APS - Three cases yesterday

[Anonymous]

FCPS is back to 4 day learning with 3 ft desperation, but only half their kids are in-person. Do we know how many would opt in for in person if APS went 4 days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is back to 4 day learning with 3 ft desperation, but only half their kids are in-person. Do we know how many would opt in for in person if APS went 4 days?

Presumably APS would have opened it up to the kids who are already hybrid, so roughly 60% of APS students.

[Anonymous]

It would be dumb to send everyone back to school for this part of the year which is mostly SOLvprep, testing, and big class parties and kids watching movies with their class rather than learn materials there will be no time to factor into the class grade.

Can you imagine how angry these parents would be to sent their kids back for a party?! Or a movie?! Cram the buses and the buildings full for that. Thanks no.

Take the summer, folks, find some normalcy, be in a better mind space for next year. I say this sincerely. Please come back refreshed and in a better mood.

[Anonymous]

3 foot desperation is my band name lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable. But honestly OP where is the outrage? Why are people just accepting this, with an occasional “can you believe it” and shake of the head?

Where is the national media? Where are the parents rallying and make the lives of school board members hell? Where are the pro-kid candidates stepping up to replace them?

I'm with others. I'm still so furious. I can't believe that the board and APS are throwing away the rest of the year that is equivalent to summer school and just calling it a wash. I am also so very tired. I don't even know what to do anymore. The only option that doesn't seem like it has been pursued is for people with connections at higher levels to leverage those and lean on APS. That's it. Nothing else has worked. It is disgusting and disappointing.

I keep an eye on the case counts, the last few days were: 3,8,5. We are so far beyond reasonable or rational in operating this way. Our kids are paying the price. I cannot understand why people think this is fine.

Written with all sincerity, this level of anger is not healthy for you or your family. This is not going to happen this year and no one at higher levels is going to change it at this point.

[Anonymous]

Here's a radical idea: Why not make the last few weeks of school not a gigantic waste of time?


But to answer OP's question, like many others, I've tried. And I'm tired. Did you know at the HS level they actually took away in-person days because they need the adults to proctor tests? I'm so over APS. But my kid is older. If I had a younger kid in APS, I might still have it in my to fight. This is so ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable. But honestly OP where is the outrage? Why are people just accepting this, with an occasional “can you believe it” and shake of the head?

Where is the national media? Where are the parents rallying and make the lives of school board members hell? Where are the pro-kid candidates stepping up to replace them?

I'm with others. I'm still so furious. I can't believe that the board and APS are throwing away the rest of the year that is equivalent to summer school and just calling it a wash. I am also so very tired. I don't even know what to do anymore. The only option that doesn't seem like it has been pursued is for people with connections at higher levels to leverage those and lean on APS. That's it. Nothing else has worked. It is disgusting and disappointing.

I keep an eye on the case counts, the last few days were: 3,8,5. We are so far beyond reasonable or rational in operating this way. Our kids are paying the price. I cannot understand why people think this is fine.

Written with all sincerity, this level of anger is not healthy for you or your family. This is not going to happen this year and no one at higher levels is going to change it at this point.

When you have family and friends in other states who are public school educators and employees, and are so outraged and horrified by what is happening here that they offer to take temporary custody of your child to enroll them in school, then the anger is justified. We have spent thousands of dollars on care and tutoring for our child this year and it has still mostly been a waste.

Our friend who is a director of SPED for a district in another state said it took them months to recover and bring kids back to appropriate levels just from their spring shut down last year. Everyone in Arlington wants to stick their head in the sand and pretend that everything is fine and our kids are just the same as everyone everywhere else. That is such a false narrative, it is outrageous, and will be sadly comical when the fantasy is smashed to pieces when reality comes crashing in hard and they have to come to terms with everything that has happened. I'd like to hear your thoughts on outrage then when everyone's kids are testing behind, etc etc. and they start to lose it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's a radical idea: Why not make the last few weeks of school not a gigantic waste of time?


