Paul Bartkowski School Board Candidate Forum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

Questions about family are completely legitimate. After all, Karl Frisch not having kids is brought up every time he is mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

Questions about family are completely legitimate. After all, Karl Frisch not having kids is brought up every time he is mentioned.

These questions involve academic information of the Bartkowskis’ kids, which are covered under FERPA privacy laws. Not sure how Karl Frisch’s situation applies to this situation, unless his dog attends FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

paulforfcsb wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On your website regarding the SB you cite, “… a disturbing effort to introduce age-inappropriate sexual concepts and ideas to our youngest students”. Could you give some examples?

Sure - I've seen SEL questionnaires where ~8th grade students (I believe it was eighth but my answer would be the same for older students)were asked, for example, how many sexual partners they've had. Here's a senator reading books that FCPS (and many other school districts) insists must stay in our school libraries:

https://youtu.be/KBhy_vlgKS4

No place for that in any school library - and it does disturb me that adults are so eager to make those books available to our kids. Call me old-fashioned!

So would you act based on your opinions in books rather than defer to the school librarians who are professional educators?

Not the school board candidate here, just a random parent.

Just a side note on how FCPS selects books for the library. A FCPS English teacher/librarian type employee explained this to me once.

The librarians don't usually read all the books they select.

The publishers send "theme" type book packages, with a bunch of titles that fit the overall theme. For example (and this might be a little broad) there is a civil rights package or an early American history or a military battles package. The librarian/dept head/subject team picks the entire package, without necessarily reading the entire book collection, then the books from the list goes into the libraries/class libraries.

Reading through the entire book collection is, for at least the teachers, not paid time and something they are expected to do on their own time.

Often, the departments will just skim the summaries, spot check books, and approve the book list in its entirety.

Other times, the department or a group of teachers will try to split up the titles so they can get through the entire list collectively. But it is a lot of reading, and of course, everyone's standards are a little different on what one deems appropriate for a school library. So an experienced teacher might be horrified by a book such as Gender Queer in a middle school library, while a fresh out of college teacher might see it as important identity advocacy.

Occassionally, you might get one gem of the teacher who has the time and desire to read through the entire collection on their own time, with no pay, before putting down their name as approving the list. But that is a lot of reading, so I suspect that this rarely happens.

You are assuming that having book objections means that you are undermining the librarian. But the librarians might not have actually read the book in question. They might just have approved the "finding your identity" themed book list from the publisher, but not the dozens or more individual books in that collection. There are thousands of books in the library. I doubt any librarian has actually read through all of them. I am a voracious reader, and it still takes me a few days to get through one title, reading several hours per night. There are simply not enough hours for one librarian or a team of teachers to read through every book schools offer.

At least at the high school level, the districts need 2 parents to read and approve books offered in classes or for class readings. I believe this is something new from the Youngkin administration, and is a very positive thing. I volunteered for this committee and ended up approving all of the books I have read so far. You can make comments (such as for 16+, or too much profanity/misogyny/violence/insert controversy). If you reject a book, you can explain why. (Perhaps this is required, but a
I haven't rejected a book yet so I am not 100% certain.) If an official reviewer says no, the book gets pulled for further review, including reviewing the reasons why it was rejected. I know several parents from our high school who have reviewed books. The only book I know of that was rejected had very good reasons for the rejection.


For Paul:

Perhaps the new school board could set up a parent volunteer reading committee district wide to get through new library collections before approval, similar to what our FCPS high school does. Some of the parents might discover that most of the books are not as controversial as they seem. Others might find that even though they thought all the books are fine, there are actually books that have little redeeming qualities and are completely inappropriate for school. This could then be addressed before the questionable books get to the students and cause controversy.

We can't show more than PG rated movies on our high school bus trips. Why should books in middle schools be any different?

