NPR Article on Public Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The parent in the article who said this is spot on.

We all feel like we're witnessing the death of public education up close and personal.
[/quote]

I've never seen as many people go to private school as I have in the past two years. Trust in the public education system is quickly crumbling. It is so sad, and it's going to get worse.

Agree. I wrote almost exactly those words on DCUM last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen - you need to understand that we live in a society where there is a balance between supply and demand. Teachers are in serious demand and in low supply. The counties need to keep them as happy as possible and they don’t have any money to give them decent pay increases. So they give them time off. We had huge turnover at my kids school over the last 1 1/2 years. I will gladly take a couple days off rather than go back to online or have 50 kids in a class. If you want to keep your kids in school, take care of your teachers. Seriously.

Then we really, really need to adapt the European model of year round school. 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Let’s go already.

I recently had a long conversation with my SIL about this. She's a former 2nd grade teacher (15 years), then elementary principal, now high level administrator in her school district. She says that while parents push back against the idea of year round school because change is hard, they aren't the real obstacle. Most families are two-income, and summers are hard in terms of childcare. Most families only take a couple weeks of actual vacation in the summer because they have to work, so the rest of the summer is just trying to keep the kids occupied and safe until school starts again. So while there would definitely be push back, a lot more families would get on board with this than you think.

The obstacles is teachers. This schedule is often one of the key selling points for many people who enter the profession, and long-timers have structured their entire lives around it. There are teachers who would support a year round model for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it would make the actual act of teaching easier because you wouldn't have to deal with annual learning loss and re-acclimating kids to the classroom. And there are teachers who already essentially teach year round because they teach summer school most years. But as a group, there is a lot of resistance to a year-round model among teachers and that's the primary reason most districts haven't attempted it, even though it's an issue that comes up regularly.

When I lived in Arizona they did a modified year round schedule and it was great. A month in the summer and 2 week breaks between quarters. It worked really well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen - you need to understand that we live in a society where there is a balance between supply and demand. Teachers are in serious demand and in low supply. The counties need to keep them as happy as possible and they don’t have any money to give them decent pay increases. So they give them time off. We had huge turnover at my kids school over the last 1 1/2 years. I will gladly take a couple days off rather than go back to online or have 50 kids in a class. If you want to keep your kids in school, take care of your teachers. Seriously.

Then we really, really need to adapt the European model of year round school. 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Let’s go already.

School RN. This. We do need to do this as much as I love love my 9-week summer off. I can just see the struggle in my Title 1 school and my own child’s high school. Parents work all year the kids need all year school.

[Anonymous]

This is probably partly why more and more people are homeschooling their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen - you need to understand that we live in a society where there is a balance between supply and demand. Teachers are in serious demand and in low supply. The counties need to keep them as happy as possible and they don’t have any money to give them decent pay increases. So they give them time off. We had huge turnover at my kids school over the last 1 1/2 years. I will gladly take a couple days off rather than go back to online or have 50 kids in a class. If you want to keep your kids in school, take care of your teachers. Seriously.

Then we really, really need to adapt the European model of year round school. 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Let’s go already.

I recently had a long conversation with my SIL about this. She's a former 2nd grade teacher (15 years), then elementary principal, now high level administrator in her school district. She says that while parents push back against the idea of year round school because change is hard, they aren't the real obstacle. Most families are two-income, and summers are hard in terms of childcare. Most families only take a couple weeks of actual vacation in the summer because they have to work, so the rest of the summer is just trying to keep the kids occupied and safe until school starts again. So while there would definitely be push back, a lot more families would get on board with this than you think.

The obstacles is teachers. This schedule is often one of the key selling points for many people who enter the profession, and long-timers have structured their entire lives around it. There are teachers who would support a year round model for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it would make the actual act of teaching easier because you wouldn't have to deal with annual learning loss and re-acclimating kids to the classroom. And there are teachers who already essentially teach year round because they teach summer school most years. But as a group, there is a lot of resistance to a year-round model among teachers and that's the primary reason most districts haven't attempted it, even though it's an issue that comes up regularly.

Yet these same teachers claim yet don’t get the summer off, they are working almost the entire time. If that’s truly the case, I’d think it’s no issue to go to year round school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen - you need to understand that we live in a society where there is a balance between supply and demand. Teachers are in serious demand and in low supply. The counties need to keep them as happy as possible and they don’t have any money to give them decent pay increases. So they give them time off. We had huge turnover at my kids school over the last 1 1/2 years. I will gladly take a couple days off rather than go back to online or have 50 kids in a class. If you want to keep your kids in school, take care of your teachers. Seriously.

Then we really, really need to adapt the European model of year round school. 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Let’s go already.

