So over APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

I don't quite understand the logistics; but it has to do with teachers needing to staff/proctor the SOLs as well as use of the classrooms and community spaces to give the exams. I guess with the COVID restrictions in place, they can't figure out how to conduct classes and give SOLs at the same time like they do in normal times?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a new phenomenon. APS has been on a decline for a while. The pandemic has just shown a huge spotlight on it. Parents are now seeing the reality of an APS education. Lots are wisely abandoning ship.

Yes, we and others we know are seriously contemplating other areas regionally or nationally. We just are waiting for the green light from our offices. But, why spend exorbitant amounts of money to live somewhere and have your child receive no to a maybe subpar education? Makes no sense really. Live somewhere else more affordable and get a better return on your education investment. Win win.

Spot on. My kid has been in APS for 10 years, and I’ve always been under the impression it was good. Now I know better. With so many APS apologists around, it’s hard to make the case that the quality is not there. You get hit with all the BS from posters above about being a helicopter parents, it being a pandemic, it being Thursday. The excuse du jour. It’s NEVER APS’s fault. Always the fault of parents and kids.

Always remember: there is a LOT of real estate equity riding on the narrative that Arlington schools are excellent, and not mediocre and coasting on the high test scores of a population of highly-educated families.

This. Exactly. APS and Duran REALLY have rolled the dice on how they handled this year. Especially with neighboring shining stars like Fairfax and MoCo diverging and making greater efforts to return students. Every APS family who has struggled through this will not forget. And every incoming family who contemplates where to land will likely be uninterested in the game of virtual school dysfunction vs. more days per week.

I think APS went bust on this gamble in a number of ways, and even if the sting isn't immediate, it will be in the years to come as the test scores and "results" drop off and people give up and move on. This will be the prophecy that APS wrote for itself, sadly.

Uh. APS returned more kids than Fairfax and Montgomery. Also, if you’re a MS or HS parent and you’re posting on DCUM you are perfectly capable of setting ParentVue to give you a weekly count of your kids’ missing assignments. Not difficult.

Not more. A larger percentage. Which may indicate APS parents want their kids back in school for more than 2 days a week - something their friends in MCPS and FCPS have as an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Yes, it is that difficult. Parentvue is NOT accurate. Plus some teachers use Canvas and DO NOT update it. My DD's assignments says they are all late, but in fact they are not. Cannot rely on this.

But if it says they are late, kid or parent should be checking my in with teacher to make sure they are not. I’m prompting my sixth grader to do this all the time after checking in on assignments I can see. U wouldn’t want to let them go like that on a mere assumption or kid could get burned.

[Anonymous]

+1. The complaint was that the parent had no clue that kids hadn't submitted things for weeks. Parent Vue might show something missing that was turned in. But in general, it would alert you to the general existence of a problem. But go ahead and continue to look for anyone else to blame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess they can start being concerned now they transformed my A student to a straight D student!

Not really seeing why that’s their concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

I don't quite understand the logistics; but it has to do with teachers needing to staff/proctor the SOLs as well as use of the classrooms and community spaces to give the exams. I guess with the COVID restrictions in place, they can't figure out how to conduct classes and give SOLs at the same time like they do in normal times?

How does your DD have nothing to do all week? My DD has homework in each class for the entire week. She did homework today from 10-4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1. The complaint was that the parent had no clue that kids hadn't submitted things for weeks. Parent Vue might show something missing that was turned in. But in general, it would alert you to the general existence of a problem. But go ahead and continue to look for anyone else to blame.

Apart from ParentVue being largely inaccurate, I have reached out to specific teachers often after realizing my kids aren’t turning in work. Why a teacher can’t alert me to that is beyond me. But, you’re correct that I as the parent could get on top of things and I have tried to do so by logging on to ParentVue regularly, plus looking on Canvas several times per week. But I’ll tell you that there have been *multiple times* this school year when I’ve reached out to a teacher to say “My kid is failing your class and was missing a bunch of work. Can you please let us know how to submit what’s missing since I can’t tell after looking at Canvas and ParentVue for the last hour?” And then waited *weeks* for a reply. Could we be doing better? Sure! But one of us is working full time (not from home!) and the other is 11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess they can start being concerned now they transformed my A student to a straight D student!

Not really seeing why that’s their concern.

Someone earlier in the thread said the teacher probably wasn’t concerned about my A student because other kids were struggling more, and I was merely pointing out that my child has now moved into the category of D student, so perhaps the teacher will care more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. The complaint was that the parent had no clue that kids hadn't submitted things for weeks. Parent Vue might show something missing that was turned in. But in general, it would alert you to the general existence of a problem. But go ahead and continue to look for anyone else to blame.

