If you were firmly in the schools should stay closed camp ...

[Anonymous]

I'll be so glad come fall when all these whiny teachers (and also all my whiny co-workers) get forced back into the office full time. Free ride is over folks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like APS forgot it's core mission: education. Instead it focused on feeding families and preventing community spread. When truthfully that slack would likely have been picked up by state government, local government and community groups if the schools had just done what they needed to do to educate students.

Listen to how privileged you sound. I am so over the whining of the upper class Open Up Now - APE crowd. So over it. If your complaint is virtual learning, you are very, very privileged. Others died or lost family members.

It's a pandemic. No one had normal. Get over it. Things are getting back to normal and we will get there. Have some patience, grace and empathy.

And for god's sake, stop blaming.

You do realize how privileged you sound, right? Having the means to educate and provide childcare for your children without relying on public schools is absolutely a privilege.

It's a false choice to say that closing schools is better than people dying. What about closing high risk activities like bars, restaurants and gyms and proving support for those displaced workers? That surely would have saved many more lives than closing schools. APS could have forced the community's hand by saying "education is a priority so we're going to open" and then forcing local government to react to lower community spread. Please stop being a lemming and consider what actual leadership would have looked like.

Completely agree. For whatever reason, county/school leadership just implicitly agreed that schools were the one institution that needed to stay closed. And if you disagreed, you were just a Trumper, part of some vile group, anti-science, whatever. And more, if you weren't able to re-arrange your life to accommodate this idiotic decisioning, you were a failure of a parent and you should be questioning your initial decision to have kids in the first place. It's just a batsh@t insane narrative being pushed here.

The reason is that they truly don't care about kids and education. The direction of education (going all the way to college) in this country is to push it more and more onto personal family responsiblity/choice/expense, and disdaining public support for education as a public good. I admit I never would have anticipated that society could just close schools for over a year seemingly without hesitation ... but there you go.

No. Schools were never supposed to do everything for you. Your child is your responsibility, first and foremost. School should not have to fix obesity, mental health, all of this other stuff that they have been charged with lately. Parents always had to support kids with their education at home, with organization, with social emotional skills, etc., etc.

I am a teacher. I am so pissed off, frankly, that so many of my students were not available for learning this year because of the attitudes of their parents. If someone is telling you this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t learn that way, what do you think is going to happen? It was the pygmalion effect in full swing.

I’m also a parent. My kids were fine during this time, and they learned. I’m sorry to tell you, but I think I know what the difference was here.

DP, and one of the really awful takeaways of this pandemic has been how many teachers think like you. I understand that you're extremely stressed out, so want to give you some benefit of the doubt that stress is impacting your ability to think clearly and to be empathic.

If you think that it's the "attitudes" of your students' parents that precluded the kids being online at the scheduled time, you are woefully out of touch with reality. That, coupled with your staggering condescension, disqualify you from teaching, IMO.

(And as for the "closing schools saved lives" BS you like to tell yourself, evidence suggests otherwise. Millions of kids are now on a completely different life trajectory thanks to prolonged school closures, most of them not for the better. And before you start bleating, "kids are resilieeeeeennnnnt," take the time to learn what resilience actually means in this context, and what affords it, please.)

Closing schools did save lives - community lives. Prevented deaths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like APS forgot it's core mission: education. Instead it focused on feeding families and preventing community spread. When truthfully that slack would likely have been picked up by state government, local government and community groups if the schools had just done what they needed to do to educate students.

Listen to how privileged you sound. I am so over the whining of the upper class Open Up Now - APE crowd. So over it. If your complaint is virtual learning, you are very, very privileged. Others died or lost family members.

It's a pandemic. No one had normal. Get over it. Things are getting back to normal and we will get there. Have some patience, grace and empathy.

And for god's sake, stop blaming.

You do realize how privileged you sound, right? Having the means to educate and provide childcare for your children without relying on public schools is absolutely a privilege.

It's a false choice to say that closing schools is better than people dying. What about closing high risk activities like bars, restaurants and gyms and proving support for those displaced workers? That surely would have saved many more lives than closing schools. APS could have forced the community's hand by saying "education is a priority so we're going to open" and then forcing local government to react to lower community spread. Please stop being a lemming and consider what actual leadership would have looked like.

