ACPS now closed for the entire thanksgiving week

[Anonymous]

ACPS Teacher - feel super supported by the district with this and really through out all of the pandemic. Will definitely remember how I was treated compared to other districts. Almost makes up for the insane amount of testing they have sent us to do since the beginning of the year.

(Please don't flame me for my comment - want to have a nice weekend!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably. I really don't think it's a "decompress" issue as much as it's a "can't find subs because we're paying shit wages" issue, though.

Right I agree. I really think they just need to tell teachers they can't take off though. I mean it is that way in any public facing job. You need coverage. I dont blame teachers for asking, I blame admit for granting. They need to be better/stronger managers.

Treating teachers like crap will help how, exactly?

It is not treating people like crap to tell them that they are unable to get days off if there isn't enough coverage. I work for the federal government. We put in for holidays 6 months in advance. We get off if covered. It is how most jobs work.

They don't have to ban everyone from the day off but they should adjust to staffing. I dont see it as cruel.

For years, these counties resisted raising sub pay because "our fill rates were sufficient". They weren't, especially before breaks, but schools were able to shuffle enough staff members around and use subs to cover the really vital classrooms on days before break when people had arranged to be off and obtained coverage. Now they're in a situation where they aren't paying subs enough and some schools are also understaffed with not enough support staff or bus drivers. There is no way to fill the positions if someone wakes up legitimately sick or has a family emergency. Because again, the counties resisted raising pay for these positions for years. I bet if they significantly bonused sub pay/ sub bus driver pay on the days before holidays or breaks, they'd have no problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably. I really don't think it's a "decompress" issue as much as it's a "can't find subs because we're paying shit wages" issue, though.

Right I agree. I really think they just need to tell teachers they can't take off though. I mean it is that way in any public facing job. You need coverage. I dont blame teachers for asking, I blame admit for granting. They need to be better/stronger managers.

Treating teachers like crap will help how, exactly?

It is not treating people like crap to tell them that they are unable to get days off if there isn't enough coverage. I work for the federal government. We put in for holidays 6 months in advance. We get off if covered. It is how most jobs work.

They don't have to ban everyone from the day off but they should adjust to staffing. I dont see it as cruel.

For years, these counties resisted raising sub pay because "our fill rates were sufficient". They weren't, especially before breaks, but schools were able to shuffle enough staff members around and use subs to cover the really vital classrooms on days before break when people had arranged to be off and obtained coverage. Now they're in a situation where they aren't paying subs enough and some schools are also understaffed with not enough support staff or bus drivers. There is no way to fill the positions if someone wakes up legitimately sick or has a family emergency. Because again, the counties resisted raising pay for these positions for years. I bet if they significantly bonused sub pay/ sub bus driver pay on the days before holidays or breaks, they'd have no problems.

I don't think its because of filling positions before breaks - it had been made clear we cant take before or after holidays. But yes the sub issue is huge. People are not taking off because there is no one to cover and then when they are off other instructional staff is being pulled to cover, thereby not providing services such as EL. This is a big part of whats leading to the burn out.

[Anonymous]

Teachers wouldn't be so burnt out if you parents had actually tried to teach your kids last year. Instead, you bished, moaned, and complained while dragging your kids on all kinds of errands and vacations. Now that they are in school and testing a year or more behind what do we get? More whining and grumbling that teachers need a break.

My best friend left teaching this year after 13 years and is now making $2,000 more per year doing a low stress office admin job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
NP, and another LCPS parent here. Right, school isn’t daycare. However, when school closes, I have to make other arrangements for my Kindergartener, since DH and I both work full time. And when the school system makes these changes on short notice, whether that is due to snow days or to their complete inability to have seen this problem coming a mile away when they set up this ridiculous calendar, some working parents are left scrambling for childcare arrangements. The LCPS calendar for this week and next was crazy, and they should have realized it would be an issue. Guaranteed LCPS will do the exact same Thanksgiving week…we are already trying to make plans for it.

Poster you're responding to, and I am a working parent. I get it. But somehow the fact that America has no system to support its parents who need childcare has become a problem parents expect teachers to solve, and then parents wonder why teachers are leaving the profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers wouldn't be so burnt out if you parents had actually tried to teach your kids last year. Instead, you bished, moaned, and complained while dragging your kids on all kinds of errands and vacations. Now that they are in school and testing a year or more behind what do we get? More whining and grumbling that teachers need a break.

My best friend left teaching this year after 13 years and is now making $2,000 more per year doing a low stress office admin job.

This is an anti teacher troll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reason number 634,262,825,962 to put your kids in private or religious schools.

Private schools can't get subs either. My sister teaches in a popular Catholic school. They have been doubling up on classes when teachers are sick.

Truth. We live close to a well-attended Catholic school. Several of our neighbors send their children there and I know a handful of the teachers from kids' sports. They are not having an easy time finding subs at all and they pay more than our public district.

