We always hear about the negative aspects of virtual education, but I think a big positive effect is that they are required to be more independent about watching the schedule and managing time.
Another big positive effect is that I feel like we have more time together as a family. A couple minutes here and there add up throughout the day, and I'm grateful for the extra time with them at this age.
Our elementary school has grouped the remote kids together so that the teacher can manage the class consistently, without trying to be hybrid. Their schedule follows a regular school day from 8-3, approximately alternating 30 minutes synchronous/asynchronous. We pick up a bag of take-home classroom material every 2 weeks, including textbooks and readers, and the students generally work on paper and submit photos of their work through Google Classroom or present during a Google Meet.
It's a google slides deck that the kids have to edit. They've been assigning the same work accidentally day after day. We've contacted the principal countless times, and although she's sympathetic, the quality has not improved as it's a curriculum from the district.
We just stopped logging in completely and are doing a home school curriculum.
If the school reaches out, I'll deal with it then, but so far there's no indication that they've ever reviewed an assignment to begin with.
While the district mandated google classroom for all kids, teachers of younger ages have been given the option of using Seesaw. For young kids its miles better. Even as an adult I find Google classroom to be awful. It feels like enterprise shovelware with bad UX, inefficient workflows, etc.
A lot of it is both how much work the teacher puts in, and how much leeway the school/district give. At this age, it requires an adult nearby at all times. It may be to help him stay on task, occasional assistance (finding something, tech issues, etc.), and even just company of another person. We've had to juggle help from family, and my wife is not working just to keep things going.
We were lucky last year to have an amazing Kinder teacher who did a lot to try and hold things together for the classroom (including 1:1s, summer penpals, and a lot of things on her own time). This year is a WIP, but our school has been very receptive and flexible. I worry most about the kids with two parents who must be at work and cannot give the same level of support we've been able to. They are likely to fall behind :( Thankfully teachers are trying to help those kids the best they can. It is not easy.
Last spring while my son was finishing kindergarten it was extremely difficult. Seesaw helped a lot because they enabled community sharing so kids could see each others work and reply to it. We had to put a lot of effort in to keep him engaged, doing as much work as possible, etc. There were many meltdowns over seemingly simple things like "write 1 word".
Preschool is different and in a tougher position. The primary goal is socialization and kinder-prep. Both are largely out the window for online only. Kids of this age just can't sit for that long in front of a Zoom type session.
In person is limited but now available. The main challenge is preschools are struggling. The regulatory burdens force class sizes to be a fraction of normal. Naps are basically non starter (physical space requirements), food is tricky. That means the pre-schools are losing huge amounts of money every month or laying off staff. To top it off, the recent fires create such pollution you have to choose: (1) Close windows and violate covid regulations (2) Close for the day.
If the numbers look good, she will return to in class in a few weeks. Having her start out virtual gave us an opportunity to see what the teacher had planned for her.