Excellent podcast from Politico from youngkin strategists on how they won — must read/listen

[Anonymous]

Just listened to the podcast OP posted. Yes. Very good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ It was an election that McAuliffe lost because the perception among likely voters was that McAuliffe doesn't care at all about educating their kids.”

It’s this. And frankly I do NOT think it was a backlash against schools having closed from 3/20-3/21 or masks. I think it was a lot more about how the schools are handling this now and how they are likely to moving forward. FCPS’s survey on calendar came out around the same time as the election and in it I was pretty shocked to find the question about using asynchronous days as an option even next year. Nova generally supported school closure as necessary 3/20-3/21 but even we are done now and ready to be moving on.

yeah I think one article I read mentioned the spontaneous unplanned days off/asynch days this fall as a factor.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Some nuances I'm not seeing reflected here - as the working parent of a young child, I definitely was told that by wanting in-person school, I "just wanted free daycare"...but usually that sentiment was expressed by people of conservative political persuasions who probably thought women should be SAHMs anyway ("if you can't/don't want to take care of your own kids you shouldn't have had them!"). From teachers/teacher advocacy groups, I mostly heard a lot of "not [reopening] until it's safe", which seemed to be unclear at best and a constantly moving goalpost at worst. I was incensed by teachers who took full advantage of priority vaccination and then still refused to return to in-person teaching.

All that said...the majority of APS and FCPS parents chose remote learning in the fall of 2020 (not sure about other counties). You can split hairs and say it's because the proposed in-person offerings weren't workable (staggered starts, alternate days), but looking back 15 months ago, we didn't know what we do now, and most people erred on the side of keeping kids home.

The "OpenFCPS" crowd was an uneasy alliance of Covid deniers, parents who wanted/needed their kids out of the house, and people with serious concerns about their children's educational needs being met (or not)...while they were loud, they were never able to formulate a cogent "Plan B" that included CDC-compliant risk mitigation measures.

I can understand being mad at local school boards, at teachers, at teachers unions. Some of the stuff that was done (remote school from within school facilities, for a fee?!) was the antithesis of equity. And the fact that working parents got the rawest deal of the pandemic has been broadly documented. All fair points.

But to go from there to...voting in the party that opposes paid family and medical leave, dispenses with public health mitigation measures like masks and vaccinations, and siphons off public school money to private schools and corporate-helmed charters (while simultaneously decreasing overall incoming tax revenue) seems to me to be textbook cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. I won't go so far as to say flipping one's vote to Youngkin was racist, but I absolutely believe that the people who did so en masse (college-educated white women) acted in an effort to preserve their own privilege in shaping public schools to best serve their own interests. Just because Youngkin was smart enough to largely keep his mouth shut during the campaign doesn't mean he's not the policy equivalent of Trump et al.

So your point is, that it’s a white college-educated woman’s responsibility to shut up, pay taxes, and not expect a thing for them?

Wait...what?! That's quite a leap. If high-quality, safe, continuously open public schools are your goal, don't you think it's a bit short-sighted to think you'll get that from the party that consistently denigrates public health measures and either directly or indirectly defunds public education? Seems rather like expecting Rs to do something about gun control because Democrats moved too slowly on the issue for your taste...

given that Democrats literally closed schools for 1.5 years, you don’t have much credibility. That’s the whole problem.

DP. Virginia schools closed in March 2020. They were ordered to reopen in March 2021. That’s one year, not 1.5. I understand some people were dissatisfied with 3 months of hybrid at that point (as was I), but school was not closed at that point.

Fcps special ed kids wwre kept out of school through the summer of 2021

This is not believable. Citation?

Definitely happened.

Visit the special ed threads from this summer. Fcps cancelled their summer classes days before, sometimes the night before.

The school hoard was busy with TJ admissions and did not have time to hire or schedule teachers.

Lies.

Kids with highest needs were brought back in-person 4 days/wk back in NOVEMBER 2020.
https://www.fcps. https://www.fcps.edu/blog/return-school-news-november-9-2020/blog/return-school-news-november-9-2020

The rest were back - if they selected in-person by March 2020.

