APS- so many teachers leaving

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I hope the teachers who didn't want to work in person in the fall 2020 are leaving. Schools were safely open in Europe, public and private schools were safely open in red areas, and private schools were safely open in deep blue areas, including NOVA. They didn't care one bit about the kids, especially the underprivileged kids who were hurt the most. Go find another profession.

One of my favorite tropes from the era of virtual learning making a comeback:

Using underprivileged kids as a pawn for your disagreement for how schools were managed despite never caring about them before

Or without looking at data that showed those same kids were more likely to stay virtual for the remainder of the year

This is because the return to school was a logistical cluster. 2 days on, mid afternoon pick ups, standing in line waiting to get checked etc. when school went back to normal in the fall of 2021 and virtual was offered to anyone, very few took it.

That wasn’t true at my school (22204) where many families told us the reason they kept their children virtual was because there were vulnerable family members at home.

Uh huh. So what changed just a few months later in Fall 2021 in the midst of the Delta wave? When all those families chose to send kids back?

Um, vaccines?

Vaccines were available when kids went back spring 2021.

My kids were in person 2 days a week in spring 2021, but their teachers were still teaching them remotely. PE by Teams, even when the weather was nice enough to be outside (the hallways were deemed too risky). Math by Teams, Reading by Teams, Art, Music, Library. No paper was permitted. Too risky, could transit covid. No book, as they're covid vectors. Only homeroom had a live teacher. Oh, your elementary school was different? Well, APS let each school define "in person" for themselves. Those highly trained scientists running each school got to make the call. I was told it was because the vaccinated teachers said they'd quit if they had to be in the same room as students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the teachers who didn't want to work in person in the fall 2020 are leaving. Schools were safely open in Europe, public and private schools were safely open in red areas, and private schools were safely open in deep blue areas, including NOVA. They didn't care one bit about the kids, especially the underprivileged kids who were hurt the most. Go find another profession.

One of my favorite tropes from the era of virtual learning making a comeback:

Using underprivileged kids as a pawn for your disagreement for how schools were managed despite never caring about them before

Or without looking at data that showed those same kids were more likely to stay virtual for the remainder of the year

This is because the return to school was a logistical cluster. 2 days on, mid afternoon pick ups, standing in line waiting to get checked etc. when school went back to normal in the fall of 2021 and virtual was offered to anyone, very few took it.

That wasn’t true at my school (22204) where many families told us the reason they kept their children virtual was because there were vulnerable family members at home.

There were lots of complaints at school board meetings from the Latino community about inaccessibility to school bus stops and lack of before and after care.

plus a couple white parents at one of those schools sent whatapps msgs to the parents scaring them into believing their kids were going to die if they sent them to school. This got mentioned on AEM but was drowned out by post after post by the fake account troll - “Sally Jones Hall” - which was a troll account not a real person created by one of the teachers to be able to make nasty posts in the group aided by the group admin who was aware of it and allowed it. The account and posts are gone bc someone called them out in AEM and the teacher and group admin got scared, deleted the account and all the posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah ok, so many people are quitting jobs but that's not a reason not to have a discussion about how to improve things at APS.

We have a big problem. Veteran teachers quitting. New teachers quitting after 4 months. Subs refusing to work at certain schools. Parents harassing and berating teachers.

Here are a few things that may help - I am sure the list is endless!

- Provide young/new teachers with the support from administration with regard to discipline
- Consistent discipline/class structure across grades and schools
- Engage parents of misbehaving children ASAP. Most of us want to know and help
- Drastically reduce iPad time. Many kids are on YouTube once they finish assignments. Yes, they know secret sites to get to even in elementary school

Teacher here. Good ideas but FYI the parents who most need to get involved are the ones who will never show up for the meeting or will scream at the administrators. Apple’s don’t fall far from their trees.

[Anonymous]

Many districts are having the most trouble finding teachers with ESL, bilingual, or Sped certifications. Well, and math and science, and psych and social workers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the teachers who didn't want to work in person in the fall 2020 are leaving. Schools were safely open in Europe, public and private schools were safely open in red areas, and private schools were safely open in deep blue areas, including NOVA. They didn't care one bit about the kids, especially the underprivileged kids who were hurt the most. Go find another profession.

I’m sorry that I put my family first in trying to protect my highly immunocompromised (on chemo) partner by seeking (and receiving) an ADA exemption from returning in-person during fall 2020. I definitely should have put them at risk so that your child could get out of your hair.
-a teacher

Teacher,

You don't need to provide a reason. Most people would have made the same choice you did. Ignore the troll. You did the right thing and you don't need to defend your choice.

Parent

Many people didn’t have that choice. Right or wrong. ADA is not any kind of guarantee. The employer needs to make reasonable accommodations and if they can’t, you lose your job. Schools in some places decided it was reasonable to let workers do their jobs from home. And we all know public schools were not going to go out of business making that decision.

Do we need to go through the professions where people had no choice and kept going to work if they wanted a paycheck. So many.

I don’t have a particular problem with what went down and I’m glad teachers were safe and their families too. But I do think teachers need to recognize how lucky they were to keep jobs and not have to endanger themselves at all when many workers didn’t have that option. This path was not an entitlement it was a gift and lots of teachers in other parts of the country didn’t get that gift.

So you agree workers in the US are taken advantage of constantly on almost all fronts by their employers (who have bought their elected and appointed officials) and need to collectively unite in order for real change to happen.

Walk me through what it looks like for you once the the nurses and doctors, grocery workers, bus drivers, police offers, firefighters, EMT workers, water and sewer plant workers, trash pickup teams, road maintenance crews, long haul truckers, pharmacists, and hospital workers among many jobs have collectively united and decided during a pandemic they are not going to show up to work.

What happens next?

Just wait, when unemployment jumps to 10-15% these jobs will be much easier to fill.

When will that be?