If you have an elementary age child in FCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My concern is that in the fall, teachers/principals will think this is the norm for online learning but parents POV is that this is an emergency situation and we will want way more online school in the fall.

+1

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

That is what our Teachers are doing and it is working nicely. I would love small groups during office hours but I am pretty happy with how things have been going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

I think even the schools that are meeting the minimum standard of 4 hours live per week—-parents will expect much, much more virtual instruction if fall is 100% online. But my teacher friends think what are they are doing now is plenty. Agree that expectations need to be communicated CLEARLY to all
teachers and parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

I am honestly curious—what did your materials says the expectation was? This would certainly explain the confusion and makes more sense
than “principals ignoring FCPS standards”....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

I am honestly curious—what did your materials says the expectation was? This would certainly explain the confusion and makes more sense
than “principals ignoring FCPS standards”....

It said an hour of direct instruction. It did not say synchronous. The way my school interpreted it was that prerecorded videos were okay to meet this requirement. I personally like the mix of both that we are doing. All of my students are not able to make my live lessons do they are recorded, and then we have other videos posted for the day as well. We have received more positive than negative feedback with the way we are doing things. I don’t think we can make everyone happy. I think it would be helpful to have consistency so that parents aren’t competing between schools and even grade levels in the same school.

[Anonymous]

Our dc's 4th gr teacher is only doing two, one hour sessions a week and no recorded videos of herself teaching. How does that meet the requirement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

I am honestly curious—what did your materials says the expectation was? This would certainly explain the confusion and makes more sense
than “principals ignoring FCPS standards”....

It said an hour of direct instruction. It did not say synchronous. The way my school interpreted it was that prerecorded videos were okay to meet this requirement. I personally like the mix of both that we are doing. All of my students are not able to make my live lessons do they are recorded, and then we have other videos posted for the day as well. We have received more positive than negative feedback with the way we are doing things. I don’t think we can make everyone happy. I think it would be helpful to have consistency so that parents aren’t competing between schools and even grade levels in the same school.

This is interesting. It sounds like Braband gave the orders for one hour per day thinking everyone understood that to mean "live" and the schools interpreted it much more broadly than he intended. My guess is the people complaining about their child only getting 1-2 hours per week "live" with their teacher are at schools where the principal liberally allowed "direct instruction" to include office hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I feel like the county expectations were very poorly communicated. My principal told us we need to do an hour of direct instruction a day, which can be live or through videos. The other hour is office hours. I’ve heard on here that Dr. Brabrand has said an hour of synchronous instruction. In the materials that were reviewed with us before starting, this was not said anywhere. My team does a mix of live instruction and videos each day and do small groups during office hours. Some teams at my school do just recorded videos and also do small groups for office hours. If we continue in the fall, I would like to see some clear communication so we can have more consistency,

I am honestly curious—what did your materials says the expectation was? This would certainly explain the confusion and makes more sense
than “principals ignoring FCPS standards”....

It said an hour of direct instruction. It did not say synchronous. The way my school interpreted it was that prerecorded videos were okay to meet this requirement. I personally like the mix of both that we are doing. All of my students are not able to make my live lessons do they are recorded, and then we have other videos posted for the day as well. We have received more positive than negative feedback with the way we are doing things. I don’t think we can make everyone happy. I think it would be helpful to have consistency so that parents aren’t competing between schools and even grade levels in the same school.

This is interesting. It sounds like Braband gave the orders for one hour per day thinking everyone understood that to mean "live" and the schools interpreted it much more broadly than he intended. My guess is the people complaining about their child only getting 1-2 hours per week "live" with their teacher are at schools where the principal liberally allowed "direct instruction" to include office hours.

Agree this is the most likely expectation for the huge discrepancies.

[Anonymous]

Not really sure how someone can honestly think "direct instruction" would mean "office hours", those are completely different categories.

[Anonymous]

3rd grade 60 minutes live Monday through Thursday. The specials are pre recorded videos on google classroom. We watch those and do the school work for the class live everyday. The school work takes about 60-90 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not really sure how someone can honestly think "direct instruction" would mean "office hours", those are completely different categories.

Agree. Unless you sign your child up for the whole hour.

[Anonymous]

Our 5th grader’s class is only doing 45 minutes twice a week. And those class meetings involve positivity project, morning
meeting, kids doing show and tell, and the teacher is reading a chapter book! She is posting worksheets on google classrooms and the kids are supposed to email their questions. She told the kids to have their parents check their work. Really it’s been shockingly bad. Now from this thread I see that their school is not even meeting the basic requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our dc's 4th gr teacher is only doing two, one hour sessions a week and no recorded videos of herself teaching. How does that meet the requirement?

It doesn't. Therefore, email your principal and region superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Title 1 schools:
3rd grade 1.5 hours synchronous class M-Th plus 1 hr specials live class M-Th

6th grade middle school teachers are choosing either pre-recorded video instruction or live class 2 hours per week per class. It’s frustrating not to know in advance if class will be live or prerecorded.