Completely agree. For whatever reason, county/school leadership just implicitly agreed that schools were the one institution that needed to stay closed. And if you disagreed, you were just a Trumper, part of some vile group, anti-science, whatever. And more, if you weren't able to re-arrange your life to accommodate this idiotic decisioning, you were a failure of a parent and you should be questioning your initial decision to have kids in the first place. It's just a batsh@t insane narrative being pushed here.

The reason is that they truly don't care about kids and education. The direction of education (going all the way to college) in this country is to push it more and more onto personal family responsiblity/choice/expense, and disdaining public support for education as a public good. I admit I never would have anticipated that society could just close schools for over a year seemingly without hesitation ... but there you go.

No. Schools were never supposed to do everything for you. Your child is your responsibility, first and foremost. School should not have to fix obesity, mental health, all of this other stuff that they have been charged with lately. Parents always had to support kids with their education at home, with organization, with social emotional skills, etc., etc.

I am a teacher. I am so pissed off, frankly, that so many of my students were not available for learning this year because of the attitudes of their parents. If someone is telling you this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t learn that way, what do you think is going to happen? It was the pygmalion effect in full swing.

I’m also a parent. My kids were fine during this time, and they learned. I’m sorry to tell you, but I think I know what the difference was here.

How out of touch are you? This is an awful post on many levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like APS forgot it's core mission: education. Instead it focused on feeding families and preventing community spread. When truthfully that slack would likely have been picked up by state government, local government and community groups if the schools had just done what they needed to do to educate students.

Listen to how privileged you sound. I am so over the whining of the upper class Open Up Now - APE crowd. So over it. If your complaint is virtual learning, you are very, very privileged. Others died or lost family members.

It's a pandemic. No one had normal. Get over it. Things are getting back to normal and we will get there. Have some patience, grace and empathy.

And for god's sake, stop blaming.

You do realize how privileged you sound, right? Having the means to educate and provide childcare for your children without relying on public schools is absolutely a privilege.

It's a false choice to say that closing schools is better than people dying. What about closing high risk activities like bars, restaurants and gyms and proving support for those displaced workers? That surely would have saved many more lives than closing schools. APS could have forced the community's hand by saying "education is a priority so we're going to open" and then forcing local government to react to lower community spread. Please stop being a lemming and consider what actual leadership would have looked like.

Completely agree. For whatever reason, county/school leadership just implicitly agreed that schools were the one institution that needed to stay closed. And if you disagreed, you were just a Trumper, part of some vile group, anti-science, whatever. And more, if you weren't able to re-arrange your life to accommodate this idiotic decisioning, you were a failure of a parent and you should be questioning your initial decision to have kids in the first place. It's just a batsh@t insane narrative being pushed here.

The reason is that they truly don't care about kids and education. The direction of education (going all the way to college) in this country is to push it more and more onto personal family responsiblity/choice/expense, and disdaining public support for education as a public good. I admit I never would have anticipated that society could just close schools for over a year seemingly without hesitation ... but there you go.

No. Schools were never supposed to do everything for you. Your child is your responsibility, first and foremost. School should not have to fix obesity, mental health, all of this other stuff that they have been charged with lately. Parents always had to support kids with their education at home, with organization, with social emotional skills, etc., etc.

I am a teacher. I am so pissed off, frankly, that so many of my students were not available for learning this year because of the attitudes of their parents. If someone is telling you this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t learn that way, what do you think is going to happen? It was the pygmalion effect in full swing.

I’m also a parent. My kids were fine during this time, and they learned. I’m sorry to tell you, but I think I know what the difference was here.

DP, and one of the really awful takeaways of this pandemic has been how many teachers think like you. I understand that you're extremely stressed out, so want to give you some benefit of the doubt that stress is impacting your ability to think clearly and to be empathic.

If you think that it's the "attitudes" of your students' parents that precluded the kids being online at the scheduled time, you are woefully out of touch with reality. That, coupled with your staggering condescension, disqualify you from teaching, IMO.

