Burgundy Farm

[Anonymous]

And by the way when is the school putting out all the questions that were submitted to the town hall and not answered? They said they would release a full list of questions with answers. Another broken promise.

[Anonymous]

On this one page you have parents disagreeing about having/grading specials. Some want them because they are busy and the teachers should be keeping their kids busy because they pay tuition!! Some don’t want them because their kids are spending too much time in front of screens and their kid can do art on their own!! The schools cannot win. No wonder they have gone DL. Can you imagine the uproar if they had gone hybrid and little Johnny got bitten by a mosquito in his outdoor classroom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burgundy’s mandatory GRADED online specials is the stupidest thing they have Come up with yet. Will they kick us out if my kid just skips art, drama and PE? What a joke!

It’s their attempt to make DL “robust.” It just makes our kids suffer more.

+100 I don’t know of any other school REQUIRING and GRADING online PE, Art, drama, etc. Does Burgundy understand that the kids do not need hours of non-academic classes? Please give us the academic core classes daily, but stop requiring and grading additional hours online in front of a screen. We can handle the art and PE at home for our middle school kid. This approach is the complete opposite of progressive education model.

I disagree. Asynchronous specials in the spring were a disaster. I spent all day except maybe 2 hours trying to occupy my kids while working by finding stuff for them to do at home. Synchronous specials are preferable I guess for that reason. But now our kids will be on Zoom all day. Disastrous. This is why distance learning is not an acceptable alternative for k-8!

Offer synchronous specials but do not REQUIRE or GRADE participation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On this one page you have parents disagreeing about having/grading specials. Some want them because they are busy and the teachers should be keeping their kids busy because they pay tuition!! Some don’t want them because their kids are spending too much time in front of screens and their kid can do art on their own!! The schools cannot win. No wonder they have gone DL. Can you imagine the uproar if they had gone hybrid and little Johnny got bitten by a mosquito in his outdoor classroom?

You are right that the school cannot with with DL. It’s not an acceptable solution for k-8. Kids cannot be on Zooms all day and parents cannot handle too much asynchronous Crap because PARENTs ALREADY HAVE JOBS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burgundy’s mandatory GRADED online specials is the stupidest thing they have Come up with yet. Will they kick us out if my kid just skips art, drama and PE? What a joke!

It’s their attempt to make DL “robust.” It just makes our kids suffer more.

+100 I don’t know of any other school REQUIRING and GRADING online PE, Art, drama, etc. Does Burgundy understand that the kids do not need hours of non-academic classes? Please give us the academic core classes daily, but stop requiring and grading additional hours online in front of a screen. We can handle the art and PE at home for our middle school kid. This approach is the complete opposite of progressive education model.

I disagree. Asynchronous specials in the spring were a disaster. I spent all day except maybe 2 hours trying to occupy my kids while working by finding stuff for them to do at home. Synchronous specials are preferable I guess for that reason. But now our kids will be on Zoom all day. Disastrous. This is why distance learning is not an acceptable alternative for k-8!

Offer synchronous specials but do not REQUIRE or GRADE participation.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact remains that the Burgundy teachers should be embarrassed about their behavior. Everyone else is going back to work. Why can’t they?

Except that’s not the facts. Burgundy teachers have been working all summer. They are working right now. They are 100% not at fault here and stating otherwise is speaking from an uninformed perspective. Be mad at administration if you need an outlet but the teachers are absolutely not to blame.

To clarify, most teachers in the area are going back to work in the DL context. Why do people continue to talk about this like teachers aren’t working?

For K-8 Teaching cannot be done effectively online. “Going back to work In the DL context” is not going back to work.

I don’t think in-person learning would/will look anything like we think it would either.

Teachers want to be in the classroom. If they didn’t, they would make much more money by quitting and tutoring online (pandemic or no pandemic). Teachers understand that NEITHER model is ideal but only one protects at risk people and makes sense right now.

I believe teachers are making a good faith effort to reopen. Given the way their planning for the fall was stymied, they have really great ideas about a slow re-opening that ensures kids’ learning as well as social-emotional needs are protected as much as possible. Talk to the teachers and you will hear this message loud and clear.

