WaPo: How D.C. and its teachers, with shifting plans and demands, failed to reopen schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean... This really lays the blame about 75% with the Union. The Mayor miscalculated politically and failed to engage enough with interested parties and to sell the plan... But the WTU really seems to have operated in bad faith throughout. Wow.

Oh shut up. Teachers are too underpaid for this, even in DC. Quit with the 100k BS, the average is 60k. 20 years to get to 100k is NOTHING.

Boo hoo nurses have been working in person, ok what does that have to do with teachers specifically. What do hospitals and schools have in common besides corrupt leaders, unfair pay for the backbones (nurses, teachers)?

And wow only 39% of teachers did the sick out and you all were acting like it was 80-90%. In case you suck at math 39% isn't even half. The mayor KNEW what would happen if she didn't include the WTU in the beginning.

I am a preschool teacher who went back and then got covid, I survived (likely because I am 24 and healthy) and I'm not going back without a vaccine.
4 years of pay freezes, a classroom whose lights won't turn off, broken heater and air conditioner, broken toilet, no pull ups, etc. but woooooow we have an HVAC. FU. Fix our schools!

Wow. You’re clearly reacting to posters that aren’t me, but literally none of that responds to my actual point. You can think teachers shouldn’t go back for safety reasons (although it’s not just nurses, obviously, it’s like 70% of all employees in DC at the moment), but that doesn’t change the fact that the WTU appears to have negotiated in bad faith. Nothing in your diatribe suggests otherwise. By the way, blaming the WTU isn’t the same as blaming every individual teacher. But, also, you clearly have no idea where you got COVID and have constructed a narrative in your head about where you probably got it. It doesn’t really work like that.

You're part of the issue, nasty white parent who has no idea about the history of DCPS and it's teachers.
It is not 70% but sure even if it was I really don't care. And the WTU represents teachers thus your comment is about teachers. I don't really care about what you think about me individually.

Also I assume I got it from school because I do not go out and when I do there's really no people around. My husband works from home, pretty simple.

You don't care about children, you just care about b*tching since now you can't gossip about other mundane things. If you cared you'd complain about the state many of our schools are in.

Wow. You mentioned in a previous post you were thinking about quitting to accept another job or be a SAHM. I think it’s time you took a break from teaching if you’re this angry. It’s not good for you, the school you’re in, or anyone in your classroom. Yes, everyone was correct, teaching is a thankless job. Get out of it.

+1

yeah I don’t think this woman should be around 3 year olds.

[Anonymous]

As a labor attorney (and DCPS parent), I find the accounts in this article about the union’s tactics to be deeply disturbing. Talk about bargaining in bad faith.

[Anonymous]

I’ve worked with the chancellor and central office before as a parent, and I’d trust my first grader before this chancellor to make a plan to reopen.

At least my first grader would be honest with all of us and actually cares about his teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTU may have won the battle to close schools for a year or so, but I wonder if they’ve lost the war to fund public schools in the future. Surely the union’s behavior over the past few months has lost the hearts and minds of many voters. I know I’ll think twice before voting for any candidates who touts their WTU endorsement.

+1

I am a DCPS teacher and worry that any support we had from parents or any goodwill is squandered by the union. I wonder if budgets will be cut and Bowser won’t negotiate to increase them.

I am a DCPS parent. Don’t worry. We know the mayor and chancellor have cut parents and teachers out of this process
And we back the union.

Why? I am a DCPS parent and a DCPS parent and I feel like the union has mishandled this from the beginning. I am grasping at reasons to support the union at this point because I feel like it has let me down. I am wondering what a DCPS parent feels like the union has done right.

I don’t know why you’re not well-educated on this issue, but let me fill you in:
The mayor doesn’t care or can’t manage education, and plus she’s heavily influenced by charter school lobbyists. She doesn’t care about DCPS.
The chancellor came from a Broad academy charter program where he was taught how to ignore parents and teachers while paying them lip service. Paul Kihn same thing.

Together, this means there is NO real PLAN to open schools.
The principals are not being consulted!

I love my kids teachers and principal and the chancellor is trying to ram down a PR-first BS plan without asking them, or parents, what we can help with.

And the chancellor and central office are horrible at planning.

This is all pretty simple.

sorry babe, the anti-charter line won’t work anymore. I now see it was 99.9% union bullsh*t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve worked with the chancellor and central office before as a parent, and I’d trust my first grader before this chancellor to make a plan to reopen.