I think they brought the highest needs kids back in November (of course not full time) and then went back all virtual pretty quickly even for the highest needs kids - I think mid by December. At the time of a school board meeting on December 11, 2020 - they were planning to stop educating in person the highest needs of the highest needs in part, because the highest need special education students allegedly had trouble keeping masks on - but indoor sports winter sports were allowed to start then including cheerleaders and wrestlers, for example, who didn't need to wear masks & the school board did not have a problem with that!! I was so annoyed by that at the time. I support sports - but I support education first - and it was so dumb that the FCPS school board needed medical professionals and the state to subsequently point out that you had to put education first over sports when planning to return to school.

Those high needs did not have school.

The "school" for many of them involved trying to sit in front of a computer supervised by an aide while the teachers was at home. No interactions. None of their therapies or IEP plans. No learning.

FCPS is getting sued over this.

Some Special ed kids were allowed in the building in November. But they were not being taught and did not have school as defined by their IEPs and 504s

Sitting in a building with your teacher at home while you are non verbal or very low finctioning is not school.

And yes, nothing is more infuriating than the unmasked indoor wrestlers and cheerleaders.

Even as of today, they get to be unmasked but a vaccinated theater kid on stage by themselves doing a monologue with the audience 20 feet away has to still wear a mask. All of this is about political posturing. None of this is for health and safety. If it was about safety, the robotics team and chemistry class would have been in person, and unmasked indoor wrestling would not have occured.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

You clearly are not from Virginia and have not ever talked to the parent of a special ed kid in fcps or northern Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

It was not back in the classroom.

It was 2 days per week with many teachers at home while the kids did distance learning in the classrooms with a paid college kid while the vaccinated teachers were at hoke.

There were kids at our high school who had zero teachers in the building except for PE. They spent the entire day in the library on the computers while their teachers were at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

You clearly are not from Virginia and have not ever talked to the parent of a special ed kid in fcps or northern Virginia.

I have a kid with an IEP in VA. (Not highest level needs)

He was back in classroom in Feb 2021. Some other kids at his school with higher needs were back in the fall four days a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And some of the people who voted against them were recent high school grads who understood why prom/graduation/etc was taken from them in 2020; but saw and did NOT forgive the people who did real harm to their siblings by refusing to open schools the following fall.

On our street, the 2020 and 2021 grads went 4/7 for Youngkin.

I don't know how 2 of them voted.

Only one voted for McAuliffe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

It was not back in the classroom.

It was 2 days per week with many teachers at home while the kids did distance learning in the classrooms with a paid college kid while the vaccinated teachers were at hoke.

There were kids at our high school who had zero teachers in the building except for PE. They spent the entire day in the library on the computers while their teachers were at home.

Kids were back in the classroom and some teachers were virtual. Was it inappropriate for many SN and younger kids? Yes.

Just say what happened. There is no need to lie about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ It was an election that McAuliffe lost because the perception among likely voters was that McAuliffe doesn't care at all about educating their kids.”

It’s this. And frankly I do NOT think it was a backlash against schools having closed from 3/20-3/21 or masks. I think it was a lot more about how the schools are handling this now and how they are likely to moving forward. FCPS’s survey on calendar came out around the same time as the election and in it I was pretty shocked to find the question about using asynchronous days as an option even next year. Nova generally supported school closure as necessary 3/20-3/21 but even we are done now and ready to be moving on.

yeah I think one article I read mentioned the spontaneous unplanned days off/asynch days this fall as a factor.

Will the school year get extended? Don’t kids need a certain # of in-person days this school year by law?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

Nobody is lying except the Dems lying to themselves about the consequences of school closures.

The consequences are pretty obvious. Lots of misdirected anger.

But regardless the PP earlier was lying about dates.

you just cannot face it can you?

I face it every day. The relentless lying is unavoidable.

I don’t get it. Totally dumb, clearly blatant lies. Why bother? Just trolling?

I don’t know why that one PP was lying. But guess what - none of believed it because there was literally no kernel of truth. Which is not what happened with what the Rs were saying … so you guys really have to do some self assessment on what kernels of truth there were with that.

Right. Misinformation is a huge issue.

Maybe the Rs could work on not lying. Even if a lie contains a kernel of truth, it’s still a lie.

oh ffs. nobody was lying. maybe PP had their dates wrong somewhat. the fact remains - schools closed for well over a year and Virginia was among the worst states for the length of closures. We all lived through it. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen as much as you wish you could.

N9t lying.

The dem is defining school as a handful of kids in the building watching youtube on a computer supervised by a random adult while their fully vaccinated teachers are at home

The multitudes of parents who say there was no school equate "school" with being taught a curriculum by physically present teachers who know the kids as more than a gray computer block that logs in but does not respond, where learning actually occurs.