I know this has been said but it bears repeating - DL is not a result of teachers being lazy. It’s a result of a global pandemic. Also, kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. Just like the first few weeks of school are a time of tremendous transition and routine learning, the first few weeks of DL have to be that too. Give our kids the space to grow into this model and ask teachers how you can best support your kids at home. It doesn’t/shouldn’t look like kids at a desk for hours. Teachers don’t want that either, especially at Burgundy.

Respectfully... this sounds nice and rosy, but is obviously coming from someone who didn't try to manage DL with a young child in the spring while also working full-time. My young child lost interest in Zoom pretty quickly in the spring, despite the awesome teachers. As an educator, you know very well that DL is not appropriate for 5, 6 and 7 year olds.

And what about the impact on parents who have jobs to do?

Ask teachers how I can support them while my kids are at home while I am working full time and paying full tuition and have no child care? No thanks. How about the teachers ask the parents who pay tuition how they can support us?

Of course this is hard for everyone involved. Teachers want to support us. I see this as trying to make the best of this situation rather than focusing on the negative aspects. This is rough - no getting around it.

So that’s your solution? That’s not acceptable

I’m a parent, not an administrator or teacher. I don’t have a solution here but I choose to give teachers grace. Is this a bad situation? Yes. Do I believe it will be ideal? Absolutely not. Could this have been handled differently by administration? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes. None of that helps my kid adjust to DL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burgundy’s mandatory GRADED online specials is the stupidest thing they have Come up with yet. Will they kick us out if my kid just skips art, drama and PE? What a joke!

It’s their attempt to make DL “robust.” It just makes our kids suffer more.

+100 I don’t know of any other school REQUIRING and GRADING online PE, Art, drama, etc. Does Burgundy understand that the kids do not need hours of non-academic classes? Please give us the academic core classes daily, but stop requiring and grading additional hours online in front of a screen. We can handle the art and PE at home for our middle school kid. This approach is the complete opposite of progressive education model.

I disagree. Asynchronous specials in the spring were a disaster. I spent all day except maybe 2 hours trying to occupy my kids while working by finding stuff for them to do at home. Synchronous specials are preferable I guess for that reason. But now our kids will be on Zoom all day. Disastrous. This is why distance learning is not an acceptable alternative for k-8!

Offer synchronous specials but do not REQUIRE or GRADE participation.

+1

Just one more example of Burgundy completely missing the mark. Truly bizarre

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact remains that the Burgundy teachers should be embarrassed about their behavior. Everyone else is going back to work. Why can’t they?

Except that’s not the facts. Burgundy teachers have been working all summer. They are working right now. They are 100% not at fault here and stating otherwise is speaking from an uninformed perspective. Be mad at administration if you need an outlet but the teachers are absolutely not to blame.

To clarify, most teachers in the area are going back to work in the DL context. Why do people continue to talk about this like teachers aren’t working?

For K-8 Teaching cannot be done effectively online. “Going back to work In the DL context” is not going back to work.

I don’t think in-person learning would/will look anything like we think it would either.

Teachers want to be in the classroom. If they didn’t, they would make much more money by quitting and tutoring online (pandemic or no pandemic). Teachers understand that NEITHER model is ideal but only one protects at risk people and makes sense right now.

I believe teachers are making a good faith effort to reopen. Given the way their planning for the fall was stymied, they have really great ideas about a slow re-opening that ensures kids’ learning as well as social-emotional needs are protected as much as possible. Talk to the teachers and you will hear this message loud and clear.

I know this has been said but it bears repeating - DL is not a result of teachers being lazy. It’s a result of a global pandemic. Also, kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. Just like the first few weeks of school are a time of tremendous transition and routine learning, the first few weeks of DL have to be that too. Give our kids the space to grow into this model and ask teachers how you can best support your kids at home. It doesn’t/shouldn’t look like kids at a desk for hours. Teachers don’t want that either, especially at Burgundy.

