I have a 7 and 11 year old (2nd and 5th grade). With very significant parental involvement it is possible to keep them somewhat engaged and learning, although i

I have a 7 and 11 year old (2nd and 5th grade). With very significant parental involvement it is possible to keep them somewhat engaged and learning, although it is very much sub-optimal. They miss their classmates. They miss their teacher. They miss most of all the routine, getting to go to school, and all the fun things they got to do during the day. My 5th grader is very sad to be missing out on a graduation-like experience with a lot of end-of-year events that would typically happen for outgoing 5th graders before they leave for the middle school. This isn't an "opportunity for a new normal". This isn't a situation which can or will last "indefinitely". It is assuredly unhealthy for kids this age (to say nothing of the rest of us) to be isolated from their friends and communicating only over Zoom calls. My kids are hurting in a suburb with a big back yard, mountains of toys, a stay at home mom, and two dogs to play with. I can only imagine it must hurt the least privileged children hardest of all to have lost access to their school. I don't expect there's much of any learning going on in general below the high school level. Particularly for households which don't have parents who are willing to dedicate several hours a day to basically run the lessons. I think people who can honestly claim that their under-13-year-old is distance learning without a parent assuming a basically full-time role of teacher, are few and far between. I wonder how curriculum will adapt to incoming students in the fall. X graders who don't know approximately half of the X-1 grade material. Particularly for younger students where classes are less likely to be grouped by ability, anyone who did actually successfully learn anything from March-July is just going to have to sit through it being taught all over again to the majority of students who didn't.