Organizing to lobby DC to allow larger class sizes under Phase 2/3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the CDC said large protests were okay ( and I understand and support why people protested), then having kids attend school should also be okay. Mass gatherings of thousands of people, even outside, were risky. But we tolerated the increased risk because the cause was good. We should adopt the same attitude for schools. Accept some risk because having kids attend schools is important.

But who is accepting the risk? You will probably continue to be able to work in the safety of your own home. Your kids' teachers, not so much. Who is going to step in when the staff gets sick? It's easy to say we should open schools when you are not the ones in the front lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lobby away. Dcps is just following health guidelines set by DC Health.

But DCPS and the teachers union aren't innovating like they could. Not at all. Come on, in the Nordic countries and Germany, elementary school classes are often taking place outside, e.g. in public parks. No way will the teachers unions permit that in this country. I bet you're going to see charter schools take the lead in keeping learning rolling in the fall, not DCPS. I see charter innovation during the pandemic pushing the District over the cliff into greater enrollment in charters than in DCPS for the first time, within the next two years. I'm not a charter booster, but with elementary school-age kids in DCPS facing 1-2 days a week of in-person learning in the fall, I might become one if local friends with kids in charters are getting considerably more in-person learning than we are (and I bet they will find a way).

God stop with the comparison to other countries, especially the ones with LESS people, crimes, poverty, homelessness, big lobbyists for food, better schooling overall.

Maybe this will help realize how freaking behind the US is in EVERYTHING except the military (oh boy!). Charters aren't doing better. Do you know how many charters kick students out because they are allowed to? Oh but they wait until October so they can keep their money. If you are a charter lobbyist be upfront. Charters are disgusting and I wish they'd just become private schools and stop taking public school money.
Ability to kick students out and they have no self-contained level students, why is that?

I do think they work for many families but IMO all schools should have the level of control they have regardless, charters schools are only as special as their leaders. Private public schools is such an 'only the US' thing. We'll never catch up at this rate.

Any innovations DCPS and teachers want costs money, tell me are you willing to pay more taxes? People always say education is important but at the end of the day state budgets go to other things,

[Anonymous]

educatedc wrote:Per the ReOpen guidelines, schools, under each of Phase 2 and 3 must limit class sizes to 10, inclusive of the teachers, so really a max of 8 or 9. Restaurants and bars are allowed much more. Gatherings up to 250 are permitted. DC has chosen bars/restaurants over schools - no surprises that the school system is a failed system.

Schools cannot educate under these constraints - public schools are far worse off due to higher class sizes. The alternative is to sit your child alone at home on zoom - numerous studies have demonstrated this to be ineffective, and developmentally, lead to diminished social capacity.

DC Government needs to be heavily lobbied, and if that doesn't work, suing DC to revoke Mayor Bowser's order, which she has issued on shaky legal ground.

I am a lawyer, but more importantly, a parent. Anyone interested send an email to [e-mail] to get a group started.

Please point to the numerous studies that have been designed, implemented, analyzed, and published all within the last 12 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Comparing a classroom to a bar is sort of silly -- bars aren't usually full of all the same people for seven hours at a time. And most bars don't have anywhere near the capacity that schools do. The rules for one don't really have anything to do with the rules for the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lobby away. Dcps is just following health guidelines set by DC Health.

But DCPS and the teachers union aren't innovating like they could. Not at all. Come on, in the Nordic countries and Germany, elementary school classes are often taking place outside, e.g. in public parks. No way will the teachers unions permit that in this country. I bet you're going to see charter schools take the lead in keeping learning rolling in the fall, not DCPS. I see charter innovation during the pandemic pushing the District over the cliff into greater enrollment in charters than in DCPS for the first time, within the next two years. I'm not a charter booster, but with elementary school-age kids in DCPS facing 1-2 days a week of in-person learning in the fall, I might become one if local friends with kids in charters are getting considerably more in-person learning than we are (and I bet they will find a way).

Charters "find a way" by finding a way to kick out the children for whom your innovations are not safe. For example, outside classes are great, but not when you have a student with autism who is a flight risk.

[Anonymous]

OP, there is so much wrong with your statement that it is clear that you have no idea what you are talking about, have never set foot in a DCPS building, and just want your child's private school to be able to open as usual, and 10 is probably just three people too few for that. So if you get your three extra bodies, you'd call it a victory and drop the effort, even though that will have no impact at all on DCPS's ability to open.

[Anonymous]

Study finds that nearly 40 percent of low-income kids are doing little to no actual learning during distance learning:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/27/862705225/survey-shows-big-remote-learning-gaps-for-low-income-and-special-needs-children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Study finds that nearly 40 percent of low-income kids are doing little to no actual learning during distance learning:

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/27/862705225/survey-shows-big-remote-learning-gaps-for-low-income-and-special-needs-children

The schools are providing the work if families are not doing it that is a choice or problem with services that go beyond a public schools services.
If houses, power, internet, adults that are able to help. Those are wrap around services that need be addressed. They are not nor have been the responsibility of the schools. Many schools do try to provide families help with a lot of these type of things. But it shouldn't fall to the schools or should fall to the city. We should be looking at this as social problem not poor school performance

[Anonymous]

While I question OP's motivation in posting here, I completely agree with the sentiment. Not sure who at the CDC came up with the 10 person limit per classroom that is now spreading through school districts throughout the nation as some magic threshold, that person has no understanding of most public schools, which typically have a classroom target size of 25 students plus a teacher. It's a pretty random number that is completely unrelated to the foot print of the classroom or the size of the class.

