APS - School Shifts in the Fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:that would be a nightmare for high schoolers. Athletes would have to do the early shift so they could have practices, but no high schooler I know is remotely useful at 7am. They are barely able to get online by 8:25 from their own beds, never mind getting to physical school for that start time. My child would be a zombie.

You don't know HS swimmers . That's mid morning for them.

[Anonymous]

Two shifts, and extended day limited to only K-2 students. Is she trying to find the worst possible solution for families?

[Anonymous]

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I think a lot of APS admins and the SB have failed to plan for anything--I mean, here we are. OTOH, she is putting a lot of effort into this with the thought that 80% choose in-person. I personally do not know of a single family doing virtual this year who plan to stick with it for 2021-22. Nor does the percentage translate from school to school (i.e. some schools are already at 80% hybrid, some are lower). Are we also busing kids from school to school for this? Are we planning to do this distancing when half of HS kids are vaccinated, every adult in Arlington who chooses to be is vaccinated, etc? It just seems like...a lot of stuff that would have been useful now but does not tell me much about her vision for the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, OP pulled one line out of context and it's VERY misleading. Read the whole page. She's laying out what needs to be done to return to 5 full days if 3ft of distancing is still required. She lays out the multiple steps to make the determination if we have the capacity to make that possible in all buildings, and if not, what are the alternatives one of which is two shifts to allow all kids five days per week. She's laying out all the other pieces of the puzzle including transportation, extended day and lunch (and she advocates for funding temporary outdoor lunch facilities or identifying other indoor options).

There is a lot of thought and detail going into this plan, do not default to OP's one liner.

Not OP but I am one of the PPs and I read everything. I don't think her handmade cutouts are accurate-- why would you need 3 ft between a desk and a wall? Shouldn't desks be pushed against walls and corners where possible to increase the amount of desks you can fit in a room if you're maintaining 3ft between people?

Perhaps to allow for walking around/to/from the desk without bumping into each other in the same aisle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm torn about this. On the one hand, I think a lot of APS admins and the SB have failed to plan for anything--I mean, here we are. OTOH, she is putting a lot of effort into this with the thought that 80% choose in-person. I personally do not know of a single family doing virtual this year who plan to stick with it for 2021-22. Nor does the percentage translate from school to school (i.e. some schools are already at 80% hybrid, some are lower). Are we also busing kids from school to school for this? Are we planning to do this distancing when half of HS kids are vaccinated, every adult in Arlington who chooses to be is vaccinated, etc? It just seems like...a lot of stuff that would have been useful now but does not tell me much about her vision for the future.

I kind of agree.
If I were running for SB, I don't think I would bother with these kinds of proposals because the plans should be made and implemented before election day even comes around. Maybe she wants to show her commitment and thoughtfulness to the job; but why open yourself to such criticism when that part of the job SHOULD be taken care of before you even arrive? She wouldn't take office until January. So if APS still doesn't have it together by October, then I'd say come out with some solutions for the election.

[Anonymous]

I do not want anyone on the Board that will accept anything less than 5 days a week of full day in-person school in the fall. We already have 4 of those people on the board. 1 school board member doesn’t have the power to do any of this but at least w Miranda we could have someone advocating for full in-person instruction.

[Anonymous]

I love how she puts out this proposal that would make bus transportation literally impossible, and then just waves a magic wand of “Oh, there must be some solution” to completely ignore the problem with her plan.

[Anonymous]

I had started a thread with this comment because I didn't see this one (and someone really should re-name this, one), but:

[Post New]04/06/2021 16:48 Subject: APS School Board Mary Kadera's classroom maps for RTS are strange[Up]
Anonymous



Mary Kadera, who is running for the Democratic nomination for school board in Arlington, released the following:
https://mailchi.mp/maryforschoolboard/marys-take-o...he-proposed-aps-budget-4872362

I'm really struggling to understand her logic. First of all, it seems like the bubbles she is drawing are the wrong size. I believe each square is one foot, so her "6-ft bubbles" are really 9 ft across, and her "3-ft bubbles" are really 7-ft across. I think this is because she is leaving extra space in the middle for the student, but that doesn't make sense, because you are supposed to take into account nose-to-nose, not shoulder to shoulder.

She's also left a ton of trapped space in her diagrams. This can (and should!) be done a lot better. Here's a good Wired article I found that is much smarter about this:
https://www.wired.com/story/44-square-feet-a-school-reopening-detective-story/

She also clearly doesn't understand APS at all if she thinks that when we do re-open for in-person classes are going to be 20% smaller because a portion of students remain virtual. Those missing students are with their virtual teacher. The classes that come in-person are going to need to be at 100% capacity.

I am not impressed with this.

[Anonymous]

PP above, continuing my thought after reading all this, long story short, what she put out is sloppy and poorly done. I'm kind of embarrassed for her. Does anyone know what APS is doing for real on this? I really encourage everyone to read the wired article. That is the thinking we need.

[Anonymous]

I think there are still unknowns about the Fall. The new variant that is hitting school age kids is one unknown, and whether the CDC will change their guidance from 3 feet to none is another unknown. I think Mary Kadera is trying to push APS to start actively planning now because there are so many moving pieces. At least she is putting thought into the issue!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there are still unknowns about the Fall. The new variant that is hitting school age kids is one unknown, and whether the CDC will change their guidance from 3 feet to none is another unknown. I think Mary Kadera is trying to push APS to start actively planning now because there are so many moving pieces. At least she is putting thought into the issue! If we get to full vaccination then I imagine the issue is moot. But Mary is a problem solver and I think that's what APS needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there are still unknowns about the Fall. The new variant that is hitting school age kids is one unknown, and whether the CDC will change their guidance from 3 feet to none is another unknown. I think Mary Kadera is trying to push APS to start actively planning now because there are so many moving pieces. At least she is putting thought into the issue! If we get to full vaccination then I imagine the issue is moot. But Mary is a problem solver and I think that's what APS needs.

Her thoughts that she put together are illogical and create more problems than they solve. I don’t want someone who will solve problems that way. There are so many miscalculation in her proposal. I was leaning toward her because she was a teacher and I currently teach in APS, but I can’t support anyone who would put out these ideas.

[Anonymous]

12-15 yo kids won’t start getting vaccinated until Oct, September if we are lucky

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:12-15 yo kids won’t start getting vaccinated until Oct, September if we are lucky

I’m reading EUA could be late May/early June. Dr. Gandhi says mask mandates will likely when all adults who want to be vaccinated have been. We can get to herd immunity with just the 16+ population. School should be a piece of cake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, OP pulled one line out of context and it's VERY misleading. Read the whole page. She's laying out what needs to be done to return to 5 full days if 3ft of distancing is still required. She lays out the multiple steps to make the determination if we have the capacity to make that possible in all buildings, and if not, what are the alternatives one of which is two shifts to allow all kids five days per week. She's laying out all the other pieces of the puzzle including transportation, extended day and lunch (and she advocates for funding temporary outdoor lunch facilities or identifying other indoor options).

There is a lot of thought and detail going into this plan, do not default to OP's one liner.

Not OP but I am one of the PPs and I read everything. I don't think her handmade cutouts are accurate-- why would you need 3 ft between a desk and a wall? Shouldn't desks be pushed against walls and corners where possible to increase the amount of desks you can fit in a room if you're maintaining 3ft between people?

Perhaps to allow for walking around/to/from the desk without bumping into each other in the same aisle?

I can’t think of any classroom in my building that actually has walls you can push things against- wall of cabinets, radiator thing, whiteboard, cubbies/ hooks.