Prince George's Co. schools closed Wednesday for Day Without A Woman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is ridiculous and looks horrible on the working moms that want to go to work but can not because we have to stay home with our kids now.

+ 1000. Makes teachers look bad too. What happened to "best interests of the children"?

"Best interests of the children" is women's work. Indeed most of the caring work in society, paid as well as unpaid, is done by women. And when women walk off the job (paid as well as unpaid) in recognition of that fact, the response is, "How can you do that? You're a terrible person! Don't you care about the people you care for? Don't you care about the other women who do caring work?"

If men did half of the caring work (paid as well as unpaid), a walk-out by women would have much less effect.

[Anonymous]

Judging from traffic and office turnout, it seems like the only people observing this event are the PG school teachers. What an embarrassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The superintendent was interviewed on WTOP earlier. He apologized and said that after hours requests for tomorrow poured in and he did not have enough teachers, bus drivers or support staff to meet state requirements on student teacher ratios and so had to cancel minute. He was very apologetic for the short notice. So, the teachers and school staff are creating large problems for working mothers throughout the county.

Wah.

-not a teacher but sick of these threads blaming teachers. They are not your privately paid daycare provider and don't need your permission or approval to take a personal day.

I'm the PP and I don't have a dog in this race; my kids are in a private preschool. I have no problem if they take a personal day off. What I have an issue with is the "protest" and waiting until 5pm the day before to announce that you are taking the day off for anything short of an emergency. I saw notices of the event 2 weeks ago. Had they let their employer know, even a week ago, the county could have announced the closure early enough that parents could make alternate arrangements. It is completely irresponsible to take a planned day off and announce the day before when you know that there are thousands of families that need more notice than this to take off. Most parents can sort out backup plans with even 24 hours notice, but it can be very hard to schedule backup plans when the closure is not announced until 8pm the night before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The superintendent was interviewed on WTOP earlier. He apologized and said that after hours requests for tomorrow poured in and he did not have enough teachers, bus drivers or support staff to meet state requirements on student teacher ratios and so had to cancel minute. He was very apologetic for the short notice. So, the teachers and school staff are creating large problems for working mothers throughout the county.

Wah.

-not a teacher but sick of these threads blaming teachers. They are not your privately paid daycare provider and don't need your permission or approval to take a personal day.

I'm the PP and I don't have a dog in this race; my kids are in a private preschool. I have no problem if they take a personal day off. What I have an issue with is the "protest" and waiting until 5pm the day before to announce that you are taking the day off for anything short of an emergency. I saw notices of the event 2 weeks ago. Had they let their employer know, even a week ago, the county could have announced the closure early enough that parents could make alternate arrangements. It is completely irresponsible to take a planned day off and announce the day before when you know that there are thousands of families that need more notice than this to take off. Most parents can sort out backup plans with even 24 hours notice, but it can be very hard to schedule backup plans when the closure is not announced until 8pm the night before.

That was kind of the point. It's suppose to show that without any "backup plans", we couldn't do anything without the women in our lives.

[Anonymous]

If they had given us previous notice, the event would have much less of an impact on us.

[Anonymous]

The sad irony is that the people who were impacted the most by not giving at least 24 hours notice were other women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The sad irony is that the people who were impacted the most by not giving at least 24 hours notice were other women. [/quote]


+ 1. And the poorest women. I didn't notice anything unusual anywhere today while out and about driving. Very little on the news tonight too. I think it was a big flop.

[Anonymous]

Wow, if I told a client the day before a scheduled meeting that I was taking a "personal day" instead of attending our meeting, I'd be fired. So unprofessional what these teacher's did at the last minute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
"Best interests of the children" is women's work. Indeed most of the caring work in society, paid as well as unpaid, is done by women. And when women walk off the job (paid as well as unpaid) in recognition of that fact, the response is, "How can you do that? You're a terrible person! Don't you care about the people you care for? Don't you care about the other women who do caring work?"

If men did half of the caring work (paid as well as unpaid), a walk-out by women would have much less effect.

Just thought this was worth repeating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The superintendent was interviewed on WTOP earlier. He apologized and said that after hours requests for tomorrow poured in and he did not have enough teachers, bus drivers or support staff to meet state requirements on student teacher ratios and so had to cancel minute. He was very apologetic for the short notice. So, the teachers and school staff are creating large problems for working mothers throughout the county.

Wah.

-not a teacher but sick of these threads blaming teachers. They are not your privately paid daycare provider and don't need your permission or approval to take a personal day.

I'm the PP and I don't have a dog in this race; my kids are in a private preschool. I have no problem if they take a personal day off. What I have an issue with is the "protest" and waiting until 5pm the day before to announce that you are taking the day off for anything short of an emergency. I saw notices of the event 2 weeks ago. Had they let their employer know, even a week ago, the county could have announced the closure early enough that parents could make alternate arrangements. It is completely irresponsible to take a planned day off and announce the day before when you know that there are thousands of families that need more notice than this to take off. Most parents can sort out backup plans with even 24 hours notice, but it can be very hard to schedule backup plans when the closure is not announced until 8pm the night before.

That was kind of the point. It's suppose to show that without any "backup plans", we couldn't do anything without the women in our lives.

It would have been far more effective in illustrating the point and hitting those who it would make the most difference to, if secretaries, admins, assistants, legal assistants, and support staff that work in male dominated offices took the day off and protested. As has been pointed out, teacher strikes will affect far more women than men. Not reaching the right target audience.

[Anonymous]

This is our new reality. Look at nonviolent civil resistance in Zimbabwe, the Philippines, Russia. The women's strike is one of the things to do to overthrow an unjust regime nonviolently. We've got to keep building momentum for the 2018 elections, and then onto the 2020 election.