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VA Public Schools other than FCPS
APS Closing Nottingham
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Anonymous
To recap, they should have and could have used the space they had to bring in certain groups of kids in-person and continued virtual school for age groups where it was more appropriate and learning was possible. Instead of having bus drivers and lunch aides and extended day staff stand with special ed kids in person in a building to do virtual school, they should have and could have provided them real in-person instruction. What happened with special education students was F-ed up and immoral. These things could have been done safely. |
Anonymous
Not what I mean. Florida was open the whole time. I know you are going to say I am thus MAGA, but you are just politicizing it. |
Anonymous
Huh? They did go back after vaccines were readily available. It was very hard to get a vaccine in the beginning. |
Anonymous
Right, so they had more space, less overcrowding, and nutter politicians who denied covid risks. That's not us. |
Anonymous
They brought back special ed kids and had them doing virtual school. I agree they were limited by staffing. Teachers were not treated as essential workers and did not behave as if they were essential. As a society, we treated teaching young learners and special education kids as a nice to have. Turns out that had some pretty big consequences. I and others disagreed this was the right call to make at the time and still disagree now. |
Anonymous
Not the PP you were responding to, but who was going to teach if not “the adults?” No revisionist history is needed. Many teachers were threatening to quit, many parents were pressuring them not to open, so I think they made a bad, but reasonable, decision in the moment. Again, we weren’t surrounded by open districts, so they weren’t so far out there. And AGAIN, it’s not relevant to this discussion. Everything about the pandemic sucked donkey balls. Nobody is denying that. But it’s time to move forward and stop blaming APS and pointing fingers. There’s too much blame to go around and very few of us were our best selves during this period. Let’s do what we can now to make things better, for as many of the kids as we can. And that includes not wasting money to keep an under-enrolled school open when it’s surrounded by other schools with space. |
Anonymous
This is a perfect way to bring it back around to the original topic. In a perfect world, APS administrators and School Board would do their jobs and not pander to screaming parents and what's easiest in the moment. It's the same issue, different topic. FWIW, I agree it's the right thing to close Nottingham for now. |
Anonymous
On the whole, we definitely don't value or prioritize education or teachers. Or special ed needs. Look at all of the parents who look down on teachers and vocally bullied them. Imagine doing that to your doctor. |
Anonymous
If doctors and nurses hadn't showed up to work in-person during the pandemic, they would have likely gotten some bullying. |
Anonymous
+1 Thanks for bringing it back. I think closing Nottingham would be reactionary to what I believe are temporary trends and for an unclear purpose, and disagree with the proposal. Doesn’t make me a horrible and selfish MAGA or APE or whatever the firebreathers are carrying on about. |
Anonymous
1). Arlington vaccinated teachers in mid January 2021 when they entered Phase 1B. Vaccines were incredibly hard to come by at the time and the group emergency responders and correctional officers—people who were in fact in person. 2). Phase 1B included people who were 75+, true. So, if you were 74 or a 70 year old resident of Arlington, you could not get a vaccine but teachers—who were not in person—could. It was mind boggling to me at the time. 3). Then, despite this, they started on the ridiculous hybrid model in early March, meaning basically we did not really “return to schools” until August 2021. Hence, my frustration. |
Anonymous
Yep. Let's not forget APS would not have re-opened in March 2021 if not for Northam forcing the issue. And they wouldn't have gone back full-tme in August 2021 unless forced by VA law. The teachers associations publicly opposed a return 5 days a week for Fall of 2021. |
Anonymous
Hence the temporary closure as a neighborhood school. They aren’t shuttering it, it will still be operational as a swing space until such a time as it’s needed as a neighborhood school again. |
Anonymous
This will be a closure of a decade, at least. Our processes are neither fast nor nimble. |
Anonymous
They are proposing closing it IN TWO YEARS. I highly doubt they will be able to re-open it in the same timeframe. Say three years at best. So, five years from now you will have those ES seats again. Next, ES are overcrowded in S Arlington and expected to grow exponentially. What is the plan? Because we have 400 seats sitting and available now. I am not suggesting busing. What am I asking is; what is APS plan? I am skeptical that we need to lose 400 seats for five years. I don’t think that makes logical sense. |