Best Post I’ve Seen in a Month on DL/Hybrid Choice

[Anonymous]

Ugh, this post is all over my FB feed. It’s not particularly well written or thought out and it’s so rambling. I don’t know who this guy is (he says he’s no expert) and I don’t particularly care what a non-expert stranger thinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The math in this post alone invalidates it. We are not going to let every student and teacher get COVID, as is assumed here. That's complete nonsense and just made up to get an emotional eaction.

We should doing everything we can to keep infection rates low in the community (#schoolsbeforebars) and aggressively react to any outbreak. We should also take all proposed measure (masks/cohortings/distancing/handwashing/cleaning) to keep any infections as contained as possible.

Students who can effectively learn from home should strongly consider taking that option. For kids who can't, regardless of the reason, we should do all we can to make school as safe as we can.

If we have such power, why are we "letting" other people get it under conditions that aren't half as bad as what attending school will entail?

It's fair to assume that most, if not all, will get it.

So it's fair to assume that FCPS will ignore a rampant COVID outbreak in schools and stick with hybrid instead of switching hybrid kids to DL? Okay then.

Not PP, but maybe? The people choosing hybrid will put enormous pressure on the schools to stay open. Those families aren’t as risk averse to the virus as the people staying home. Ultimately the public health agencies will decide to close schools if it starts putting everyone else at increased risk. That’s the concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate this post. My child has fairly severe disabilities. I cannot educate him or meet his needs at home. I feel that posts like this pretend that he and my family do not exist.

I don't hate this post. It does not matter if your child has disabilities or is in a magnet program or is an athlete or a regular kid who wants to hang out with his friends. It does not matter if they are ESOL, FARMS, on grade, below or above grade level...one thing unifying them all is that no one is dispensable and everyone's health is of paramount importance. Going back to school is a very myopic want because within 3 weeks of school opening many students and many parents will fall sick and some will die.

The choice is

Being at home, not getting nicely educated, doing some weird DL, watching too much TV, wasting a year.

OR

Going to school, having a weird social and academic experience which will be a waste of time, falling sick, making others in the family fall sick, spreading the disease, losing health, wealth, earning capacity, maybe dying or developing severe disabilities. Wasting a life.


I will choose being at home and watching netflix for a year or two. Wasting a year is better than wasting a life.

Then pick DL and let others pick what they want. The parents of special needs kids with no high risk or high risk family members don't need your sanctimonious lecture. You and the author of the post need to decide for yourselves and let others do what they think is best for their families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see the OP’s post as trying to change minds.. I think someone is just showing their thought processes as they make up their mind. I appreciate it because I am thinking through the same decision and it helps to hear other peoples ideas, not anger, ideas.

Anger generated from this post just shows how scary the decision process can be.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The math in this post alone invalidates it. We are not going to let every student and teacher get COVID, as is assumed here. That's complete nonsense and just made up to get an emotional eaction.

We should doing everything we can to keep infection rates low in the community (#schoolsbeforebars) and aggressively react to any outbreak. We should also take all proposed measure (masks/cohortings/distancing/handwashing/cleaning) to keep any infections as contained as possible.

Students who can effectively learn from home should strongly consider taking that option. For kids who can't, regardless of the reason, we should do all we can to make school as safe as we can.

If we have such power, why are we "letting" other people get it under conditions that aren't half as bad as what attending school will entail?

It's fair to assume that most, if not all, will get it.

So it's fair to assume that FCPS will ignore a rampant COVID outbreak in schools and stick with hybrid instead of switching hybrid kids to DL? Okay then.

Not PP, but maybe? The people choosing hybrid will put enormous pressure on the schools to stay open. Those families aren’t as risk averse to the virus as the people staying home. Ultimately the public health agencies will decide to close schools if it starts putting everyone else at increased risk. That’s the concern.

I don’t think this is at all a realistic scenario or valid concern. I don’t distrust the school system that much.

