Why was my comment regarding prioritizing in-person K-3 & special needs classrooms deleted?

[Anonymous]

Jeff, why was my response in this thread deleted? We are doing a post mortem on how schooling should have been handled during the pandemic and how disastrous remote learning was for young kids and families of young kids and how aggravating it was to be told over and over that school wasn't childcare and dual-worker families needed to figure it out. It wasn't reasonable to tell people who work fulltime that they needed to simultaneously supervise and teach young children. It was not developmentally appropriate to park kindergarteners to 3rd graders in front of a screen and expect them to pay attention, even with a parent sitting there for every moment.

I suggested that a much more reasonable plan would have been to use physical schools and teachers willing to teach in person to bring those age groups back to in-person classrooms earlier. Why delete my post?

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/120/1095933.page

[Anonymous]

I don’t know why your post was deleted. Maybe because hindsight is 20/20? Because what is done is done. Instead of droning on about mistakes be part of the solution. I think mistakes were made but I really don’t see any purpose in talking about what should have been done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why your post was deleted. Maybe because hindsight is 20/20? Because what is done is done. Instead of droning on about mistakes be part of the solution. I think mistakes were made but I really don’t see any purpose in talking about what should have been done.

Not OP. The entire point of that thread is a post mortem on virtual school and school closures. I get there are people who don’t want to have that conversation and think any mention of what went wrong and what could be done better in the future is pointless. But they can just not look at that thread then. Some of us think the post mortem is valuable precisely because mistakes were made and we have an opportunity to learn from them before the next pandemic or crisis puts us in a similar situation.

I also happen to agree with the OP that one of the biggest mistakes was treating all school children identically and failing to meet the unique needs of young learners who are poorly served by remote learning. So I have an interest in seeing comments to that effect and am disappointed if a comment like that is deleted even if it contains no rhetoric that might be deemed inaccurate, hateful, or off topic (all of which are valid reasons to delete comments IMO).

[jsteele]

I've just locked that thread. Like your post, it has turned to a general rehashing of the school closures. Everything has been said about that over and over again.

As the poster above says, we need to focus on solutions, not a continuous blame game.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I've just locked that thread. Like your post, it has turned to a general rehashing of the school closures. Everything has been said about that over and over again.

As the poster above says, we need to focus on solutions, not a continuous blame game.

You don’t think acknowledging what went wrong in the past is important for doing better in the future?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:I've just locked that thread. Like your post, it has turned to a general rehashing of the school closures. Everything has been said about that over and over again.

As the poster above says, we need to focus on solutions, not a continuous blame game.

You don’t think acknowledging what went wrong in the past is important for doing better in the future?

Wasn’t that thread 35 pages? How many more do you need? LOL

[Anonymous]

OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:I've just locked that thread. Like your post, it has turned to a general rehashing of the school closures. Everything has been said about that over and over again.

As the poster above says, we need to focus on solutions, not a continuous blame game.

You don’t think acknowledging what went wrong in the past is important for doing better in the future?

Wasn’t that thread 35 pages? How many more do you need? LOL

No, not that thread. Though there have certainly been other threads. A common theme is that the school closure advocates continue to try to sweep the harm they did under the rug. And the real problem with that is that they may be likely to repeat the same mistakes if they continue to be unable or unwilling to acknowledge them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

Maybe stop trying to have difficult conversations anonymously and put your name and face to things that are this important to you, rather than complaining on a privately run forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

Maybe stop trying to have difficult conversations anonymously and put your name and face to things that are this important to you, rather than complaining on a privately run forum.

Mic drop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

Maybe stop trying to have difficult conversations anonymously and put your name and face to things that are this important to you, rather than complaining on a privately run forum.

Mic drop.

Says another anonymous poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

Maybe stop trying to have difficult conversations anonymously and put your name and face to things that are this important to you, rather than complaining on a privately run forum.

While I agree with this generally, I do think the reason this keeps coming up again and again on DCUM is that it is considered socially and politically unacceptable to openly criticize school closures in DC. I do actually discuss this subject with other people and it is always shrouded in hushed tones and "of course I support the teachers and the schools but".

Not saying it's right or wrong to lock the thread -- that's Jeff's prerogative. But the reason you see this conversation sticking around here and never getting resolved or tired out is because it's considered a taboo subject IRL and people are unsure of how to talk about it in a productive way. I do actually think it's a shame we are not allowed to have productive public discussions of how to handle that situation in the future, whether here anonymously or elsewhere with names attached. I really don't understand the animosity towards people who want to discuss it. It only happened a couple years ago and was a huge deal for a lot of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- Disappointing. If we can't have difficult discussions about what went wrong and how it could have been handled better, I don't see how we can arrive at solutions or get back to a place of more trust in the institutions.

Maybe stop trying to have difficult conversations anonymously and put your name and face to things that are this important to you, rather than complaining on a privately run forum.

Mic drop.

Says another anonymous poster.

Huh? PP and I don’t care. We aren’t here whining to Jeff about deleting anonymous screeds where that rehash something that happened 2 years ago and then complain it’s an important discussion that needs to happen.

[Anonymous]

There is nowhere on the Internet you can have this discussion uncensored, especially not anonymously.
The place to talk about this is among fellow parents and at your school board meetings. Yes, you'll lose friends and you might get labeled as difficult or anti-teacher or anti-public education. Liberate yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is nowhere on the Internet you can have this discussion uncensored, especially not anonymously.
The place to talk about this is among fellow parents and at your school board meetings. Yes, you'll lose friends and you might get labeled as difficult or anti-teacher or anti-public education. Liberate yourself.

If you were screaming about this two years ago we already know all about you.