Respectfully... this sounds nice and rosy, but is obviously coming from someone who didn't try to manage DL with a young child in the spring while also working full-time. My young child lost interest in Zoom pretty quickly in the spring, despite the awesome teachers. As an educator, you know very well that DL is not appropriate for 5, 6 and 7 year olds.

And what about the impact on parents who have jobs to do?

Ask teachers how I can support them while my kids are at home while I am working full time and paying full tuition and have no child care? No thanks. How about the teachers ask the parents who pay tuition how they can support us?

Of course this is hard for everyone involved. Teachers want to support us. I see this as trying to make the best of this situation rather than focusing on the negative aspects. This is rough - no getting around it.

So that’s your solution? That’s not acceptable

I’m a parent, not an administrator or teacher. I don’t have a solution here but I choose to give teachers grace. Is this a bad situation? Yes. Do I believe it will be ideal? Absolutely not. Could this have been handled differently by administration? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes. None of that helps my kid adjust to DL.

Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family is not mean we are chosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact remains that the Burgundy teachers should be embarrassed about their behavior. Everyone else is going back to work. Why can’t they?

Except that’s not the facts. Burgundy teachers have been working all summer. They are working right now. They are 100% not at fault here and stating otherwise is speaking from an uninformed perspective. Be mad at administration if you need an outlet but the teachers are absolutely not to blame.

To clarify, most teachers in the area are going back to work in the DL context. Why do people continue to talk about this like teachers aren’t working?

For K-8 Teaching cannot be done effectively online. “Going back to work In the DL context” is not going back to work.

I don’t think in-person learning would/will look anything like we think it would either.

Teachers want to be in the classroom. If they didn’t, they would make much more money by quitting and tutoring online (pandemic or no pandemic). Teachers understand that NEITHER model is ideal but only one protects at risk people and makes sense right now.

I believe teachers are making a good faith effort to reopen. Given the way their planning for the fall was stymied, they have really great ideas about a slow re-opening that ensures kids’ learning as well as social-emotional needs are protected as much as possible. Talk to the teachers and you will hear this message loud and clear.

I know this has been said but it bears repeating - DL is not a result of teachers being lazy. It’s a result of a global pandemic. Also, kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. Just like the first few weeks of school are a time of tremendous transition and routine learning, the first few weeks of DL have to be that too. Give our kids the space to grow into this model and ask teachers how you can best support your kids at home. It doesn’t/shouldn’t look like kids at a desk for hours. Teachers don’t want that either, especially at Burgundy.

Respectfully... this sounds nice and rosy, but is obviously coming from someone who didn't try to manage DL with a young child in the spring while also working full-time. My young child lost interest in Zoom pretty quickly in the spring, despite the awesome teachers. As an educator, you know very well that DL is not appropriate for 5, 6 and 7 year olds.

And what about the impact on parents who have jobs to do?

Ask teachers how I can support them while my kids are at home while I am working full time and paying full tuition and have no child care? No thanks. How about the teachers ask the parents who pay tuition how they can support us?

Of course this is hard for everyone involved. Teachers want to support us. I see this as trying to make the best of this situation rather than focusing on the negative aspects. This is rough - no getting around it.

So that’s your solution? That’s not acceptable

I’m a parent, not an administrator or teacher. I don’t have a solution here but I choose to give teachers grace. Is this a bad situation? Yes. Do I believe it will be ideal? Absolutely not. Could this have been handled differently by administration? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes. None of that helps my kid adjust to DL.

Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

“ Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.”

Do what many of us are being forced to do. Quietly form a “pod” with other parents at Burgundy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.”

Do what many of us are being forced to do. Quietly form a “pod” with other parents at Burgundy.

Are you all running background checks on the other parents? There are a couple of parents who I know well, but many who I don't know well at all. Logistically, how does this work? If 2-3 kids are in each pod, then each family has to take off work to each 1-2 times per week, every week? Not doable for every family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.”

Do what many of us are being forced to do. Quietly form a “pod” with other parents at Burgundy.