(And as for the "closing schools saved lives" BS you like to tell yourself, evidence suggests otherwise. Millions of kids are now on a completely different life trajectory thanks to prolonged school closures, most of them not for the better. And before you start bleating, "kids are resilieeeeeennnnnt," take the time to learn what resilience actually means in this context, and what affords it, please.)

Closing schools did save lives - community lives. Prevented deaths.

This has already been discussed. Open schools were successful in many many places. Comparing Nova to Texas is hysterical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like APS forgot it's core mission: education. Instead it focused on feeding families and preventing community spread. When truthfully that slack would likely have been picked up by state government, local government and community groups if the schools had just done what they needed to do to educate students.

Listen to how privileged you sound. I am so over the whining of the upper class Open Up Now - APE crowd. So over it. If your complaint is virtual learning, you are very, very privileged. Others died or lost family members.

It's a pandemic. No one had normal. Get over it. Things are getting back to normal and we will get there. Have some patience, grace and empathy.

And for god's sake, stop blaming.

You do realize how privileged you sound, right? Having the means to educate and provide childcare for your children without relying on public schools is absolutely a privilege.

It's a false choice to say that closing schools is better than people dying. What about closing high risk activities like bars, restaurants and gyms and proving support for those displaced workers? That surely would have saved many more lives than closing schools. APS could have forced the community's hand by saying "education is a priority so we're going to open" and then forcing local government to react to lower community spread. Please stop being a lemming and consider what actual leadership would have looked like.

Completely agree. For whatever reason, county/school leadership just implicitly agreed that schools were the one institution that needed to stay closed. And if you disagreed, you were just a Trumper, part of some vile group, anti-science, whatever. And more, if you weren't able to re-arrange your life to accommodate this idiotic decisioning, you were a failure of a parent and you should be questioning your initial decision to have kids in the first place. It's just a batsh@t insane narrative being pushed here.

The reason is that they truly don't care about kids and education. The direction of education (going all the way to college) in this country is to push it more and more onto personal family responsiblity/choice/expense, and disdaining public support for education as a public good. I admit I never would have anticipated that society could just close schools for over a year seemingly without hesitation ... but there you go.

No. Schools were never supposed to do everything for you. Your child is your responsibility, first and foremost. School should not have to fix obesity, mental health, all of this other stuff that they have been charged with lately. Parents always had to support kids with their education at home, with organization, with social emotional skills, etc., etc.

I am a teacher. I am so pissed off, frankly, that so many of my students were not available for learning this year because of the attitudes of their parents. If someone is telling you this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t learn that way, what do you think is going to happen? It was the pygmalion effect in full swing.

I’m also a parent. My kids were fine during this time, and they learned. I’m sorry to tell you, but I think I know what the difference was here.

DP, and one of the really awful takeaways of this pandemic has been how many teachers think like you. I understand that you're extremely stressed out, so want to give you some benefit of the doubt that stress is impacting your ability to think clearly and to be empathic.

If you think that it's the "attitudes" of your students' parents that precluded the kids being online at the scheduled time, you are woefully out of touch with reality. That, coupled with your staggering condescension, disqualify you from teaching, IMO.

(And as for the "closing schools saved lives" BS you like to tell yourself, evidence suggests otherwise. Millions of kids are now on a completely different life trajectory thanks to prolonged school closures, most of them not for the better. And before you start bleating, "kids are resilieeeeeennnnnt," take the time to learn what resilience actually means in this context, and what affords it, please.)

Closing schools did save lives - community lives. Prevented deaths.

This has already been discussed. Open schools were successful in many many places. Comparing Nova to Texas is hysterical.

Open schools was not ‘unsuccessful’ in Texas. But community spread is community spread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like APS forgot it's core mission: education. Instead it focused on feeding families and preventing community spread. When truthfully that slack would likely have been picked up by state government, local government and community groups if the schools had just done what they needed to do to educate students.

Listen to how privileged you sound. I am so over the whining of the upper class Open Up Now - APE crowd. So over it. If your complaint is virtual learning, you are very, very privileged. Others died or lost family members.

It's a pandemic. No one had normal. Get over it. Things are getting back to normal and we will get there. Have some patience, grace and empathy.

And for god's sake, stop blaming.

You do realize how privileged you sound, right? Having the means to educate and provide childcare for your children without relying on public schools is absolutely a privilege.

