Snow day Friday? Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had less than 50% of students yesterday. Today, who knows what we would have had. Many districts made a pivot to virtual for this week so that students wouldn’t lose a week of learning. The DMV area parents have dug their heels in and made virtual a non starter, and in doing so, you got one day of “school” which was essentially a play date for your kids bc no teaching was going on yesterday.

Now, the rapids they took last week are USELESS in terms of data. You know DCPS isn’t going to re test on Sunday and require negatives for Monday. All theatre

I had 87% of kids yesterday and taught.

That’s great! I can promise your situation is not the norm, and if you look at submission data district wide, the wealthier wards got significantly higher attendance yesterday.

All this blustering from DCUM over lower income families doesn’t seem to realize how each of the decisions they support in DCPS is causing more inequity and less education for our students furthest from opportunity

Why can’t you teach the 50% of the students that showed up. They have been out of school for 2 weeks and certainly could use a review of what was taught the week before break. Couldn’t you have some small group instruction, or one on one help in areas they need it.
If you gave your students a playdate, that’s on you, not the parents that sent their kids to school on a school day.

Agree. I don't understand why we need to follow the lead of parents least committed to education, by having teachers only teach when the rarely-in-school kids show up.

Actually, the parents who I know who kept their kids home this week had them do things like Kahn Academy, Mathnasium, etc through the break and this week because they anticipated this mess.

Based on the number of absences across a wide range of schools, I’m sure that only represents some parents, but I wouldn’t say that the folks who sent their kids in for ONE DAY this week (and probably got exposed to COVID) are the “most committed to education.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They cancelled schools because of this amount of snow?! Give me a break. A delay would have been completely fine.

If you read through the thread it appears that there would have been staffing issues.

NP who is a DCPS teacher and thinks this snow day is ridiculous. They refused cancel school before break or switch the virtual when I had 20% of my students present and 40% of the staff out for various reasons? But they have staffing issues now? This was just lazy. And now a week of instruction is just lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had less than 50% of students yesterday. Today, who knows what we would have had. Many districts made a pivot to virtual for this week so that students wouldn’t lose a week of learning. The DMV area parents have dug their heels in and made virtual a non starter, and in doing so, you got one day of “school” which was essentially a play date for your kids bc no teaching was going on yesterday.

Now, the rapids they took last week are USELESS in terms of data. You know DCPS isn’t going to re test on Sunday and require negatives for Monday. All theatre

I had 87% of kids yesterday and taught.

That’s great! I can promise your situation is not the norm, and if you look at submission data district wide, the wealthier wards got significantly higher attendance yesterday.

All this blustering from DCUM over lower income families doesn’t seem to realize how each of the decisions they support in DCPS is causing more inequity and less education for our students furthest from opportunity

Why can’t you teach the 50% of the students that showed up. They have been out of school for 2 weeks and certainly could use a review of what was taught the week before break. Couldn’t you have some small group instruction, or one on one help in areas they need it.
If you gave your students a playdate, that’s on you, not the parents that sent their kids to school on a school day.

Agree. I don't understand why we need to follow the lead of parents least committed to education, by having teachers only teach when the rarely-in-school kids show up.

Actually, the parents who I know who kept their kids home this week had them do things like Kahn Academy, Mathnasium, etc through the break and this week because they anticipated this mess.

Based on the number of absences across a wide range of schools, I’m sure that only represents some parents, but I wouldn’t say that the folks who sent their kids in for ONE DAY this week (and probably got exposed to COVID) are the “most committed to education.”

This.
I was off yesterday, kept my kid home. She had access to about 90% of her assignments, we did a science project, studied for the spelling bee, did some math challenge problems and read a new book together. We did plenty of educational things all week, and elected to not go in for what I figured was going to be 1 or 1.5 days of school with rowdy kids back from break.
I dont think DCPS NEEDED to cancel today, but I am certainly happy they did. My kid has done more learning this week than most school weeks.

[Anonymous]

Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

[Anonymous]

My kids' planned virtual school at a charter was canceled due to snow at 6 AM this morning. I would have given the school a A-/B+ for how they handled this week until today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

Don't you think the whole rapid test to return plan has turned out to be a complete waste of time and money? The results are now null and void.

[Anonymous]

Great that so many people can seemingly temporarily homeschool because they don't work, or have jobs that don't require much from them, or haven't already exhausted their leave, or have leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

Don't you think the whole rapid test to return plan has turned out to be a complete waste of time and money? The results are now null and void.

It depends on what you think the test-to-return was about. You could start with zero positives in school on Monday morning and have positives Monday night. (also it's not like kids go to school and then go home and stay in ziplocked bubbles) Zero covid isn't possible and people should stop pretending that any testing regime is going to get your there.