[Anonymous]

Paul - thanks for posting. You’ll need to be judicious in deciding which posts to address. This forum is trolled by Democratic partisans, who’ll hold you to a far different and much higher standard than they’ve ever held the current School Board. It’s also frequented by some folks who resent McLean HS and want the School Board to continue to ignore the fact that McLean is a run-down school with the least permanent capacity of any FCPS high school, even though it has an average-size enrollment and is expected to accommodate continued residential growth in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean.

In general, I found your answers at the candidates forum last week to resonate with the main concerns of parents in this area. That’s not to say that Robyn Lady would not also bring some valuable experience if she’s elected. But on the issue of addressing the facilities needs at McLean, she offered nothing new and said little to suggest she’d scrutinize FCPS capital spending more closely. That inattention is how we end up with situations where Dranesville ES is now getting expanded to 1000 seats, despite a current enrollment of 600; proffer money from developers is not spent on the schools that serve those new development; and a new elementary school for which there is simply no need is now planned in Dunn Loring (all while high schools like Chantilly and McLean remain overcrowded for over a decade). And her one other suggestion - waiving the normal pupil placement requirements to allow kids to attend Herndon and Langley rather than McLean - would further kick the can down the road and widen existing disparities within FCPS.

Good luck - whether you get elected or not, it is fantastic that someone is at least willing to take on the local political “machine.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

Questions about family are completely legitimate. After all, Karl Frisch not having kids is brought up every time he is mentioned.

If I understood Paul, he has three kids who’ve been in FCPS and will be in FCPS next year, and one being homeschooled currently.

That’s plenty of skin in the game. His opponent has never had children in FCPS and is no longer an FCPS employee. That’s doesn’t negate the fact that she’s had prior experience with FCPS as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

The thing about an anonymous forum is we have no idea if this is Paul or someone from Paul's campaign.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

he says she has been in private school since Covid. So in private school since 3rd grade? That is most of elementary school. Someone who uses private schooling for years for their kids instead of the excellent local public schools is someone I don't think should be on the public school board. Its not good enough for you, yet you want to impose your ideas on the rest of us? Nope thank u next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paul - thanks for posting. You’ll need to be judicious in deciding which posts to address. This forum is trolled by Democratic partisans, who’ll hold you to a far different and much higher standard than they’ve ever held the current School Board. It’s also frequented by some folks who resent McLean HS and want the School Board to continue to ignore the fact that McLean is a run-down school with the least permanent capacity of any FCPS high school, even though it has an average-size enrollment and is expected to accommodate continued residential growth in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean.

In general, I found your answers at the candidates forum last week to resonate with the main concerns of parents in this area. That’s not to say that Robyn Lady would not also bring some valuable experience if she’s elected. But on the issue of addressing the facilities needs at McLean, she offered nothing new and said little to suggest she’d scrutinize FCPS capital spending more closely. That inattention is how we end up with situations where Dranesville ES is now getting expanded to 1000 seats, despite a current enrollment of 600; proffer money from developers is not spent on the schools that serve those new development; and a new elementary school for which there is simply no need is now planned in Dunn Loring (all while high schools like Chantilly and McLean remain overcrowded for over a decade). And her one other suggestion - waiving the normal pupil placement requirements to allow kids to attend Herndon and Langley rather than McLean - would further kick the can down the road and widen existing disparities within FCPS.

Good luck - whether you get elected or not, it is fantastic that someone is at least willing to take on the local political “machine.”

Lots of nutty trumper trolls on here who live nowhere near DC.

Oh, that reminds me, who did you vote for in the 2016 election?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

he says she has been in private school since Covid. So in private school since 3rd grade? That is most of elementary school. Someone who uses private schooling for years for their kids instead of the excellent local public schools is someone I don't think should be on the public school board. Its not good enough for you, yet you want to impose your ideas on the rest of us? Nope thank u next.

The guy has 2 kids in fcps. That is more than enough skin in the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paul - thanks for posting. You’ll need to be judicious in deciding which posts to address. This forum is trolled by Democratic partisans, who’ll hold you to a far different and much higher standard than they’ve ever held the current School Board. It’s also frequented by some folks who resent McLean HS and want the School Board to continue to ignore the fact that McLean is a run-down school with the least permanent capacity of any FCPS high school, even though it has an average-size enrollment and is expected to accommodate continued residential growth in Tysons, West Falls Church, and downtown McLean.