It's a false choice to say that closing schools is better than people dying. What about closing high risk activities like bars, restaurants and gyms and proving support for those displaced workers? That surely would have saved many more lives than closing schools. APS could have forced the community's hand by saying "education is a priority so we're going to open" and then forcing local government to react to lower community spread. Please stop being a lemming and consider what actual leadership would have looked like.

Completely agree. For whatever reason, county/school leadership just implicitly agreed that schools were the one institution that needed to stay closed. And if you disagreed, you were just a Trumper, part of some vile group, anti-science, whatever. And more, if you weren't able to re-arrange your life to accommodate this idiotic decisioning, you were a failure of a parent and you should be questioning your initial decision to have kids in the first place. It's just a batsh@t insane narrative being pushed here.

The reason is that they truly don't care about kids and education. The direction of education (going all the way to college) in this country is to push it more and more onto personal family responsiblity/choice/expense, and disdaining public support for education as a public good. I admit I never would have anticipated that society could just close schools for over a year seemingly without hesitation ... but there you go.

No. Schools were never supposed to do everything for you. Your child is your responsibility, first and foremost. School should not have to fix obesity, mental health, all of this other stuff that they have been charged with lately. Parents always had to support kids with their education at home, with organization, with social emotional skills, etc., etc.

I am a teacher. I am so pissed off, frankly, that so many of my students were not available for learning this year because of the attitudes of their parents. If someone is telling you this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you and you can’t learn that way, what do you think is going to happen? It was the pygmalion effect in full swing.

I’m also a parent. My kids were fine during this time, and they learned. I’m sorry to tell you, but I think I know what the difference was here.

DP, and one of the really awful takeaways of this pandemic has been how many teachers think like you. I understand that you're extremely stressed out, so want to give you some benefit of the doubt that stress is impacting your ability to think clearly and to be empathic.

If you think that it's the "attitudes" of your students' parents that precluded the kids being online at the scheduled time, you are woefully out of touch with reality. That, coupled with your staggering condescension, disqualify you from teaching, IMO.

(And as for the "closing schools saved lives" BS you like to tell yourself, evidence suggests otherwise. Millions of kids are now on a completely different life trajectory thanks to prolonged school closures, most of them not for the better. And before you start bleating, "kids are resilieeeeeennnnnt," take the time to learn what resilience actually means in this context, and what affords it, please.)

Closing schools did save lives - community lives. Prevented deaths.

Please, in the name of all that is holy, don't use a tweet linking to non-peer-reviewed research to support your point. If one of my kids' teachers used that as "evidence" of anything, I'd lose my mind.

Also: there are many assumptions described in that story which, while perhaps true, argue less for closing schools and more about stronger messaging for adult behavior. Keeping schools closed to keep adults home is poor public policy, to say the least. Considering the strength of the "you just want us to die" rhetoric coming from so many teachers, their concerns were far less about the community and more about themselves, despite the fact that schools following appropriate mitigations are pretty safe for the people inside them.

[Anonymous]

We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

All of this, thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

huh, somehow private schools, parochial schools, and all of the NYC school district had the knowledge to reopen or stay open the whole time, or far before DMV public schools reopened. I wonder what sort of secret knowledge they, and only they had. Or maybe it's that there are other reasons our schools stayed closed that had nothing to do with knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My house hasn’t caught on fire, but I don’t regret having working smoke detectors. I’ve never been in a serious car accident, but I don’t regret decades of wearing a seatbelt. I’ve never had an unintended pregnancy, but I don’t regret having used birth control. I took precautions to avoid covid. Maybe I wouldn’t have contracted it even if I wasn’t cautious, but that doesn’t make me regret the precautions. I make the best choices I can based on the information I have.

Occasionally buying batteries for a smoke detector or buckling a seatbelt when you’re driving isn’t quite on par with asking a 5 year old to spend a year of learning sitting in front of an iPad and having no socialization with peers.

That wasn’t the choice most people were making.
Doing virtual school didn’t have to mean no socialization.
My 8 year old did virtual school and played outside on hikes and with kids in the neighborhood with masks. We did less in the winter but still did some. I don’t regret the choice - of course now i can see how much better things are but as parents we are also fully vaccinated now so it is different. We made the right choice at the time. We also sent my 5 year old to an in person kindergarten. And she played outside.