Apart from ParentVue being largely inaccurate, I have reached out to specific teachers often after realizing my kids aren’t turning in work. Why a teacher can’t alert me to that is beyond me. But, you’re correct that I as the parent could get on top of things and I have tried to do so by logging on to ParentVue regularly, plus looking on Canvas several times per week. But I’ll tell you that there have been *multiple times* this school year when I’ve reached out to a teacher to say “My kid is failing your class and was missing a bunch of work. Can you please let us know how to submit what’s missing since I can’t tell after looking at Canvas and ParentVue for the last hour?” And then waited *weeks* for a reply. Could we be doing better? Sure! But one of us is working full time (not from home!) and the other is 11.

In case anyone else needs this info at this point: in my kid’s experience when you can no longer submit an assignment in Canvas because the window for submissions has closed, if teacher will still accept the assignment (eg some will not accept late work less than 2 weeks before close of semester or similar), then kid can probably at minimum try emailing it to them with a note in email saying what it is and why it’s late. Attach to an email and send.

[Anonymous]

It's also worth noting that Canvas can be very hard to manage. My HS DD's teacher sent a note saying students needed to find a certain form linked from part of Canvas. Neither of us could find it. I spent a good 30 min looking for link. I have no idea where it was. We emailed the teacher (who still has not responded).

We've also had multiple times this year where she submitted assignments somehow to the wrong spot, then the teacher counted them as late and marked down the grade.

This year has been so hard to manage vs. in-person school where kids could actually just turn stuff in. I hate electronic school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's also worth noting that Canvas can be very hard to manage. My HS DD's teacher sent a note saying students needed to find a certain form linked from part of Canvas. Neither of us could find it. I spent a good 30 min looking for link. I have no idea where it was. We emailed the teacher (who still has not responded).

We've also had multiple times this year where she submitted assignments somehow to the wrong spot, then the teacher counted them as late and marked down the grade.

This year has been so hard to manage vs. in-person school where kids could actually just turn stuff in. I hate electronic school.

I don’t understand why things are so complicated. Why not just have a Google drive with all the assignments, due dates etc, and then email or upload to your own user folder that is shared with teacher for turning in. Done that’s it. Track grades in a spreadsheet. Offices do similar work all the time electronically not sure why education management systems make everything so much more complicated other than to sell stupid admin office people more crud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess they can start being concerned now they transformed my A student to a straight D student!

Not really seeing why that’s their concern.

Someone earlier in the thread said the teacher probably wasn’t concerned about my A student because other kids were struggling more, and I was merely pointing out that my child has now moved into the category of D student, so perhaps the teacher will care more?

They won't. Welcome to APS.

[Anonymous]

Two kids in middle school in APS. Many teachers between them. None of these issues. Sometimes they can’t find a link or have a submission issue. They work it out with their teacher. All of them have been responsive. I don’t get involved with Canvas and only check grades and missing assignments on ParentVue We’ve had no major issues like I am reading about here. Are we just lucky or are there a vocal few on here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two kids in middle school in APS. Many teachers between them. None of these issues. Sometimes they can’t find a link or have a submission issue. They work it out with their teacher. All of them have been responsive. I don’t get involved with Canvas and only check grades and missing assignments on ParentVue We’ve had no major issues like I am reading about here. Are we just lucky or are there a vocal few on here?

I think it's a mixed bag. I have senior and sophomore. Senior had no issues all year. Sophomore has had a very hard time with DL. Some teachers are very flexible and supportive and have their Canvas set up to be easy to see what's due and when. Others, their page is hard to follow, doesn't have a clear list of assignments and grades. One only puts the grades in Student/ParentVue. The school really should require teachers to follow a consistent set-up for Canvas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two kids in middle school in APS. Many teachers between them. None of these issues. Sometimes they can’t find a link or have a submission issue. They work it out with their teacher. All of them have been responsive. I don’t get involved with Canvas and only check grades and missing assignments on ParentVue We’ve had no major issues like I am reading about here. Are we just lucky or are there a vocal few on here?

I think it's a mixed bag. I have senior and sophomore. Senior had no issues all year. Sophomore has had a very hard time with DL. Some teachers are very flexible and supportive and have their Canvas set up to be easy to see what's due and when. Others, their page is hard to follow, doesn't have a clear list of assignments and grades. One only puts the grades in Student/ParentVue. The school really should require teachers to follow a consistent set-up for Canvas.

That was one of the things they were supposed to do for this year--they "learned" last spring how differently teachers used it, and over the summer were supposed to figure out the "best" system and get all the teachers to use it. But apparently however each teacher sets up their stuff then affects how it works, so if they screwed something up in how they designed their pages, then everything flowed from there. And classes aren't exactly the same, anyhow--some teachers use worksheets and some use a variety of materials and some use textbooks, etc. But yes, it is really hard when stuff is not consistent, and harder when the teachers aren't responsive when you ask where things are, or where/how to submit, or the window to download or access or submit something closes by the time you find it.