Will DCPS really choose hybrid when all surrounding districts are virtual only?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least I don't blame the teachers for it or expect them to just figure it out.

Go on, pat yourself on the back again with your holier-than-thou screed. Fact is our national politicians and ed leaders are letting parents and kids down. Nobody on this thread has criticized public school teachers doing their best to educate the children.

When I was a kid I attended a Ham radio-based "school of the air" for a few months while staying with relatives in a rural area of Australia. One of my parents is Australian. I learned much more during those months than my kids did with DL in their DCPS program in the spring? Why, because the school of the air was structured in a way that engaged me and pushed me academically. For example, I had to answer a teacher's question every few minutes during air time, roughly two hours each morning. I had to study hard and to complete assignments that were mailed in, graded and returned by mail. Same with tests.

The way DCPS ran its DL programming in the spring was a big part of the problem. I don't expect any different in the fall.

They have actually invested in a program that is a recorded lesson that stops however many times a teacher wants and the kids have to answer a question (verbally, multiple choice, short answer) before they can move on in the video. The response goes directly to the teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would people feel differently if this were going to last 5 years? I certainly hope we get a vaccine, but there is every chance that it will take awhile, take longer still to distribute, be imperfect, last only for a year, etc. I get that there is a safety risk to teachers, but I just don’t think shutting down ES indefinitely can be the answer. The 2-9 age bracket is at almost no risk and seems to spread very little; they are also the bracket where the lack of childcare is going to end some moms’ careers forever and DL is basically a joke. Open schools for PK-2/5 (drawing the exact line based on science and educational research). I just don’t think we can ignore that this may go on for awhile and there are going to be decades’ long ripple effects to all the K-2ers who don’t learn to read or add and forget how to interact with peers. I’m entirely serious.

Completely agree with you, PP. Pandemics end when society says so more often than when the disease in question is vanquished. There may never be an effective vaccine for Covid19. We can't sacrifice the education of a generation of little middle-class and poor kids, handing upward mobility to private school students and immigrants from countries where covid didn't derail student learning.

The learning needs to go forward this fall, vs. simply pretending that kids in the early elementary grades can stay on top of academics via virtual instruction, particularly with minimal supervision while parents work on-line.

I don't care if my kid has to sport full PPE to attend school, standing in a sports field wearing ski clothes, listening to a teacher shouting instructions on a megaphone while a math lesson is taught on a jumbotron to attend school again. Just figure it out, ed leaders. Innovate.

Mmm doesn’t work that way. The hiv/aids pandemic is actually ongoing but it is contained to a acceptable degree. COVID-19 however is not. No one is asking for a cure but as it stands now there’s not enough information.

Just a few months ago people were like ‘kids can’t get it,’ now we know that to be absolutely false. I do believe that for this whole year we will have DL and by the 2021-22 school year we will have some level of normalcy.

Exactly. We don't solve this by just declaring it's over or telling educators to "innovate". It's easy for us to sit here and summarily say it should happen or make up some lazy joke about bullhorns and jumbotrons like it's somehow that easy. But that's just ignoring the facts. Our national political leadership failed us and now it's beyond a solution that's safe enough to execute. So we now pay the price and have to figure our solutions on a family by family basis. With us it means being stuck at home with our kids learning on computers. I don't like it, and I know there are others who have it worse, but at least I don't blame the teachers for it or expect them to just "figure it out."

This. I love how we leap from “maybe six months into a pandemic when there is a high level of community spread and we don’t know a lot about how children transmit this disease or its long-term effects and so perhaps we should be cautious until we gave a better understanding of these things” somehow becomes “OUR SCHOOLS WILL NEVER REOPEN AND GENERATIONS WILL BE ILLITERATE.” 🙄 There’s no vaccine in Germany either but their kids went back to school because their government acted according to what was scientifically advisable, had an actual lockdown (not the half-assed measures we took) and managed to stop the spread and bring down the R0. They didn’t just say YOLO!