School did not happen from March 2020 through the end of ajuly 2021.

This is indisputable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/05/glenn-youngkin-republican-strategists-519609

Dem that works campaigns —

Excellent listen/read from GY’s strategists on how they won.

TMac was meanwhile run by Michael Halle — ex pete and hrc, married to the chick that supplied the Iowa caucus app that melted down.

No wonder we got crushed. The talent difference is massive.

Did Halle have Fox and rightwing radio lying for him all day every day?

The propaganda difference is massive.

Yes, the propaganda difference tips massively in favor of the dems. This makes Youngkin's accomplishment even more amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ It was an election that McAuliffe lost because the perception among likely voters was that McAuliffe doesn't care at all about educating their kids.”

It’s this. And frankly I do NOT think it was a backlash against schools having closed from 3/20-3/21 or masks. I think it was a lot more about how the schools are handling this now and how they are likely to moving forward. FCPS’s survey on calendar came out around the same time as the election and in it I was pretty shocked to find the question about using asynchronous days as an option even next year. Nova generally supported school closure as necessary 3/20-3/21 but even we are done now and ready to be moving on.

yeah I think one article I read mentioned the spontaneous unplanned days off/asynch days this fall as a factor.

The new calender survey for fcps wants to add asynch days to the calendar and cut down the school day by 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

It was not back in the classroom.

It was 2 days per week with many teachers at home while the kids did distance learning in the classrooms with a paid college kid while the vaccinated teachers were at hoke.

There were kids at our high school who had zero teachers in the building except for PE. They spent the entire day in the library on the computers while their teachers were at home.

Kids were back in the classroom and some teachers were virtual. Was it inappropriate for many SN and younger kids? Yes.

Just say what happened. There is no need to lie about it.

The WORST were all the privileged, elitist virtual learning boosters bragging:

MY CHILD IS THRIVING WITH VIRTUAL LEARNING. THRIVINGGGGG

🤮🤮🤮🤮

The whole vibe this election was that people were very, very out of touch with the reality of the situation for most students and moms last year, and it was frankly very repulsive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

It was not back in the classroom.

It was 2 days per week with many teachers at home while the kids did distance learning in the classrooms with a paid college kid while the vaccinated teachers were at hoke.

There were kids at our high school who had zero teachers in the building except for PE. They spent the entire day in the library on the computers while their teachers were at home.

Kids were back in the classroom and some teachers were virtual. Was it inappropriate for many SN and younger kids? Yes.

Just say what happened. There is no need to lie about it.

That is not school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is one example to prove that they went back to all virtual even for the highest needs groups that had brought back in for a few times:

https://www.fcps.edu/blog/student-group-3-returns-virtual-instruction-december-14

Back in classrooms in Feb. All students (who selected in-person and didn’t ditch) were back in schools in March.

The PP above was lying.

Nobody is lying except the Dems lying to themselves about the consequences of school closures.

The consequences are pretty obvious. Lots of misdirected anger.

But regardless the PP earlier was lying about dates.

you just cannot face it can you?

I face it every day. The relentless lying is unavoidable.

I don’t get it. Totally dumb, clearly blatant lies. Why bother? Just trolling?

I don’t know why that one PP was lying. But guess what - none of believed it because there was literally no kernel of truth. Which is not what happened with what the Rs were saying … so you guys really have to do some self assessment on what kernels of truth there were with that.

Right. Misinformation is a huge issue.

Maybe the Rs could work on not lying. Even if a lie contains a kernel of truth, it’s still a lie.

oh ffs. nobody was lying. maybe PP had their dates wrong somewhat. the fact remains - schools closed for well over a year and Virginia was among the worst states for the length of closures. We all lived through it. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen as much as you wish you could.

N9t lying.

The dem is defining school as a handful of kids in the building watching youtube on a computer supervised by a random adult while their fully vaccinated teachers are at home

The multitudes of parents who say there was no school equate "school" with being taught a curriculum by physically present teachers who know the kids as more than a gray computer block that logs in but does not respond, where learning actually occurs.

School did not happen from March 2020 through the end of ajuly 2021.

This is indisputable.

So your kids were in-school but not getting appropriate instruction?

So just say that. It was horrible. No need to lie about it.

They weren’t “kept out of school through the summer of 2021” but they failed to get appropriate instruction even once they were back in the classroom. SN kids should have been prioritized for in-person teachers.