Everyone I know chose middle grounds, some a bit different than others. Last year was terrible in many ways but we made choices because we were rational and had to. And many many people did get covid last winter. Had one family been less cautious it wouldn’t have been much different for that family. The reality is though that if every or a large number of families had been less cautious it would have been worse. I am glad the majority of people in my community worked together to be reasonably safe. I am so happy to enjoy the time now with friends given that.

I mean - you had the option to send your 5 year old to in person K. that makes you very lucky compared to many of us! and also on the less cautious side. hopefully you can see that your family had many many more advantages than those of us stuck with only online learning and without all the social opportunities your kids had.

DP. Many of us made lemonade from lemons. Sounds like you didn't. What you see as lack of opportunities the rest of us saw as challenges to overcome. This past year was tough, don't get me wrong, but it was also one of the most relaxing years our kids have had. It was scary because of Covid and we had to totally revamp our lifestyle to adjust to online learning but our kids thrived because of the choices we, their parents, made so that they could thrive. For most of the people complaining, I saw that we had the same lack of options and the same lack of opportunities but we got our acts together and made it work. It was hard but we did it. I am tired of listening to all the moaners and complainers bellyaching about this and that. The only way to change your output is to change your input. You make your opportunities.

Dude. That PP **SENT HER CHILD TO SCHOOL**. Many of us did not have that option. Many of us did not have the option to get our kids extensive other opportunities for socialization. The point is that school is an entitlement; not something that we should just throw our hands up and say "oh well, everyone needs to "change their input."" I mean really, you're horrifically tone deaf.

Dude, we didn't have that option either but yet we MADE IT WORK. That isn't tone deaf. It is calling you out and telling you that you are more of the problem than anything else. The rest of us got with the program and made it work. You didn't. Your problem, not mine.

right, we were the only family struggling with DL. sure, sure, sure.

The only families like yours who we saw struggling were, frankly, the families who always struggle. They're the families always running around like their hair is on fire. They're the families always in a state of disruption and eruption. They're the families where something is always forgotten, they're always late or they completely miss the date, and they're the families where they always have problems.

From our vantage point DL didn't make any substantive changes to the negative quality of their lives because they were already there living in negative land. It is their permanent home.

The same with the RTS. It isn't going to make any change. The kids will still be disheveled, the parents will still be frantic, their lives will still be massively disarrayed. Next year the complaints will continue only they'll be focused on the elements of RTS - they'll complain about the teachers, they'll complain about the schools, they'll complain about "learning loss" like it is someone's fault other than their own. In essence, nothing will change except where they used to blame DL now it will be these other things.

At this point I just can't find it in me to care anymore. Their problems (YOUR problems) are not mine to solve and I am not going to listen to the constant litany of complaints. Either get your act together or shut up about your inability to parent your kids and manage your family adequately.

New poster here. Unless parents who claim they "made it work" give specific examples, I find it hard to take them seriously. You "made it work" because you bought your child a desk to do DL, or you "made it work" by hiring a nanny, hiring tutors, paying for private school, paying for extracurriculars so your child could socialize, moving to a beach house for the school year, just accepted the reality of DL and didn't let your kids hear you complain about it, made Mac and Cheese or spaghetti every night to make space to help your kids more with school? Frankly, OP sounds more than a little privileged if he/she the way she writes about families who are always in a state of disruption, like she can't fathom why that might be the case...

I have posted here repeatedly about how we made it work and I have been lambasted for it. Wah wah wah.

This is what we did in a nutshell: we kicked one kid out of his bedroom and made him bunk up with a sibling so that we could turn the room into a schoolroom. We set up the schoolroom with 3 kid desks, each kid with a gaming headset (to hear & speak on Zoom), a printer in the schoolroom (completely unnecessary as it turns out but we didn't know that in April of last year), an adult's desk in the schoolroom, a whiteboard and a chalkboard (both we know now were completely unnecessary but they did add some fun for drawing), 2 bookcases, extra powerstrips. We painted and decorated. At some point we added an aquarium because it was fun.