[Anonymous]

I hate this post. My child has fairly severe disabilities. I cannot educate him or meet his needs at home. I feel that posts like this pretend that he and my family do not exist.


I don't hate this post. It does not matter if your child has disabilities or is in a magnet program or is an athlete or a regular kid who wants to hang out with his friends. It does not matter if they are ESOL, FARMS, on grade, below or above grade level...one thing unifying them all is that no one is dispensable and everyone's health is of paramount importance. Going back to school is a very myopic want because within 3 weeks of school opening many students and many parents will fall sick and some will die.

The choice is

Being at home, not getting nicely educated, doing some weird DL, watching too much TV, wasting a year.

This is the most tone deaf crap I have heard in a long time. My son got speech and occupational therapy through school. He has issues with self-harm due to anxiety from the change in his life.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s clear that for some families full time DL isn’t going to work, can’t work, without significant sacrifice or resources. This post doesn’t seem like it’s written for them. There are a lot of people in my own circles for whom DL isn’t ideal, but could work out without anyone losing their job or sanity. I think this post is for them.

[Anonymous]

The DL option was meant to be for kids and families with medical need.
Teachers made a stink and DL was opened up to all.

Schools want families to prioritize making their choice based on health concerns. That’s why when they are asked how parents and kids should make the choice without knowing which classes are offered in which format, they say the decisions we make are based on what’s medically important for the family. The courses are not. They will make sure basics first graduation are there but that’s all.

If DL was the priority of FCPS they would have made sure all courses were available in that format, it’s not the priority. The priority is to get kids back in school because that’s the most effective teaching and educating system they have.

So all these multiple posts upon posts (by teachers) pushing for parents to choose DL goes completely against the actual goals of FCPS.

[Anonymous]

“Children only die .0016 of the time.”

First, conceding we’re an increasingly morally bankrupt society, but when did we start talking about children’s lives, or anyone’s lives, like this? This how the villain in movies talks about mortality, usually 10-15 minutes before the good guy kills him.

If you’re in this camp, and I acknowledge that many, many people are, I’m asking you to consider that number from a slightly different angle.

FCPS has 189,000 children. .0016 of that is 302. 302 dead children are the Calvary Hill you’re erecting your argument on. So, let’s agree to do this: stop presenting this as a data point. If this is your argument, I challenge you to have courage equal to your conviction. Go ahead, plant a flag on the internet and say, “Only 302 children will die.” No one will. That’s the kind action on social media that gets you fired from your job. And I trust our social media enclave isn’t so careless and irresponsible with life that it would even, for even a millisecond, enter any of your minds to make such an argument.

Considered another way: You’re presented with a bag with 189,000 $1 bills. You’re told that in the bag are 302 random bills, they look and feel just like all the others, but each one of those bills will kill you. Do you take the money out of the bag?

There may be other valid arguments, but this one is ridiculous. If you ride in a car, or fly in an airplane etc. (or put your kids in one) you are making this exact calculus. There is absolutely risk, but your calculation is that the reward is worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DL option was meant to be for kids and families with medical need.
Teachers made a stink and DL was opened up to all.

Schools want families to prioritize making their choice based on health concerns. That’s why when they are asked how parents and kids should make the choice without knowing which classes are offered in which format, they say the decisions we make are based on what’s medically important for the family. The courses are not. They will make sure basics first graduation are there but that’s all.

If DL was the priority of FCPS they would have made sure all courses were available in that format, it’s not the priority. The priority is to get kids back in school because that’s the most effective teaching and educating system they have.

So all these multiple posts upon posts (by teachers) pushing for parents to choose DL goes completely against the actual goals of FCPS.

Do you have any idea how many families have people in them that are at increased risk for complications from covid-19? It’s most. So FCPS was trying to accommodate that and knew it wasn’t a small number of families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DL option was meant to be for kids and families with medical need.
Teachers made a stink and DL was opened up to all.