But to answer OP's question, like many others, I've tried. And I'm tired. Did you know at the HS level they actually took away in-person days because they need the adults to proctor tests? I'm so over APS. But my kid is older. If I had a younger kid in APS, I might still have it in my to fight. This is so ridiculous.

Yeah that would be amazing. My kid is in high school so there is still some learning going on but I can't even imagine what elementary kids are doing now at home for virtual learning. I am assuming it's close to nothing and will dwindle to the point of the teacher connecting to zoom and ... just being there all day and showing some videos

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a radical idea: Why not make the last few weeks of school not a gigantic waste of time?


But to answer OP's question, like many others, I've tried. And I'm tired. Did you know at the HS level they actually took away in-person days because they need the adults to proctor tests? I'm so over APS. But my kid is older. If I had a younger kid in APS, I might still have it in my to fight. This is so ridiculous.

Yeah that would be amazing. My kid is in high school so there is still some learning going on but I can't even imagine what elementary kids are doing now at home for virtual learning. I am assuming it's close to nothing and will dwindle to the point of the teacher connecting to zoom and ... just being there all day and showing some videos

I'm no fan of how APS has handled things, but I would drop this one as an argument. Elementary kids are still doing full on virtual school and not watching movies. (Why would you think that?) It's not perfect, but they are teaching them new content.

[Anonymous]

How many of you are seriously outraged by virtual learning having a negative effect on your kids' learning? My bet is that your real gripe is that virtual learning is inconvenient for you.

[Anonymous]

I still can't believe that they're not at least bringing back K-2 four days a week. There are no SOLs, so those weeks could be intensive math and reading catch up. It could make a huge difference for kids who aren't learing on virtual days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a radical idea: Why not make the last few weeks of school not a gigantic waste of time?


But to answer OP's question, like many others, I've tried. And I'm tired. Did you know at the HS level they actually took away in-person days because they need the adults to proctor tests? I'm so over APS. But my kid is older. If I had a younger kid in APS, I might still have it in my to fight. This is so ridiculous.

Yeah that would be amazing. My kid is in high school so there is still some learning going on but I can't even imagine what elementary kids are doing now at home for virtual learning. I am assuming it's close to nothing and will dwindle to the point of the teacher connecting to zoom and ... just being there all day and showing some videos

I'm no fan of how APS has handled things, but I would drop this one as an argument. Elementary kids are still doing full on virtual school and not watching movies. (Why would you think that?) It's not perfect, but they are teaching them new content.

There are so many issues with this still. It is not an acceptable trade off or equivalent.

My first grader figured out ages ago how to minimize his Teams window, and open up whatever else he felt like looking at. Unless someone is sitting right on top of him monitoring everything he does, he can do whatever he wants. We have two full time workers in our home, so that is not possible.

Two, the issue of screen and screen time and addiction to it. We were a no-tablet family before COVID. It is not a daily battle to get our first grader off of and away from the screens. They are addicted to it, and it sickens me that school is further perpetuating that and we cannot do anything about the hours they spend on both in person and at home days on the screen.

[Anonymous]

You need to calm tf down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many of you are seriously outraged by virtual learning having a negative effect on your kids' learning? My bet is that your real gripe is that virtual learning is inconvenient for you.

I don't believe in name-calling on the Internet, but you are an idiot. This is about kids' well-being. Do you really think a virtual instruction model is appropriate for young kids to learn? We are doing lasting harm to children with this nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t we only have 5 weeks left? I’m already eyeing our local pool. I believe they acted in good faith and felt that switching models again wasn’t worth the disruption.

5 weeks is longer than the 4 weeks of summer school that they planned and then failed to deliver. Showing that APS can do 4/5 days now would help those kids that were depending on summer school and would show parents that they can make it work in the fall. That summer school email should have come with an announcement that Elementary (esp k-2) will be 5 days beginning on Monday.