My husband and I completely changed our schedules. We rise at 4:30 am. We begin work at 5 am and work until 7 am. At that point we begin a 2 hour ON and 2 hour OFF schedule with the kids. The ON person is responsible entirely for the activities of the children for the 2 hours while the OFF person continues working. The ON person sits in the school room and supervises while the OFF person works in the office. The ON person makes breakfast or lunch or snacks for everyone. We switch back and forth all day until the school day ends. At which point I have satisfied my obligations to my employer and my husband keeps working until dinner.

We did not move, we did not go live at the beach, we did not hire tutors. Our schedule, honestly, is a lot like the schedules of OTHER PARENTS LIKE US WHO MADE IT WORK!!! It would take me at least three hands to count the number of families who have made similar shifts and whose kids are thriving.

When you have walked in our shoes then you can cast shade. Until then I will judge you for complaining and not making it work, and my judgement is that you have failed. Sure there are some people with extenuating circumstances but mostly ... not.

Most people have fairly regular jobs with fairly regular demands. Those are the people who I think are on here whining and complaining all the time.

As for the first responders we know, they already had plans in place. The first responders we know already had a game plan and they barely batted an eye when Covid hit. Their problems weren't so much the school day as some of them needed coverage after school and in the evenings when they were working at the hospital. We, and others we know, helped out and that made it work.

So stop whining and complaining. Your kids are back in school. I don't care what you think about hybrid or concurrent, I don't care what you think about this past year, I don't care about what you think about next year because I don't care about your opinion. You've proven that you're not cut out to do the job you elected to take, parenting, and I leave you to the hot mess you've created.

Wow. I hope you reserve your complete lack of empathy and judgment for anonymous forums. But I’m sure you are this stuck up in real life. I encourage you to reflect on this because I am certain your kids will emulate this behavior.

Anyhow, People struggled with mental health issues and job insecurity, among other things, during the pandemic. You probably judge these people because they appear disorganized. I know people who really struggled with their children with disabilities and didn’t have the time or resources to be fully present. The most privileged (you) were able to make different choices that were best for their families. I sent my kids to in person school all year. I got to exercise and spend quality time with my spouse and kids because I didn’t have to juggle a crazy work schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll be so glad come fall when all these whiny teachers (and also all my whiny co-workers) get forced back into the office full time. Free ride is over folks!

F*** off with this noise. Nobody had a “free ride” this year. Especially not parents OR teachers.

Also, a lot of employers are not requiring their staff to return to the office, ever. We’re probably moving away to a LCOL area due to this new freedom. Sucks to be you, I guess, chained to life so miserable that you want everyone else to be just as miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

huh, somehow private schools, parochial schools, and all of the NYC school district had the knowledge to reopen or stay open the whole time, or far before DMV public schools reopened. I wonder what sort of secret knowledge they, and only they had. Or maybe it's that there are other reasons our schools stayed closed that had nothing to do with knowledge.

They are much smaller school populations with mostly middle class and wealthier students and didn't have to make adjustments for 27,000 students. NY was ahead of the curve v. DC area on containing the virus and implementing safety measures and protocols. Measures APS has still not implemented. Therefore, they were willing to go ahead with in-person school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

huh, somehow private schools, parochial schools, and all of the NYC school district had the knowledge to reopen or stay open the whole time, or far before DMV public schools reopened. I wonder what sort of secret knowledge they, and only they had. Or maybe it's that there are other reasons our schools stayed closed that had nothing to do with knowledge.

They are much smaller school populations with mostly middle class and wealthier students and didn't have to make adjustments for 27,000 students. NY was ahead of the curve v. DC area on containing the virus and implementing safety measures and protocols. Measures APS has still not implemented. Therefore, they were willing to go ahead with in-person school.

This.

Private schools could force students to wear masks and comply with policy because they could force kids who did not comply into the schools virtual option or remove the kid from the school. Public schools did not have that option. Some school districts were more risk averse. Loundon was back in person far earlier then FCPS or APS, I think that is when other schools should have returned. NY also had already been through a huge wave of COVID and probably had more families and kids willing to comply with COVID restrictions at school because of that experience.