Schools want families to prioritize making their choice based on health concerns. That’s why when they are asked how parents and kids should make the choice without knowing which classes are offered in which format, they say the decisions we make are based on what’s medically important for the family. The courses are not. They will make sure basics first graduation are there but that’s all.

If DL was the priority of FCPS they would have made sure all courses were available in that format, it’s not the priority. The priority is to get kids back in school because that’s the most effective teaching and educating system they have.

So all these multiple posts upon posts (by teachers) pushing for parents to choose DL goes completely against the actual goals of FCPS.

Teachers didn't make a stink. You're forgetting parents pushed to shut down schools in the first place.
They surveyed parents based on realistic scenarios for the fall depending on infection levels and were surprised by the level of interest in DL, so they decided to give families the option.

[Anonymous]

If I have to read this idiot’s diatribe one more time from a teacher on FB .......

By the way, I checked out his profile and his softball team is already meeting and practicing and has a banquet scheduled for later in the summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a region-wide, if not national, teachers strike is coming.

Yeah, that’s not happening, at least in Virginia. It’s a right to work state.

Right to work state or not, if teachers don't show up..no school. Are we going to fire all of them? And then hire....?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here, and to the immediate PP, I sincerely hope you’ve advocated and continue to advocate for the lives of grocery store clerks, nursing home residents and staff, prisoners, retail and warehouse workers....the list goes on and on. I work in a clinic and no one seems to care anymore about the risks my colleagues and I have taken, nor about what’s happening to our kids.

For the people saying “well if you have to send your kid then just send them” after saying “PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DIE!!!”—think about what you’re saying here! Because the PP’s kid has a disability, or because a kid has parents working in restaurants or hospitals, our kids get to be the guinea pigs for this plan? How incredibly cruel.

And yes, there is actual science to refute the OP’s cited numbers. Yes, he is incredibly privileged to have a choice, not that he acknowledges this at any time in his post. And yes, my kids and the kids of all the ICU and ER nurses and doctors I know are going back into the classroom this fall, because we don’t have an alternative and no one has cared to offer us one.

You have the same options the rest of us working parents have. Arguably you should have better choices. I think all essential personnel should be receiving childcare funding or full time school until we are in the final stage of this thing. Oh well, you get hybrid I guess. Would you like something like full time virtual, that you could work into your childcare schedule? That’s an idea I’ve seen but that hasn’t really been discussed much here.

I’m that poster, and, what childcare schedule are you talking about?! And how do I have the same choices when I cannot work remotely as people seem to assume that all professionals can? School with extended day has been our “childcare” for years. We have school-aged children. My oldest is 12 and not eligible for any daycare options that might exist (but don’t worry, there are none!). But also too young to be left alone for 40-50 hours/week to learn virtually. So, no, I don’t want full time virtual school. I’m comfortable sending my kids to school based on the science I’ve read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DL option was meant to be for kids and families with medical need.
Teachers made a stink and DL was opened up to all.

Schools want families to prioritize making their choice based on health concerns. That’s why when they are asked how parents and kids should make the choice without knowing which classes are offered in which format, they say the decisions we make are based on what’s medically important for the family. The courses are not. They will make sure basics first graduation are there but that’s all.

If DL was the priority of FCPS they would have made sure all courses were available in that format, it’s not the priority. The priority is to get kids back in school because that’s the most effective teaching and educating system they have.

So all these multiple posts upon posts (by teachers) pushing for parents to choose DL goes completely against the actual goals of FCPS.

Do you have any idea how many families have people in them that are at increased risk for complications from covid-19? It’s most. So FCPS was trying to accommodate that and knew it wasn’t a small number of families.

Which is why they are offering DL and not guaranteeing that course selections will be honored. When medical needs come first, then it should not matter as much if your kid doesn’t get the course they want. (If you have an elementary kid you will not understand why this matters.)

If they wanted a robust DL option, they would not have made it under those terms.