In general, I found your answers at the candidates forum last week to resonate with the main concerns of parents in this area. That’s not to say that Robyn Lady would not also bring some valuable experience if she’s elected. But on the issue of addressing the facilities needs at McLean, she offered nothing new and said little to suggest she’d scrutinize FCPS capital spending more closely. That inattention is how we end up with situations where Dranesville ES is now getting expanded to 1000 seats, despite a current enrollment of 600; proffer money from developers is not spent on the schools that serve those new development; and a new elementary school for which there is simply no need is now planned in Dunn Loring (all while high schools like Chantilly and McLean remain overcrowded for over a decade). And her one other suggestion - waiving the normal pupil placement requirements to allow kids to attend Herndon and Langley rather than McLean - would further kick the can down the road and widen existing disparities within FCPS.

Good luck - whether you get elected or not, it is fantastic that someone is at least willing to take on the local political “machine.”

Lots of nutty trumper trolls on here who live nowhere near DC.

Oh, that reminds me, who did you vote for in the 2016 election?

Why does the "nutter" poster have to ruin every thread?

It would be nice if they limited their trolling to the politics forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

The thing about an anonymous forum is we have no idea if this is Paul or someone from Paul's campaign.

Completely agree. However, I attended two of his debates and his input here is very consistent with the way he communicated during both events, in both form and content.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

He's running for a political office. Its really not "courageous" to state your positions on relevant issues. I mean, how low is your bar?

[Anonymous]

15:41 and 16:35 are clearly the same poster. Hello, Paul's media person!

[paulforfcsb]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

paulforfcsb wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On your website regarding the SB you cite, “… a disturbing effort to introduce age-inappropriate sexual concepts and ideas to our youngest students”. Could you give some examples?

Sure - I've seen SEL questionnaires where ~8th grade students (I believe it was eighth but my answer would be the same for older students)were asked, for example, how many sexual partners they've had. Here's a senator reading books that FCPS (and many other school districts) insists must stay in our school libraries:

https://youtu.be/KBhy_vlgKS4

No place for that in any school library - and it does disturb me that adults are so eager to make those books available to our kids. Call me old-fashioned!

So would you act based on your opinions in books rather than defer to the school librarians who are professional educators?

Not the school board candidate here, just a random parent.

Just a side note on how FCPS selects books for the library. A FCPS English teacher/librarian type employee explained this to me once.

The librarians don't usually read all the books they select.

The publishers send "theme" type book packages, with a bunch of titles that fit the overall theme. For example (and this might be a little broad) there is a civil rights package or an early American history or a military battles package. The librarian/dept head/subject team picks the entire package, without necessarily reading the entire book collection, then the books from the list goes into the libraries/class libraries.

Reading through the entire book collection is, for at least the teachers, not paid time and something they are expected to do on their own time.

Often, the departments will just skim the summaries, spot check books, and approve the book list in its entirety.

Other times, the department or a group of teachers will try to split up the titles so they can get through the entire list collectively. But it is a lot of reading, and of course, everyone's standards are a little different on what one deems appropriate for a school library. So an experienced teacher might be horrified by a book such as Gender Queer in a middle school library, while a fresh out of college teacher might see it as important identity advocacy.

Occassionally, you might get one gem of the teacher who has the time and desire to read through the entire collection on their own time, with no pay, before putting down their name as approving the list. But that is a lot of reading, so I suspect that this rarely happens.

You are assuming that having book objections means that you are undermining the librarian. But the librarians might not have actually read the book in question. They might just have approved the "finding your identity" themed book list from the publisher, but not the dozens or more individual books in that collection. There are thousands of books in the library. I doubt any librarian has actually read through all of them. I am a voracious reader, and it still takes me a few days to get through one title, reading several hours per night. There are simply not enough hours for one librarian or a team of teachers to read through every book schools offer.

