and educators, students whose parents don't make any attempt to manage their behavior at home, will fail with remote learning, just as they often do when they're in-person.

My grandson actually really likes remote learning because, for the first time since he's been in school, ill-behaved students aren't allowed to waste his time and keep him from learning. He's in sixth grade.

And just wait until you get them back in-person after remote learning. All the problems you had before will be enormously magnified.

In our district, we have provided 1. and 2. Depending on the school, each child has gotten a tablet or a chromebook. Any parent who asks for it has gotten a Mi-fi hotspot.

So now it boils down to 3. Parental control at home. So when N is laying down on her bed on her pillow in a dark room as a first grader, who is to blame for her lack of learning? When I keeps popping in and out of his Zoom meeting, turning the camera off and on constantly, who is to blame? When S. and B are sitting shoulder to shoulder with their ipads in front of them, with no headphones and different classes, is it any wonder they're constantly distracted? When J's face (lips, cheeks, and forehead) is covered with some sort of whipped cream that he keeps licking off his face, who is to blame?

And that's just today!

My district has been on remote learning since March. I feel like the teachers in my school are doing a tremendous job teaching under these conditions. There are bumps though. I've pretty much come to the decision that the success of any remote learning program hinges on three things:

1. Available technology hardware for students (tablets or laptops)
2. The available network for individual families (Wi-Fi, Hot Spots)
3. Parental control at home

The students we are having the most problems with are the SAME students we would have problems with in the physical setting, but it is even worse given the considerations above. Thoughts?