What changes did the teacher's union make?
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Anonymous
+1. This is why we can't talk about these issues. I fully support providing food to families in need and making sure that each family had access to needed technology. Those needs should have been prioritized. That took about a month. I can support and appreciate that those things were done well, but still have concerns that no actual teaching of high school students occurred. And you know what? That's not even a me, me, me, thing. Anyone concerned about equity knows that higher income families were able to support student learning with tutors. This pandemic has disadvantaged marginalized populations even further. |
Anonymous
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There cannot be a real conversation about these issues as long as the loudest parents claim there was no teaching. It obliterates the hard work of teachers who went above and beyond every day.
I wrote about this before. DCUM posts were so negative that I started to feel paranoid that my parents were lying when they thanked me. Maybe they really thought I did nothing? Did that mean that they thanked me because they also thought if they didn’t I would retaliate in some way? It was really upsetting. |
Anonymous
DO was a disaster for us in the spring, but in my view it was a central office failure and not a teaching problem. My child’s second grade teacher did the best she could given the restraints she faced; she was not allowed to teach any new content in the live zooms, so they were just quick check-ins. That was a problem, but not her fault. The real disappointment for us was in the terrible videos (Eureka and Benchmark) that they expected the kids to walk to learn new content, and that so little content was covered (3 days/week of math and 2 days/week of ELA). Again, that’s not on the teachers but in central office. I’m hopeful it will be better come fall, and that teachers will have the autonomy they need to actually teach. |
Anonymous
I'm not one of those loud parents, but I do have questions. I did not ask questions last spring, because I knew that everyone was scrambling to deal with the crisis. As we move forward, however, I still maintain that the deficiencies in the spring should be explained as a way to assure parents that the fall will be better. If my child didn't have any of those teachers who went "above and beyond" in the spring and no one has explained why a 1 hour check in per class per week in high school was deemed to be acceptable, whether by the teacher or administration, then I have to speculate about the reasons why. A possible reason why instruction was not offered was that teachers' unions pushed for this. And honestly, the fact that some teachers went above and beyond confuses parents even more, because then those who did what was agreed upon look like slackers. |
Anonymous
In the experience of my high school kid, for some teachers, there really was no teaching. Really. They did nothing other than post a few things on Google Classroom. Meanwhile, other teachers worked very hard. If I had to generalize, I'd say that the teachers who didn't do much at school also did little or nothing last spring, and the teachers who worked hard at school also worked hard last spring. If you're a teacher who works hard - well, you know your colleagues. You know who works and who doesn't. |
Anonymous
The teacher's union has very little power and everything that was put in place this spring had to be agreed to by both MCEA and MCPS. MCPS was more behind this than MCEA. The reason high school and middle school instruction was limited and these limitations were encouraged by MCPS was Jack Smith did not want the gaps between the haves and have nots to increase. He and Monifa McKnight would rather have no students learn than some learn because it makes equity data look more favorable. Central office realized it takes a lot of parent involvement to push students to log onto Zoom and engage in lessons and homework. This would happen in some households but not in many others. If high school and middle school teachers were told to push out more work and Zooms they would have done so. I know of many teachers that were chastised by their principals for giving too much work and doing too many Zoom calls. Also once the BOE decided basically everyone passes, what's the point of trying to promote rigor and lessons when less than 5% of students were logging onto Zoom or doing assignments. If blame is to be assigned, look no further than Gude Drive. BLAME CENTRAL OFFICE. Blame Jack Smith. Blame Monifa McKnight. Blame the BOE. Don't blame teachers. Email Jack_Smith@mcpsmd.org and Monifa_B_Mcknight@mcpsmd.org and demand their by more rigor and higher expectations of teachers and students for distance learning. |
Anonymous
If you believe this then the FORMAT isn’t the issue. It won’t natter whether you select DL or Hybrid or if MCPS decides to go back FT F2F. There would still be great teachers and duds, just like every other profession, including nursing. And it would probably be sheer luck whether your child got the teacher who went above and beyond or the one who phoned it in. Sounds like a very different conversation than people are having on DCUM where the argument has been that no teachers did anything last spring and the only way to make teachers work is to force FT F2F. Maybe all of the people who realize format doesn’t matter can talk with those who are stuck on format as the only solution. |
Anonymous
The format actually is the issue. A teacher who does nothing, in school, is still doing more for the students than a teacher who does nothing, on-line. |
Anonymous