The testing protocol even this week, for a start on Monday, was useful in the sense that it did 1) show that widescale testing can happen, 2) pointed out some issues with it, 3) showed that the positivity rate wasn't nearly what some predicted it would be, 4) did identify like 2,000 cases that can now be quarantined this week and not potentially infect others in school next week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had less than 50% of students yesterday. Today, who knows what we would have had. Many districts made a pivot to virtual for this week so that students wouldn’t lose a week of learning. The DMV area parents have dug their heels in and made virtual a non starter, and in doing so, you got one day of “school” which was essentially a play date for your kids bc no teaching was going on yesterday.

Now, the rapids they took last week are USELESS in terms of data. You know DCPS isn’t going to re test on Sunday and require negatives for Monday. All theatre

The rapids were not useless. They caught nearly 3,000 cases of Covid among staff and students. Did they catch all? No. Will others be newly infected over the weekend? Yes. But that was going to happen anyway and they have at least slowed the spread for the sake of hospitals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

Don't you think the whole rapid test to return plan has turned out to be a complete waste of time and money? The results are now null and void.

I don't understand this point at all. The results were going to be null and void the minute we let kids and parents go home to their communities yesterday. They were just a snapshot in time. Nothing more and were never going to be anything more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had less than 50% of students yesterday. Today, who knows what we would have had. Many districts made a pivot to virtual for this week so that students wouldn’t lose a week of learning. The DMV area parents have dug their heels in and made virtual a non starter, and in doing so, you got one day of “school” which was essentially a play date for your kids bc no teaching was going on yesterday.

Now, the rapids they took last week are USELESS in terms of data. You know DCPS isn’t going to re test on Sunday and require negatives for Monday. All theatre

I had 87% of kids yesterday and taught.

That’s great! I can promise your situation is not the norm, and if you look at submission data district wide, the wealthier wards got significantly higher attendance yesterday.

All this blustering from DCUM over lower income families doesn’t seem to realize how each of the decisions they support in DCPS is causing more inequity and less education for our students furthest from opportunity

Why can’t you teach the 50% of the students that showed up. They have been out of school for 2 weeks and certainly could use a review of what was taught the week before break. Couldn’t you have some small group instruction, or one on one help in areas they need it.
If you gave your students a playdate, that’s on you, not the parents that sent their kids to school on a school day.

Agree. I don't understand why we need to follow the lead of parents least committed to education, by having teachers only teach when the rarely-in-school kids show up.

+2. The reasoning is weird and frankly lazy (and no, I don't think all teachers are lazy!).

I taught normal lessons yesterday. The students not there will get the material later, but not in the same hands on format.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

Don't you think the whole rapid test to return plan has turned out to be a complete waste of time and money? The results are now null and void.

I don't understand this point at all. The results were going to be null and void the minute we let kids and parents go home to their communities yesterday. They were just a snapshot in time. Nothing more and were never going to be anything more.

Man. So that was most of a week lost, two days of distribution, tons of money, stress for teachers and parents picking up and uploading these things, for a snapshot of Covid at our schools that was only valid for less than 8 hours. Not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had less than 50% of students yesterday. Today, who knows what we would have had. Many districts made a pivot to virtual for this week so that students wouldn’t lose a week of learning. The DMV area parents have dug their heels in and made virtual a non starter, and in doing so, you got one day of “school” which was essentially a play date for your kids bc no teaching was going on yesterday.

Now, the rapids they took last week are USELESS in terms of data. You know DCPS isn’t going to re test on Sunday and require negatives for Monday. All theatre

I had 87% of kids yesterday and taught.

That’s great! I can promise your situation is not the norm, and if you look at submission data district wide, the wealthier wards got significantly higher attendance yesterday.

All this blustering from DCUM over lower income families doesn’t seem to realize how each of the decisions they support in DCPS is causing more inequity and less education for our students furthest from opportunity

I teach at a Title 1 school and also had 90% attendance and taught important lessons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be that person, but if DCPS had chosen to be virtual the first week back (like many many people advocated for), kids would have gotten 5 days of instruction. Which appears to be better than this mess of a week we were left with.

Disagree. I'd rather have no school and do things with my kids on my own schedule than useless virtual instruction.

Don't you think the whole rapid test to return plan has turned out to be a complete waste of time and money? The results are now null and void.

I don't understand this point at all. The results were going to be null and void the minute we let kids and parents go home to their communities yesterday. They were just a snapshot in time. Nothing more and were never going to be anything more.

Man. So that was most of a week lost, two days of distribution, tons of money, stress for teachers and parents picking up and uploading these things, for a snapshot of Covid at our schools that was only valid for less than 8 hours. Not worth it.

Correct. I have two kids in private high schools in DC. They have required vaccination (since Sept) and have now moved to twice weekly PCR testing. They are requiring N95 masks on all students. They are trying whatever they can to keep school in session.
I recognize that DCPS can't begin to address Covid at this level (and I have a kid in DCPS) but this is what the privates are doing in a hail Mary to keep the teachers healthy and schools going throughout this surge.
They realize that the rate limiting factor is teacher health. You have to keep your teachers negative.