[Anonymous]

If they can't get subs, they can't get subs. However, it was a total punk move to portray this as something to consider "the well being of families in our community." This is not considering our family's well being, because my husband is a police officer and I am nurse, and neither of us can just take off of work with this little notice. Just say you are changing the break because teachers won't show up and you have no subs.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a teacher but I think teachers esp in the NOVA ACPS community and APS have it good. You signed up for a teaching job - the profession is about working with kids - whether the kids/families are easy or hard to teach - your job is to teach them. You do the best you can just like in any other job, people do as well. You get every summer off. 2 weeks over holidays. Spring Break - check. Every federal holiday off. You get teacher appreciation days. You get many times, gifts from families that really appreciate what you do. There are a lot of jobs that pay the same or lower where you do not. get. days. off. You do not. get. appreciation. at. all. You do not get the satisfaction of what you signed up to do and that is to know you were impacting the life of a kid. Whether you feel personally it's a career you want to stick with or not, to complain that teachers have it oh so bad to me is a joke. Do your job and stop complaining. I know a lot of people who are in worse career professions who would get blasted if they complain and whine as much as any NOVA teacher on this forum did.

[Anonymous]

We are at a weird point where what is best for staff is not what is best for kids. I spoke to my son's teacher in 4th and he said he expected academic loss to be the biggest issue but it's actual social..his 4th grader have the emotional/social skills of 2nd graders. There have been repeated fights in the playground in ES (Kids attacking other kids). My son's tutor teachers 5th and she told me she is having to teach her kids how to interact and communicate with each other. The kids a suffering. They should have take those two days and done intensive therapy for everyone (kidding.. sort of).

Anyway, the point being. Kids need to be in school so they can learn how to be around each other and act appropriately. They need the routine and they need a lot of help. We are in APS But my kids have only had two full weeks of school in 9 weeks (about to be 10). They wi t have another full week until week 12 and then it's Thanksgiving week. Kids are getting the stability they need and they are suffering.

Yes , it is better for staff and for teacher's mental health to have a break. It is likely better for the kids to have more full weeks of school without constant interruption. I dont know how to meet the needs of both parties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Probably. I really don't think it's a "decompress" issue as much as it's a "can't find subs because we're paying shit wages" issue, though.

Right I agree. I really think they just need to tell teachers they can't take off though. I mean it is that way in any public facing job. You need coverage. I dont blame teachers for asking, I blame admit for granting. They need to be better/stronger managers.

I'm a teacher. I've taken off the week of Thanksgiving more than once because my child needed elective* surgery, and I figured that taking off 2 days, when I'd have 1/2 my class out anyway, was preferable to taking off a week.

*Elective meaning you can choose to schedule, not that this was a surgery where there was another option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at a weird point where what is best for staff is not what is best for kids. I spoke to my son's teacher in 4th and he said he expected academic loss to be the biggest issue but it's actual social..his 4th grader have the emotional/social skills of 2nd graders. There have been repeated fights in the playground in ES (Kids attacking other kids). My son's tutor teachers 5th and she told me she is having to teach her kids how to interact and communicate with each other. The kids a suffering. They should have take those two days and done intensive therapy for everyone (kidding.. sort of).

Anyway, the point being. Kids need to be in school so they can learn how to be around each other and act appropriately. They need the routine and they need a lot of help. We are in APS But my kids have only had two full weeks of school in 9 weeks (about to be 10). They wi t have another full week until week 12 and then it's Thanksgiving week. Kids are getting the stability they need and they are suffering.

Yes , it is better for staff and for teacher's mental health to have a break. It is likely better for the kids to have more full weeks of school without constant interruption. I dont know how to meet the needs of both parties.

I totally agree with this.

At the end of the day, these are taxpayer funded services and the teachers are hired to do a job. How many of us just don't show up for two days at our jobs and get paid anyway. It's an odd mindset. Imagine if nurses/hospitals did this. It's just another signal that teachers don't see themselves as essential workers. Which they are.

[Anonymous]

You are supposed to feel lucky they bothered to open at all…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at a weird point where what is best for staff is not what is best for kids. I spoke to my son's teacher in 4th and he said he expected academic loss to be the biggest issue but it's actual social..his 4th grader have the emotional/social skills of 2nd graders. There have been repeated fights in the playground in ES (Kids attacking other kids). My son's tutor teachers 5th and she told me she is having to teach her kids how to interact and communicate with each other. The kids a suffering. They should have take those two days and done intensive therapy for everyone (kidding.. sort of).

Anyway, the point being. Kids need to be in school so they can learn how to be around each other and act appropriately. They need the routine and they need a lot of help. We are in APS But my kids have only had two full weeks of school in 9 weeks (about to be 10). They wi t have another full week until week 12 and then it's Thanksgiving week. Kids are getting the stability they need and they are suffering.

Yes , it is better for staff and for teacher's mental health to have a break. It is likely better for the kids to have more full weeks of school without constant interruption. I dont know how to meet the needs of both parties.

To be fair, this is how the schedule is always set up. They pretty rarely have full 5 day weeks. That's as intended, not a pandemic thing or lack of stability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reason number 634,262,825,962 to put your kids in private or religious schools.

Ha! Most of them already take lots of time off, and have a shorter calendar period, so no, that's not the reason to go private.