Are you all running background checks on the other parents? There are a couple of parents who I know well, but many who I don't know well at all. Logistically, how does this work? If 2-3 kids are in each pod, then each family has to take off work to each 1-2 times per week, every week? Not doable for every family.

We are hiring someone to supervise the distance learning and outdoor activities. Google it and you can get a ton of information. DCUM public school section has a lot of tips, etc. We are hiring a college student on a gap year to supervise and moving the pod to different homes each week. Going rate is $200-$400 a kid. FCPS teachers on leave of absences for the year are also offering this service, but you have to ask around to find them because they will loose their teaching position for 2021-2022 if they get caught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.”

Do what many of us are being forced to do. Quietly form a “pod” with other parents at Burgundy.

Are you all running background checks on the other parents? There are a couple of parents who I know well, but many who I don't know well at all. Logistically, how does this work? If 2-3 kids are in each pod, then each family has to take off work to each 1-2 times per week, every week? Not doable for every family.

We are hiring someone to supervise the distance learning and outdoor activities. Google it and you can get a ton of information. DCUM public school section has a lot of tips, etc. We are hiring a college student on a gap year to supervise and moving the pod to different homes each week. Going rate is $200-$400 a kid. FCPS teachers on leave of absences for the year are also offering this service, but you have to ask around to find them because they will loose their teaching position for 2021-2022 if they get caught.

This is why what the private schools are doing is so short sighted and stupid. They are going to put themselves out of business as parents make their own arrangements for DL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Again, what's the solution? DL for a 5, 6, or 7 year old is not a viable solution for parents who work full-time and don't have the luxury of telecommuting for all of that time. Recognizing that this logistically does not work for my family does not mean we are choosing not to give teachers grace, or choosing to focus on the negative.

I'll be at work. My DH will be at work. My kids will be in child care where they won't always be able to DL. Again, how is Burgundy helping me to come up with a solution here? They're not. Instead, I get to pay a lot of money for nothing. I feel like my family doesn't matter.”

Do what many of us are being forced to do. Quietly form a “pod” with other parents at Burgundy.

Are you all running background checks on the other parents? There are a couple of parents who I know well, but many who I don't know well at all. Logistically, how does this work? If 2-3 kids are in each pod, then each family has to take off work to each 1-2 times per week, every week? Not doable for every family.

We are hiring someone to supervise the distance learning and outdoor activities. Google it and you can get a ton of information. DCUM public school section has a lot of tips, etc. We are hiring a college student on a gap year to supervise and moving the pod to different homes each week. Going rate is $200-$400 a kid. FCPS teachers on leave of absences for the year are also offering this service, but you have to ask around to find them because they will loose their teaching position for 2021-2022 if they get caught.

Thanks for the info. Did you have any trouble finding someone considering that at this point, you can only commit for a few weeks in September...until we get the announcement that we are DL for the rest of 2020?

Also, this makes me really worry for those families who may not be able to afford to hire someone to participate in one of these pods. This whole thing is just really, really unfair. I hope Burgundy is paying attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burgundy’s mandatory GRADED online specials is the stupidest thing they have Come up with yet. Will they kick us out if my kid just skips art, drama and PE? What a joke!

It’s their attempt to make DL “robust.” It just makes our kids suffer more.

+100 I don’t know of any other school REQUIRING and GRADING online PE, Art, drama, etc. Does Burgundy understand that the kids do not need hours of non-academic classes? Please give us the academic core classes daily, but stop requiring and grading additional hours online in front of a screen. We can handle the art and PE at home for our middle school kid. This approach is the complete opposite of progressive education model.

I disagree. Asynchronous specials in the spring were a disaster. I spent all day except maybe 2 hours trying to occupy my kids while working by finding stuff for them to do at home. Synchronous specials are preferable I guess for that reason. But now our kids will be on Zoom all day. Disastrous. This is why distance learning is not an acceptable alternative for k-8!

Offer synchronous specials but do not REQUIRE or GRADE participation.

+1. That's the answer. Don't make it required, but offer synchronous and record so parents who are too busy to manage to log in at 1:37pm can catch up with their kid later.