You couldn’t be more wrong. Remember he came on board in May/June after the worst decisions in 2020 were made. He has put plans in place to help teachers particularly over the last sux months. In the long term he’s going to be an amazing hire for APS. The only people that seem to dislike him are the the open schools now parents who have their kids in private anyway. The same parents that wanted to speak for minority families in South Arlington but were dead wrong on what they wanted. |
Well said! I am a teacher with many options elsewhere. I stayed because he conveys a genuine desire to help us. Arlington parents should be grateful for his leadership because we could be like FCPS and still looking for hundreds of teachers just a month before school starts. I support him even though I don’t agree with him 100% especially on increasing central office staff. In my 20 years in APS I’ve never seen the benefit of a large central office. More bureaucratic stuff, meaning more on our plates . |
And the same parents who didn’t hesitate to shout over speakers for those minority families. They’re irrational a-holes who get off on throwing tantrums. |
+1 Duran is great so far. WAY better than incompetent Murphy. |
FCPS is huge, though. The teacher vacancies everywhere are concerning, APS included. |
A majority of ethinic groups of wanted to come back in person, even if under-priviliged minorities were only slighly less than whites and Asians. God, these closed schoolers can never admit they were wrong. It's so pathetic. The most loud-mouthed ones are affluent white women, many of whom don't work full-time outside of the home. The definition of privilege. |
It was the right call at the time with the knowledge and resources available. Guess your temper tantrums didn’t work. Maybe next time try something more constructive. |
I really hope Duran and the Board stop hiring so many 6 figure cabinet officials. And the Board deserves credit for such hiring decisions too - as much as they try to make all unpopular decisions be on Duran, they approve all of those hires.
Enrollment has gone down, but the King's Court keeps increasing. |
What? It's been proven to be the absolute wrong call, especially looking at how much better kids did in places that didn't close public schools have done. In fact, closed schools didn't help with COVID spread at all either. We knew schools were safe after Europe reopened them in the spring 2020, and most of the US had by the fall 2020. That's why NYC went ahead and opened schools in November 2020. APS didn't until March 21! So once again, the Trump-like closed schoolers can't admit they're wrong. Take the L. |
Lies. We didn’t “know” it was safe. We expected the surge. And APS started sending kids back in November. It was the right call at the time. |
wow - lots of teachers on this thread |
Schools should have, and could have reopened. Many (both teachers and parents) fought tooth and nail against this. Meanwhile, our kids suffered and now everyone is seeing the results of this poor decision. |
Anonymous wrote:
NP. Hindsight is 20-20. Why do you continue to blame teachers (who didn't make any of these decisions, it is way above their pay grade) for something that was decided based on the best possible information at the time? Keep in mind that the CDC was recommending 6 feet distancing, something that was not possible in most APS schools. Kids do not move through hallways 6 feet apart. |
One has to move elsewhere to appreciate how weird Arlington is snd how mediocre the schools are. |
I work in a district that opened October 2020 and we are having the same staffing issues as Arlington. So it a family member who works in Texas —they never closed and actually their staffing issues seem to be much worse.
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