I recently had a long conversation with my SIL about this. She's a former 2nd grade teacher (15 years), then elementary principal, now high level administrator in her school district. She says that while parents push back against the idea of year round school because change is hard, they aren't the real obstacle. Most families are two-income, and summers are hard in terms of childcare. Most families only take a couple weeks of actual vacation in the summer because they have to work, so the rest of the summer is just trying to keep the kids occupied and safe until school starts again. So while there would definitely be push back, a lot more families would get on board with this than you think.

The obstacles is teachers. This schedule is often one of the key selling points for many people who enter the profession, and long-timers have structured their entire lives around it. There are teachers who would support a year round model for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it would make the actual act of teaching easier because you wouldn't have to deal with annual learning loss and re-acclimating kids to the classroom. And there are teachers who already essentially teach year round because they teach summer school most years. But as a group, there is a lot of resistance to a year-round model among teachers and that's the primary reason most districts haven't attempted it, even though it's an issue that comes up regularly.

When I lived in Arizona they did a modified year round schedule and it was great. A month in the summer and 2 week breaks between quarters. It worked really well.

Omg that sounds amazing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen - you need to understand that we live in a society where there is a balance between supply and demand. Teachers are in serious demand and in low supply. The counties need to keep them as happy as possible and they don’t have any money to give them decent pay increases. So they give them time off. We had huge turnover at my kids school over the last 1 1/2 years. I will gladly take a couple days off rather than go back to online or have 50 kids in a class. If you want to keep your kids in school, take care of your teachers. Seriously.

Then we really, really need to adapt the European model of year round school. 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

Let’s go already.

I'm all for that. Just make sure all schools have fully functioning a/c and let's do it!


-teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am both a teacher and a parent. I teach at a private school but send my kids to public (I can’t justify the cost to send them to my school even with the significant discount). Anyway, we didn’t shut down for the 7 weeks FCPS did in March/April 2020. I kept working while my kids were off for seven weeks. It was maddening.

My kids aren’t behind because I supplement significantly at home but many of their peers are way behind what I am teaching my students. The time off, the virtual learning, the stress of the pandemic have all taken a hard toll on kids.

I am embarrassed by how others in this profession are behaving.

Or, perhaps….super upper class kids are inoculated from the systemic issues that Title 1 public schools are facing, and teachers are having to play teacher, catch-up tutor, counselor and mental health therapist, public health expert, and substitute teachers?

I’m a parent, but super suspicious of any argument that easily casts teachers as the reason why everything is so awful.

And to another poster, while yes, the article said districts are “hoarding” federal covid money, I think it missed the point that schools are recruiting — to no avail. CM Henderson has been asking DCPS about being wildly off-track from where they need to be in order fill the staffing gaps. You can’t just MAKE an educator — one has to exist and be willing to take the job in our district versus other competing districts.

Sudden closures have significant impacts on families in the most precarious situations — so I don’t support that — but it doesn’t mean that teachers are seriously under-resourced. This is not sustainable for teachers, and as a parent who wants to see schools retain good teachers, I want to see my school address it so more teachers don’t leave.

[Anonymous]

THANK YOU parent above!! Teacher here who pushed for reopening ASAP last year and voluntarily went back early. It’s been a hell of a year and the teacher hate has added to the toll a lot. We are indeed being asked to do more than ever and support students who NEED more than ever. It’s been really really hard. Your support means more than you’ll ever know. ❤️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:THANK YOU parent above!! Teacher here who pushed for reopening ASAP last year and voluntarily went back early. It’s been a hell of a year and the teacher hate has added to the toll a lot. We are indeed being asked to do more than ever and support students who NEED more than ever. It’s been really really hard. Your support means more than you’ll ever know. ❤️

Yes there are nasty people here (just as some teachers truly did phone it in over Covid) but there are also plenty of us who saw how hard teachers worked over the last year and how hard they are this year and really appreciate it. Being worried about scrambling to find child care abruptly during a week when some businesses may limit how many people can be off and other co workers might have the days off already does not negate that.

[Anonymous]

“ Parents work all year the kids need all year school.”

But no one is talking about year round school really. It is just stretched out school - same number of days but broken up inconveniently throughout the year rather than consolidated together in the summer.

[Anonymous]

Oh it’s horrible to do that to parents.
I do have sympathy for teachers but they absolutely should not be closing schools like this.
My husband is a teacher & what his school has been doing - on the teacher work days - is giving the teachers the day off then & saying they don’t have to come in. That is absolutely what any school that wants to give the teachers a break should do. End story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools now have learned they can close whenever they want for any reason. Any change to this will require political action.

Which shouldn’t be coming.

Schools have only closed for valid reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:thank g-d the mainstream media is accurately reporting on school closures. finally!!!

Finally?!

All my life it’s been this way. Every snow day is broadcast loud and clear, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools now have learned they can close whenever they want for any reason. Any change to this will require political action.

Which shouldn’t be coming.

Schools have only closed for valid reasons.

It is already here - Youngkin.