what does 'flexible scheduling' for DC teachers mean?

[Anonymous]

DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking up some info on research on 4-day school weeks....It seems most of the schools adopting a 4-day week are tiny and rural. That does make me wonder about the transferability to a large urban location like DC.

"But now seven newer studies generally find negative results – some tiny and some more substantial. One 2021 study in Oregon, for example, calculated that the four-day week shaved off one-sixth of the usual gains that a fifth grader makes in math, equal to about five to six weeks of school. Over many years, those losses can add up for students.
...
Like the more recent crop of studies, they found that four-day weeks weren’t great for academic achievement on average. The test scores of four-day students in grades three through eight grew slightly less during the school year compared to hundreds of thousands of students in those six states who continued to go to school five days a week...
...
The switch seemed to hurt reading achievement more than math achievement. That was surprising. Reading is easier to do at home while math is a subject that students primarily learn and practice in school. During pandemic school closures and remote learning, for example, math achievement generally suffered more than reading."

https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-seven-new-studies-on-the-impact-of-a-four-day-school-week/

shocker - reducing instructional time by 20% results in learning loss. But if WTU aspires to follow the lead of sh*thole Oklahoma school districts, I salute them.

I think if very well supported, a half day could be OK but only if kids remain in school and the programning is DCPS-funded and academic. The proposal to “parter with outside organizations!” is totally untenable. But an afternoon to focus on project-based learning related to the core curriculum, specials, or tutoring could be beneficial. This of course would need to be adequately staffed by DCPS employees.

Yeah, I'm in agreement that if there were OTHER resources (that cost $$) then that might be beneficial. But then why not just more aids, supports, etc in the first place? From the sound of it, a teachers aid in every class would help with the bathroom issue. And maybe team teaching could help with any needs to schedule doctor's appointments. But those cost money, and also you'd need to find the bodies to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

How do you say "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids" without saying "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

How do you say "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids" without saying "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids"?

The bill? Or the prior comment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

How do you say "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids" without saying "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids"?

The bill? Or the prior comment?

The comment.

The bill was written by well-intentioned but ultimately naïve progressives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

How do you say "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids" without saying "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids"?

The bill? Or the prior comment?

The comment.

The bill was written by well-intentioned but ultimately naïve progressives.

Your response didn't make sense. Maybe you didn't read the conversation above it?

In any event, moving on....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS needs to hire more fully-qualified teachers. Instead, the Council's idea is to ease time-pressures on the teachers by hiring untrained staff at minimum wage to babysit. Swell idea.

If that. I think it might be just not to hire anyone, and reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise.

How do you say "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids" without saying "written by a teacher who doesn't have kids"?

The bill? Or the prior comment?

The comment.

The bill was written by well-intentioned but ultimately naïve progressives.

Yeah, maybe you are responding to something else, because that didn't make sense.

[Anonymous]

How does the comment at 11:53 not make sense? The initial poster wrote: "reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise."

The poster responded by suggesting the comment was written by someone with both disdain for and ignorance about parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a report from a teacher advocacy group in DC that lists a lot of models for what flexible scheduling could look like: https://www.weareempowered.org/flexiblescheduling.html

I cannot believe the utter freakin’ nerve of that group. Four of their suggestions involve reducing instructional time for kids, when kids are still struggling to recover from the school closures. Seriously, stfu.

Nope. Sorry. It’s 2023. This tired, stale excuse is expired. Try again.

you don’t get to fiat it out of existence.

+1

There are reports coming out on the regular about how children in DC are still impacted by pandemic learning losses caused by s extended school closures. It’s embarrassing that people are ignoring this impact ON CHILDREN.

Do you mean affected? Only colons and teeth can be impacted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does the comment at 11:53 not make sense? The initial poster wrote: "reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise."

The poster responded by suggesting the comment was written by someone with both disdain for and ignorance about parenting.

Because the comment was lamenting what the bill says, not agreeing with it. Again, read the conversation above that comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does the comment at 11:53 not make sense? The initial poster wrote: "reduce time for teachers.

Put the burden on parents, and if the parents don't step up (because maybe they work), then kids are conceivably in unsafe conditions or otherwise."

The poster responded by suggesting the comment was written by someone with both disdain for and ignorance about parenting.

Ah, I see how you are reading it, and understand how it could be read that way. I read it as "the reduction in class time proposed through flexible scheduling would mean putting the burden on parents, and if the parents can't fill in at those times (by being home or hiring childcare), then conceivably the children are left unsafe conditions or otherwise."

So the poster is opposed to flexible scheduling if it means less in-school time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking up some info on research on 4-day school weeks....It seems most of the schools adopting a 4-day week are tiny and rural. That does make me wonder about the transferability to a large urban location like DC.

"But now seven newer studies generally find negative results – some tiny and some more substantial. One 2021 study in Oregon, for example, calculated that the four-day week shaved off one-sixth of the usual gains that a fifth grader makes in math, equal to about five to six weeks of school. Over many years, those losses can add up for students.
...
Like the more recent crop of studies, they found that four-day weeks weren’t great for academic achievement on average. The test scores of four-day students in grades three through eight grew slightly less during the school year compared to hundreds of thousands of students in those six states who continued to go to school five days a week...
...
The switch seemed to hurt reading achievement more than math achievement. That was surprising. Reading is easier to do at home while math is a subject that students primarily learn and practice in school. During pandemic school closures and remote learning, for example, math achievement generally suffered more than reading."

https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-seven-new-studies-on-the-impact-of-a-four-day-school-week/

shocker - reducing instructional time by 20% results in learning loss. But if WTU aspires to follow the lead of sh*thole Oklahoma school districts, I salute them.

I think if very well supported, a half day could be OK but only if kids remain in school and the programning is DCPS-funded and academic. The proposal to “parter with outside organizations!” is totally untenable. But an afternoon to focus on project-based learning related to the core curriculum, specials, or tutoring could be beneficial. This of course would need to be adequately staffed by DCPS employees.

LOL have you looked at DCPS truancy and late arrival rates?

[Anonymous]

The bill doesn't talk about a 4 day school week! Why does it keep being brought up?

Teachers want full planning time, more leave, a better evaluation system, better pay for paras/more paras aka partner teachers, not have to combine classrooms when other teachers are out or our or sub for someone else's class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bill doesn't talk about a 4 day school week! Why does it keep being brought up?

Teachers want full planning time, more leave, a better evaluation system, better pay for paras/more paras aka partner teachers, not have to combine classrooms when other teachers are out or our or sub for someone else's class.

Because the badly written bill leave the four day week as a possibility, and empowered writes about it.

Please see the beginning of the thread.