I see what you are saying. The union didn’t push for it though. The union did push for teachers to be given technology, but I don’t recall any union action about instructional time or methods. If I am wrong, please someone provide proof, not just your anecdote you read elsewhere on DCUM. It is true that those who obeyed their admin then looked like slackers you parents, but I recall several posts complaining about a specific 6th grade magnet English teacher giving too much work. Teachers really could not win last spring, but it’s hard to blame someone wanting to avoid an official reprimand in their file as a result of disobeying a directive to limit instruction. |
Anonymous
True, but even a dud has a better chance of being effective when teaching 5 days per week as opposed to a 1 hour check-in. That is part of the problem. As we reduce instruction hours in DL, the impact of having a less engaged or less effective teacher is magnified. |
Anonymous
I hear you. And I know that teachers were in an impossible situation. All of us were making impossible choices, and that continues. That is why I wish there was greater transparency with parents as to the basis of the decisions that were made. Sure, I probably could have watched the BOE meetings, but like almost everyone else, I was busy scrambling with my own family and professional obligations. I read the PP above's post that the decision to limit instruction in MS and HS had to do with equity concerns. That should have been clearly stated to parents. We are all worried about the future of our children. When I'm working extra hours each week at my job, trying to keep my kids on track, and consumed with fear and anxiety for my kids and financial stress, the one hour a week for my HS students in AP classes was an additional source of stress and conflict in our home. Once the AP exams were over (including one exam taken twice due to submission issues), things settled down. Beyond that, I have loved some aspects of this pandemic, including the additional time spent at home with my kids. I feel that I have every right to be concerned that so little was provided to high school students from an academic standpoint without having hostile and dismissive teachers suggest that I want schools to reopen because I don't want to spend time with my family. I actually don't think schools should reopen in the fall, but I am looking for reassurance about DL in the fall to inform our decisions. Perhaps a takeaway from this discussion is that to avoid pitting parents against teachers and teachers against parents, administrators and the BOE should do a better job communicating the rationale for their decisions. |
Anonymous
I don’t think that’s true. I supervise student teachers and mentor brand new ones. Sometimes it is easy for duds to hide their inadequacies through a cool classroom persona and distracting students with fun, but ultimately meaningless activities. Once you strip all of that away and have to post lessons that parents can easily see, it is harder to fake it. You also get dud veteran teachers who have been hiding behind disruptive student behavior for a decade. In the classroom it is easy to say that the kids didn’t learn much because you had 2 or 3 class clowns who kept interrupting, but once we had the ability to mute them and even turn their video off, if the lessons still aren’t covering sufficient material, there’s a planning problem. In-person teaching is up to 30% housekeeping, administrivials, and behavior management. My school loses a collective 1000 minutes of instruction daily just on having students put their chairs on top of the desks to make it easier for building services to sweep the classroom floors. That’s 5000 minutes a week. Multiplied by 180, it’s a staggering amount of learning time lost just to facilitate cleaning. |
Anonymous
I am not surprised that this is their approach, but unfortunately, this only makes things worse; just as in other things in life, it is not black and white, and it is not haves and have nots. It is a continuum - at one extreme there will be students who supplement and who will be less affected relatively speaking in the long run; at the other extreme, there will be kids who should really be in school learning in in-person classes; in the middle there is definitely a section that can make good use of more rigoruous distance learning. Right now MCPS is letting the gap between one extreme and the rest widen. I wonder if there is a case to be made for MCPS to provide transportation only to, say, FARMS eligible and Special Ed students for in-person classes and provide rigorous DL for others (with exceptions, of course) instead of letting parents choose? May be they can be spread among all schools, so physical distancing becomes less of an issue? They can also let families that qualify for in person to opt out... |
Anonymous
Yes, I personally will not be watching kids while working in the fall. However, I think that misses the point. You are worried about the quality of instruction in Fall. Unfortunately, there is little support for getting ready. We should be preparing to deliver lessons that incorporate best practices for online education. Teachers should organized into teams and dividing work so each teacher doesn't have to create an entire online curriculum on their own. However, most teachers I know are working their second (summer) job, providing childcare, and aren't totally sure what they'll be teaching in Fall. No guidance has been provided on how or what to prepare. I'm preparing, but I have the luxury to do so. Also, I recognize that even though I'm preparing for one thing (e.g. 4th grade or Algebra) I might get switched to something else (e.g. 5th or Geometry). Prep needs to be led by administrators and leaders, people need to be told what to get ready for, help (financial, training, childcare) needs to be provided so people can spend time preparing, but it's not happening. |
Anonymous
| So much for the "remote instruction will be much better this fall!" thing. |