At least my first grader would be honest with all of us and actually cares about his teachers.

then you’re a fool because the unions don’t care about your 1st grader. Imperfect though they may be, the chancellor and mayor and dcps are the institutions who actually have the kids’ interests in mine. union supporters told us here (repeatedly) that the unions’ only responsibility is to its members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a labor attorney (and DCPS parent), I find the accounts in this article about the union’s tactics to be deeply disturbing. Talk about bargaining in bad faith.

Look, maybe you’re a labor attorney and maybe you’re a DCPS parent.

But the whole conservative “education” establishment, led by Betsy DeVos and echoed at Heritage and Manhattan and all the other donor-funded privateers,
is braying to reopen DCPS. But not because they care about kids. Because they care about union busting to enrich themselves and their donor class.

DC has long been a laboratory for greedy rightwing rich donors to privatize schools. And they’re doing it again.

(Also, for the crowd reading this: “labor attorney” means you work for corporations AGAINST unions. I’m a law firm partner, and we have other partners who are labor attorney. Maybe PP will come back and say they really meant they are a huge liberal and Democrat who voted for Obama and just happens to be echoing DeVos and want to bust up the WTU. But when that reply comes, I gonna be skeptical.)

[Anonymous]

It’s gotten to the point where teachers need to be told to go back to the classroom or be fired. Enough is enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a labor attorney (and DCPS parent), I find the accounts in this article about the union’s tactics to be deeply disturbing. Talk about bargaining in bad faith.

Look, maybe you’re a labor attorney and maybe you’re a DCPS parent.

But the whole conservative “education” establishment, led by Betsy DeVos and echoed at Heritage and Manhattan and all the other donor-funded privateers,
is braying to reopen DCPS. But not because they care about kids. Because they care about union busting to enrich themselves and their donor class.

DC has long been a laboratory for greedy rightwing rich donors to privatize schools. And they’re doing it again.

(Also, for the crowd reading this: “labor attorney” means you work for corporations AGAINST unions. I’m a law firm partner, and we have other partners who are labor attorney. Maybe PP will come back and say they really meant they are a huge liberal and Democrat who voted for Obama and just happens to be echoing DeVos and want to bust up the WTU. But when that reply comes, I gonna be skeptical.)

you again ... what will your line be in 3 weeks when you can no longer claim it’s De Vos and the Heritage Institute? Teachers unions have seriously injured themselves here. they have exerted their power but at the cost of losing tremendous popular support. I am so much more in favor of charters, vouchers, and aid to private religious schools now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a labor attorney (and DCPS parent), I find the accounts in this article about the union’s tactics to be deeply disturbing. Talk about bargaining in bad faith.

Look, maybe you’re a labor attorney and maybe you’re a DCPS parent.

But the whole conservative “education” establishment, led by Betsy DeVos and echoed at Heritage and Manhattan and all the other donor-funded privateers,
is braying to reopen DCPS. But not because they care about kids. Because they care about union busting to enrich themselves and their donor class.

DC has long been a laboratory for greedy rightwing rich donors to privatize schools. And they’re doing it again.

(Also, for the crowd reading this: “labor attorney” means you work for corporations AGAINST unions. I’m a law firm partner, and we have other partners who are labor attorney. Maybe PP will come back and say they really meant they are a huge liberal and Democrat who voted for Obama and just happens to be echoing DeVos and want to bust up the WTU. But when that reply comes, I gonna be skeptical.)

You lost me at “law firm partner” and all the typos in your post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a labor attorney (and DCPS parent), I find the accounts in this article about the union’s tactics to be deeply disturbing. Talk about bargaining in bad faith.

Look, maybe you’re a labor attorney and maybe you’re a DCPS parent.

But the whole conservative “education” establishment, led by Betsy DeVos and echoed at Heritage and Manhattan and all the other donor-funded privateers,
is braying to reopen DCPS. But not because they care about kids. Because they care about union busting to enrich themselves and their donor class.

DC has long been a laboratory for greedy rightwing rich donors to privatize schools. And they’re doing it again.

(Also, for the crowd reading this: “labor attorney” means you work for corporations AGAINST unions. I’m a law firm partner, and we have other partners who are labor attorney. Maybe PP will come back and say they really meant they are a huge liberal and Democrat who voted for Obama and just happens to be echoing DeVos and want to bust up the WTU. But when that reply comes, I gonna be skeptical.)

So the kids of DC should forgo education just to spite Betsy DeVos?