It is easy to look back and complain. My family signed up for hybrid and would have sent our son in on day 1 but I understood why that was not an option. The delays and the like were frustrating but I cannot expect larger entities to be super flexible and nimble. There are concerns to be had in the Public environment that Private schools do not have to address.

the change I wish had been made from day one was to create a virtual school and in person school. If you wanted virtual, you joined that school and understood that it meant that you would not be taught by a teacher at your base school. They should have kept kids from the same base school in the same class but those kids could have been mixed with kids from other schools. When in person was possible, schools would have been in a better place to make it work. But parents balked at the idea that their kids would not be taught by a teacher at their base school. I think that was the major screw up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We told our child in third grade that this was not ideal but it was what it was and we expected him to do his best. He logged in, turned on his camera, and participated as his Teacher expected. He did his work and figured out how to make the google slides even easier (find three cylinders was answered with marker, marker, and marker because he had a box of markers on his desk). He has done fine. He has learned this year but not as much as we would have liked. We supplemented with AoPS for math and bought him whatever books he wanted to read. He discovered audio books and listens to those when he is going to bed. He has been thrilled to return to school in person and strongly prefers those days to the days on the computer.

We are also blessed to have a kid who loves to read and do math and is naturally curious. I am not surprised to hear that some of my friends kids struggled and that DL was a disaster for them because I know the kids and I know that the parents were struggling with work and helping their kids. Most of my friends who struggled with DL report that their kids are making up ground now that they are in person, most for 4 days because they are in FCPS.

I understand why schools were closed. I think hybrid should have been an option from day 1 but that is based on knowledge that we have now and not the knowledge we had when all this started. We were also in a better position to support our son then other parents were.

huh, somehow private schools, parochial schools, and all of the NYC school district had the knowledge to reopen or stay open the whole time, or far before DMV public schools reopened. I wonder what sort of secret knowledge they, and only they had. Or maybe it's that there are other reasons our schools stayed closed that had nothing to do with knowledge.

They are much smaller school populations with mostly middle class and wealthier students and didn't have to make adjustments for 27,000 students. NY was ahead of the curve v. DC area on containing the virus and implementing safety measures and protocols. Measures APS has still not implemented. Therefore, they were willing to go ahead with in-person school.

I see you're still stuck in your stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality. NYC was by no means "ahead of the curve" compared to DMV. And there's no functoinal difference between a parochial, private, and public classroom. DMV schools did not have the political will (for a variety of reasons) to keep schools open.

[Anonymous]

It's weird to see a contingent of people who is so often going off on personal responsibility when it comes to benefits and brown people suddenly be all up in arms about the free public benefits the government owes them even in the face of a nationwide epidemic -- in part because of their perception that their families in redder states had it better than they did. I guess bootstraps only take you so far when you need to keep up with your cousins in Texas, but ymmv.

Speaking about cousins in Texas, Texas schools did open but Texas also had a much higher rate of transmission and death than Virginia did -- 177 deaths per 10,000 people vs. Virginia's rate of 130 deaths per 10,000 people. https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/us-coronavirus-deaths-by-state-july-1.html. Sure it's not just schools that contributed to that but per that non partisan study the schools opening did contribute to it. The earlier poster who said she didn't see many people dying of covid around here obviously has not been to South Arlington where families have been forced to continue working during the pandemic and thus have had a greater exposure rate than many of the North Arlington families with white collar jobs who are primarily working from home or working with higher levels of safety protections than many people with lower wage jobs (and/or have larger families where single member exposure can affect a much larger familial group). It's weird that you guys can compare Arlington unfavorably to other areas re school openings but not see the other grim outcomes to the more laissez faire practices that are going on in some of those states in terms of mortality. Not that weird I guess, since you guys are looking just at your own bubble of concerns, and not at the Arlington families less fortunate than you who have lost parents during this epidemic.

In short, I really think you guys are kind of the worst: a mix of sanctimony and hypocrisy that can't seem to make the obvious connections between the effects that what you are asking for would have on other people in our area. Nobody in my family died, you say, as a reason why increasing Arlington's mortality rate would be okay by you. You are saying that your kid's education is more important than a less fortunate kid's parents. Oh, north arlington, my home, what a huge collection of douchebags we all are, I hope we can all agree on that.