And, it is completely hypocritical if classrooms are kept at this low size of 9 students in Phase 3 but other "gatherings" of up to 250 are allowed. I can only hope that the Mayor uses her discretion to decide to put students first and resume in person instruction in the Fall. As she has noted a couple of times, she is not bound to follow the ReOpen DC committee recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I question OP's motivation in posting here, I completely agree with the sentiment. Not sure who at the CDC came up with the 10 person limit per classroom that is now spreading through school districts throughout the nation as some magic threshold, that person has no understanding of most public schools, which typically have a classroom target size of 25 students plus a teacher. It's a pretty random number that is completely unrelated to the foot print of the classroom or the size of the class.

And, it is completely hypocritical if classrooms are kept at this low size of 9 students in Phase 3 but other "gatherings" of up to 250 are allowed. I can only hope that the Mayor uses her discretion to decide to put students first and resume in person instruction in the Fall. As she has noted a couple of times, she is not bound to follow the ReOpen DC committee recommendations.

My school has over 500 kids. If groups up to 250 are allowed that’s about half the school. Which translates to A/B schedule. Why is that so hard to understand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I question OP's motivation in posting here, I completely agree with the sentiment. Not sure who at the CDC came up with the 10 person limit per classroom that is now spreading through school districts throughout the nation as some magic threshold, that person has no understanding of most public schools, which typically have a classroom target size of 25 students plus a teacher. It's a pretty random number that is completely unrelated to the foot print of the classroom or the size of the class.

And, it is completely hypocritical if classrooms are kept at this low size of 9 students in Phase 3 but other "gatherings" of up to 250 are allowed. I can only hope that the Mayor uses her discretion to decide to put students first and resume in person instruction in the Fall. As she has noted a couple of times, she is not bound to follow the ReOpen DC committee recommendations.

My school has over 500 kids. If groups up to 250 are allowed that’s about half the school. Which translates to A/B schedule. Why is that so hard to understand

Huh? They don't ALL have to be in the same space at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I question OP's motivation in posting here, I completely agree with the sentiment. Not sure who at the CDC came up with the 10 person limit per classroom that is now spreading through school districts throughout the nation as some magic threshold, that person has no understanding of most public schools, which typically have a classroom target size of 25 students plus a teacher. It's a pretty random number that is completely unrelated to the foot print of the classroom or the size of the class.

And, it is completely hypocritical if classrooms are kept at this low size of 9 students in Phase 3 but other "gatherings" of up to 250 are allowed. I can only hope that the Mayor uses her discretion to decide to put students first and resume in person instruction in the Fall. As she has noted a couple of times, she is not bound to follow the ReOpen DC committee recommendations.

My school has over 500 kids. If groups up to 250 are allowed that’s about half the school. Which translates to A/B schedule. Why is that so hard to understand

Huh? They don't ALL have to be in the same space at the same time.

I was pointing out how an A/B schedule actually lines up with reopen dc. Schools in Upper nw all have over 500 kids. And another 50-100 adults. It’s not as simple as put kids first and open schools. The hybrid Dcps actually is taking about will be a vast improvement upon what was put out this spring

[Anonymous]

Improvement, not so sure about vast. We're just not getting much info about how this all work. I'm withholding judgement.

[Anonymous]

The evidence suggests that closing schools has had almost no effect in preventing the spread of COVID. Schools are not a big vector. Yet another study, this time published in Nature, demonstrating the same. See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-08...lion-covid-cases?sref=Of7mcH17

[Anonymous]

educatedc wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

educatedc wrote:Per the ReOpen guidelines, schools, under each of Phase 2 and 3 must limit class sizes to 10, inclusive of the teachers, so really a max of 8 or 9. Restaurants and bars are allowed much more. Gatherings up to 250 are permitted. DC has chosen bars/restaurants over schools - no surprises that the school system is a failed system.

Schools cannot educate under these constraints - public schools are far worse off due to higher class sizes. The alternative is to sit your child alone at home on zoom - numerous studies have demonstrated this to be ineffective, and developmentally, lead to diminished social capacity.

DC Government needs to be heavily lobbied, and if that doesn't work, suing DC to revoke Mayor Bowser's order, which she has issued on shaky legal ground.

I am a lawyer, but more importantly, a parent. Anyone interested send an email to [e-mail] to get a group started.

[e-mail] is also posting the same message on the private school forum.

Weird flex, bro.

Yeah - this impacts everyone - why let the mayor implement a policy that, frankly, private schools have the financial resources to navigate, further exacerbating inequality?

I’m confused. The mayor’s stay at home order specifically excludes schools (privates and colleges). Outside of DCPS, it’s up to the school when/how they open.