The amount of lost instruction time due to start of Hybrid and Concurrent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if they need guinea pig students that day to help test everything out. Has anyone volunteered to help? Ask the principals?

Separate but related, I've seen nothing from APS about the ability of the schools' internet bandwidth to support all these iPads streaming video all day every day.

[Anonymous]

It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

I don't think they've had a "concurrent" training session yet - just "hybrid"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

I don't think they've had a "concurrent" training session yet - just "hybrid"?

The last half day was billed as training for the concurrent model, at least to parents.

[Anonymous]

My family still lives in upstate NY where I am from. They opened for hybrid instruction at the beginning of the school year in September and have stayed open this whole time even though their #s resemble ours. I don't know why we are so behind here in VA. There are successful models for them to follow, they don't need to reinvent the wheel.

[Anonymous]

Think of next week as a soft opening. They need to work out what is functional and what was great in theory, but not working. I’m not bothered by it. I’d prefer them get it sorted. I imagine they’ll need to fine tune as they go like any new processes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

I don't think they've had a "concurrent" training session yet - just "hybrid"?

The last half day was billed as training for the concurrent model, at least to parents.

I don’t think a day is enough tbh. It’s a huge thing to teach to in person and virtual groups AND manage the tech. I’d imagine it will get easier for some and never improve for others.

[Anonymous]

It is literally beyond mind boggling that we are at this point.

APS has a budget surplus. Meanwhile our family has spent excess of what we ever did on daycare alone to try and support childcare and supplemental tutoring for our first grader.

APS can't get a decent app or tracking mechanism together to reach out to families going in person five days a week. Instead, contacting EVERY family seven days a week at 5:30. This is 2021, who the bleep are they consulting and contracting with that is setting things up this way.

The COVID metrics right now mirror what they were in the fall, so, this only goes to show that we could have/should have been open since the fall, but, APS just negligently passed the buck and only acted when forced to. They denied our children their right to a free and appropriate public education.

I am so beyond fed up and frustrated and disillusioned. It is so deeply unfortunate that all of the private schools are full and have waitlists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

I don't think they've had a "concurrent" training session yet - just "hybrid"?

The last half day was billed as training for the concurrent model, at least to parents.

I don’t think a day is enough tbh. It’s a huge thing to teach to in person and virtual groups AND manage the tech. I’d imagine it will get easier for some and never improve for others.

It doesn't do teachers any good to get bad or irrelevant training. Don't cancel school and then make poor use of the time, which is what APS does over and over.

APS also told parents in the fall that asynchronous Mondays were in part so APS could run trainings on Mondays (at that point for training on DL). Now we're being told that teachers are too busy on Mondays so they only way to train teachers is to cancel even more school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think APS needs to get hybrid running this year so they can work out the kinks for next fall. There is a good chance that schools may need to be hybrid in the fall and I don't want APS to wait to sort out how to reopen. We can't keep kicking the can on educating kids, like APS chose to last spring and even much of this year.

For my 7 yo, most of the year is already lost. She doesn't learn well via DL. Last spring APS didn't even try, so she lost more than a quarter of last year too. I don't want her to her to have a third school year that is critically disrupted by APS not having its act together to educate students.

+100. It is truly astonishing what happened last spring. APS is the only district that literally didn't teach new material. The SB should all resign for not intervening in that mess (and the 2 newest school board voiced their support for that policy during the campaign!). They could have used the spring to iron out the kinks for DL in the fall. We all knew even then that some kids were going to need to remain virtual due to health conditions. And why do teachers need more and more training days. Isn't that what Mondays are for? And why is the in-person school day going to be a on a reduced schedule? The virtual day was shortened because it's too draining to be "on" for that many hours a day. Now more than ever we need more instructional time - not less! We need these kids in the building asap to work this stuff out so we can hit the ground running come fall. Hopefully we can get elementary in 5 days a week before school is over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My family still lives in upstate NY where I am from. They opened for hybrid instruction at the beginning of the school year in September and have stayed open this whole time even though their #s resemble ours. I don't know why we are so behind here in VA. There are successful models for them to follow, they don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Is this in the rural part of upstate NY?

What are the capacity numbers for those schools? How many 100s of extra kids are crammed into each school building?

What % of families have health insurance and PTO for work?

Circumstances might be a wee bit different here in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My family still lives in upstate NY where I am from. They opened for hybrid instruction at the beginning of the school year in September and have stayed open this whole time even though their #s resemble ours. I don't know why we are so behind here in VA. There are successful models for them to follow, they don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Is this in the rural part of upstate NY?

What are the capacity numbers for those schools? How many 100s of extra kids are crammed into each school building?

What % of families have health insurance and PTO for work?

Circumstances might be a wee bit different here in Arlington.

NP here - I doubt it. I have a friend in Stamford Ct with a high school the same size as APS high schools. They've been hybrid all school year. Continued sports as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be one thing if these training days were well used, but each time I hear from teachers that the training is terrible. Didn’t teachers pan the last concurrent training session during the last early release as not actually teaching them how to teach in a concurrent model?

I don't think they've had a "concurrent" training session yet - just "hybrid"?

The last half day was billed as training for the concurrent model, at least to parents.

I don’t think a day is enough tbh. It’s a huge thing to teach to in person and virtual groups AND manage the tech. I’d imagine it will get easier for some and never improve for others.

It doesn't do teachers any good to get bad or irrelevant training. Don't cancel school and then make poor use of the time, which is what APS does over and over.

APS also told parents in the fall that asynchronous Mondays were in part so APS could run trainings on Mondays (at that point for training on DL). Now we're being told that teachers are too busy on Mondays so they only way to train teachers is to cancel even more school.

My kid’s teacher does reading groups all afternoon on Mondays. And there is a staff meeting at some point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My family still lives in upstate NY where I am from. They opened for hybrid instruction at the beginning of the school year in September and have stayed open this whole time even though their #s resemble ours. I don't know why we are so behind here in VA. There are successful models for them to follow, they don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Is this in the rural part of upstate NY?

What are the capacity numbers for those schools? How many 100s of extra kids are crammed into each school building?

What % of families have health insurance and PTO for work?

Circumstances might be a wee bit different here in Arlington.

NP here - I doubt it. I have a friend in Stamford Ct with a high school the same size as APS high schools. They've been hybrid all school year. Continued sports as well.

Same size - or the same extent overcapacity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is literally beyond mind boggling that we are at this point.

APS has a budget surplus. Meanwhile our family has spent excess of what we ever did on daycare alone to try and support childcare and supplemental tutoring for our first grader.

APS can't get a decent app or tracking mechanism together to reach out to families going in person five days a week. Instead, contacting EVERY family seven days a week at 5:30. This is 2021, who the bleep are they consulting and contracting with that is setting things up this way.

The COVID metrics right now mirror what they were in the fall, so, this only goes to show that we could have/should have been open since the fall, but, APS just negligently passed the buck and only acted when forced to. They denied our children their right to a free and appropriate public education.

I am so beyond fed up and frustrated and disillusioned. It is so deeply unfortunate that all of the private schools are full and have waitlists.

We have the vaccines now and numbers are dropping. MUCH different than the fall.