[Anonymous]

Plenty of blame to go around. I'm never voting for Bowser again, I can say that. I'm also angry with the union and can't believe how poorly they've handled this entire situation. But it's the unions job to advocate for teachers (I personally do not think they did a good job with it). It's the mayor's and chancellor's job to negotiate with the union, to communicate with parents, to build coalitions and to solve difficult logistical issues. That's the job. It pays pretty well and people beg to to get it. Sorry it's hard?

One thing the article points out is just how bad the city's messaging to parents was, how little outreach they did to build support for reopening. I attended some of the town halls they mention in the article and had the same takeaways as the parents they interviewed -- it was hard to ask questions, and when we did, we got unsatisfactory answers that only made me wary of reopening. And that's as a parent who really wanted schools to reopen and believes the science supports it! But I had real misgivings about DCPS's ability to do it in a way that not only protected teachers, but protected my kid and the rest of my family.

So I'm angry with the union, but I'm not going to pretend like teachers were the only ones who wanted some answers to basic questions about how this would work and was disturbed (though not surprised) by how few answers we were given. And the article also points out that once schools did not reopen in September, families scrambled to figure out other arrangements. Those arrangements were largely not great, but they were a known quantity. So when DCPS started talking about CARES classrooms and limited reopening, but had very few details or actionable plans in place, a lot of parents who do want schools open (me included) were not sure if it was worth the risk to cancel those plans and take a flyer on the district's half baked plan.

Anyway, it's a cluster that has me wondering if we can even stay in the district. We can't afford private and I don't think homeschool is a real option for us. Maybe we switch to a charter (I never thought I'd say that). Or maybe we just move. I've never loved DCPS but this experience has left me hating it, and I don't know if I can spend the next decade plus hating the school district we are part of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTU may have won the battle to close schools for a year or so, but I wonder if they’ve lost the war to fund public schools in the future. Surely the union’s behavior over the past few months has lost the hearts and minds of many voters. I know I’ll think twice before voting for any candidates who touts their WTU endorsement.

+1

I am a DCPS teacher and worry that any support we had from parents or any goodwill is squandered by the union. I wonder if budgets will be cut and Bowser won’t negotiate to increase them.

I am a DCPS parent. Don’t worry. We know the mayor and chancellor have cut parents and teachers out of this process
And we back the union.

I am a DCPS parent and you should worry. The sick out was the final straw - I will never be able to look at DCPS teachers without some level of disdain again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of blame to go around. I'm never voting for Bowser again, I can say that. I'm also angry with the union and can't believe how poorly they've handled this entire situation. But it's the unions job to advocate for teachers (I personally do not think they did a good job with it). It's the mayor's and chancellor's job to negotiate with the union, to communicate with parents, to build coalitions and to solve difficult logistical issues. That's the job. It pays pretty well and people beg to to get it. Sorry it's hard?

One thing the article points out is just how bad the city's messaging to parents was, how little outreach they did to build support for reopening. I attended some of the town halls they mention in the article and had the same takeaways as the parents they interviewed -- it was hard to ask questions, and when we did, we got unsatisfactory answers that only made me wary of reopening. And that's as a parent who really wanted schools to reopen and believes the science supports it! But I had real misgivings about DCPS's ability to do it in a way that not only protected teachers, but protected my kid and the rest of my family.

So I'm angry with the union, but I'm not going to pretend like teachers were the only ones who wanted some answers to basic questions about how this would work and was disturbed (though not surprised) by how few answers we were given. And the article also points out that once schools did not reopen in September, families scrambled to figure out other arrangements. Those arrangements were largely not great, but they were a known quantity. So when DCPS started talking about CARES classrooms and limited reopening, but had very few details or actionable plans in place, a lot of parents who do want schools open (me included) were not sure if it was worth the risk to cancel those plans and take a flyer on the district's half baked plan.

Anyway, it's a cluster that has me wondering if we can even stay in the district. We can't afford private and I don't think homeschool is a real option for us. Maybe we switch to a charter (I never thought I'd say that). Or maybe we just move. I've never loved DCPS but this experience has left me hating it, and I don't know if I can spend the next decade plus hating the school district we are part of.

Agree with a not of what you said, but my kid’s DC charter school is still closed, too. They won’t do shit until DCPS reopens. And unless you leave the area altogether, there’s nowhere to go. MCPS, FCPS, APS—all closed too. I feel hopeless. There’s nowhere to go.

[Anonymous]

*agree with a LOT of what you said.

[Anonymous]

Howard County is the same and a hot.hot.mess

They aren’t even planning to go back until 12/21.