This is a new poster, and I didn't read the first PP's post to suggest that this might go on for 5 years so we should just say F-it and reopen now. But it is a valid question - what if, at this time next year, we don't have a lot of new data and we don't have a reliable vaccine, or the vaccine is more like the flu vaccine, where you get it every year and it helps but doesn't eradicate? Will folks be comfortable going back to in-person learning in that scenario? Again, this doesn't change my opinion that we shouldn't be going back in person now, I am just worried people think there's going to be this bright line that we'll pass when this will be "over" and I am not confident that is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least I don't blame the teachers for it or expect them to just figure it out.

Go on, pat yourself on the back again with your holier-than-thou screed. Fact is our national politicians and ed leaders are letting parents and kids down. Nobody on this thread has criticized public school teachers doing their best to educate the children.

When I was a kid I attended a Ham radio-based "school of the air" for a few months while staying with relatives in a rural area of Australia. One of my parents is Australian. I learned much more during those months than my kids did with DL in their DCPS program in the spring? Why, because the school of the air was structured in a way that engaged me and pushed me academically. For example, I had to answer a teacher's question every few minutes during air time, roughly two hours each morning. I had to study hard and to complete assignments that were mailed in, graded and returned by mail. Same with tests.

The way DCPS ran its DL programming in the spring was a big part of the problem. I don't expect any different in the fall.

They have actually invested in a program that is a recorded lesson that stops however many times a teacher wants and the kids have to answer a question (verbally, multiple choice, short answer) before they can move on in the video. The response goes directly to the teacher.

Oh great. Hint: little kids need a lot of human interaction to learn much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least I don't blame the teachers for it or expect them to just figure it out.

Go on, pat yourself on the back again with your holier-than-thou screed. Fact is our national politicians and ed leaders are letting parents and kids down. Nobody on this thread has criticized public school teachers doing their best to educate the children.

When I was a kid I attended a Ham radio-based "school of the air" for a few months while staying with relatives in a rural area of Australia. One of my parents is Australian. I learned much more during those months than my kids did with DL in their DCPS program in the spring? Why, because the school of the air was structured in a way that engaged me and pushed me academically. For example, I had to answer a teacher's question every few minutes during air time, roughly two hours each morning. I had to study hard and to complete assignments that were mailed in, graded and returned by mail. Same with tests.

The way DCPS ran its DL programming in the spring was a big part of the problem. I don't expect any different in the fall.

They have actually invested in a program that is a recorded lesson that stops however many times a teacher wants and the kids have to answer a question (verbally, multiple choice, short answer) before they can move on in the video. The response goes directly to the teacher.

Oh great. Hint: little kids need a lot of human interaction to learn much.

I wasn’t making a judgment the way you are. I was pointing out to the poster who lived in Australia and attended “school of the air” that DCPS has similar program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At least I don't blame the teachers for it or expect them to just figure it out.

Go on, pat yourself on the back again with your holier-than-thou screed. Fact is our national politicians and ed leaders are letting parents and kids down. Nobody on this thread has criticized public school teachers doing their best to educate the children.

When I was a kid I attended a Ham radio-based "school of the air" for a few months while staying with relatives in a rural area of Australia. One of my parents is Australian. I learned much more during those months than my kids did with DL in their DCPS program in the spring? Why, because the school of the air was structured in a way that engaged me and pushed me academically. For example, I had to answer a teacher's question every few minutes during air time, roughly two hours each morning. I had to study hard and to complete assignments that were mailed in, graded and returned by mail. Same with tests.

The way DCPS ran its DL programming in the spring was a big part of the problem. I don't expect any different in the fall.

They have actually invested in a program that is a recorded lesson that stops however many times a teacher wants and the kids have to answer a question (verbally, multiple choice, short answer) before they can move on in the video. The response goes directly to the teacher.

Oh great. Hint: little kids need a lot of human interaction to learn much.

Hint: what starts with a c and ends with a d?

Please people, just like some teachers you have every excuse. We’ll be back in person when the government gets it together and closes everything that can be.

[Anonymous]

Kids need more hugs from their families, and not from teachers dressed in PPE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids need more hugs from their families, and not from teachers dressed in PPE.

I won’t be hugging your kid over video or while we are @ school dressed in PPE.
I’m already teaching my little one that hugs are only for family.
Those days in school of warm fuzzy hugs are gone.