At least at the high school level, the districts need 2 parents to read and approve books offered in classes or for class readings. I believe this is something new from the Youngkin administration, and is a very positive thing. I volunteered for this committee and ended up approving all of the books I have read so far. You can make comments (such as for 16+, or too much profanity/misogyny/violence/insert controversy). If you reject a book, you can explain why. (Perhaps this is required, but a
I haven't rejected a book yet so I am not 100% certain.) If an official reviewer says no, the book gets pulled for further review, including reviewing the reasons why it was rejected. I know several parents from our high school who have reviewed books. The only book I know of that was rejected had very good reasons for the rejection.


For Paul:

Perhaps the new school board could set up a parent volunteer reading committee district wide to get through new library collections before approval, similar to what our FCPS high school does. Some of the parents might discover that most of the books are not as controversial as they seem. Others might find that even though they thought all the books are fine, there are actually books that have little redeeming qualities and are completely inappropriate for school. This could then be addressed before the questionable books get to the students and cause controversy.

We can't show more than PG rated movies on our high school bus trips. Why should books in middle schools be any different?

This is thoughtful but do recall that the parents objected to at least one of the books the senator was reading and the school board insisted that they remain. In other words, it's not negligence - they really want this material available to the kids for some reason. Langley HS had a special table with books that they knew parents found inappropriate for the kids. https://www.newsweek.com/school-apologizes-display-showing-books-adults-dont-want-you-read-1679670

I wish it were mere negligence, but it seems to be more than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are very brave to jump into this lions den, especially as an R. That in itself speaks well of your convictions. This forum does not like Republicans or independents.

Every kid is unique in their educational needs, and 6th grade is a really tumultuous time for kids. Peronally, I would not fault any parent for making an individual education decision for their kid that may or may not include public schools, home schooling, online school, private school or Catholic school, especiallyduring the middle school years.

And honestly, looking at my neighborhood, post pandemic there are many, many fcps families that are now moving their kids in and out of FCPS depending on the grade or school level. I have multiple neighbors who now have some kids in Catholic, some kids in home school and other kids in FCPS, all in one family.

So on that note, this candidate seems to represent a lot of FCPS families who are going year by year to find the best educational method for thier kids at any given year.

And in the end, don't the public schools *want* these kids to eventually land back into their local public schools? A parent with the experience of utilizing educational flexibility for their kid's schooling, which includes our public schools, will provide unique insight and a helpful voice to the school board discussions.

Completely agree. I’m impressed by Paul’s courage to allow himself to being bombarded with questions from anonymous posters, some of whom are not even in Fairfax County, let alone the Dranesville District, which he is hoping to represent.

Questions regarding his family’s personal choices in regards to their kids are completely out of bounds, and he doesn’t need to explain nor justify them. His children are entitled to their privacy, particularly when it comes to their academic life. In fact, they are protected under FERPA laws. Most importantly, the Bartkowski kids are not the ones running for School Board.

On the last public debate, his opponent, Robin Lady, brought up as one of her priorities to hire more black and Hispanic teachers for representation purposes in our schools; whereas Paul’s approach is to focus on hiring the best teachers regardless of their skin color, which, BTW, would include hiring Chinese and Indian teachers as well. He also emphasized that he would help repurpose funds so that teachers can be better remunerated for what they do, and because of their effort and sacrifice, such as the time spent after school hours for sponsoring clubs at school, coaching, or volunteering. Doing so, according to Paul, would help with not only hiring highly qualified teachers, but also with retaining them.

I’m grateful to have a candidate who takes learning so seriously that, along with his wife, has made sacrifices to ensure their kids get the best education possible, because according to him, that is an important factor to succeed in life, and he wishes that same goal for every single kid in the county.

I thought your post was balanced and thoughtful until I got to the “black, Hispanic, Chinese, Indian, bla bla bla” Enough with the racial divisions and trying to pit different races against each other. This is why the republicans will lose.