Teachers union says schools "must" be fully reopened in the fall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She should call for an end to the virtual option
The virtual option will potentially mess things up, and other countries are not doing it.

Yes.
Our (big, DC) private school sent an email yesterday:

Everyone will be in-person, full time. There will be no remote classes. If your child has an extraordinary medical need and you need a remote option
for the entire school year you must reach out to the head of school by next week to discuss.

Schools need to draw a line in the sand or a small sector of parents will abuse it.

DCPS is going to have a harder time putting that genie back in the bottle though.

Agreed. DCPS has allowed schools to stay closed for far too long. Even now, not a single student goes to full time school with a teacher in the room teaching them in person. WTU loves this because now they can negotiate for all sorts of stuff just to get schools reopened. Virtual learning with reduced instructional time has become normalized.

This is not the case in many schools.

where is there 5 day a week in person in DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Oh, ok, that's good to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish this working mothers point had been made a wee bit earlier by her but better late than never.

Right like before shuttered schools forced 1 million plus women out of the workforce and damaged their earning prospects for some for the rest of their lives. But yeah. Way to go I guess?

Does anyone else have mother friends who seemed enraged that anyone pointed this out? Like it was this weird issue in my peer circle that if you were a mother you had to just suck it up and not say anything about your earnings prospects being altered for your lifetime.

I was in a moms group where some moms when absolutely nuts when I posted that schools should reopen back in the fall. Same with the school listserv. There's a certain type of mom that just somehow really identifies with being "supportive of teachers" for some psychological reason I don't totally understand. Probably because they see teachers an an undifferentiated extension of themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She should call for an end to the virtual option
The virtual option will potentially mess things up, and other countries are not doing it.

I think the virtual option is fine as a stand alone and it works well for some kids. What is the problem with offering it as a separate program in a large school district?

Right. Friendship PCS K-8 and 9-12 already existed pre-COVID. That's the fully virtual public option for kids in DC. Students who want to remain online when their schools reopen normally could be encouraged to transfer to Friendship.

The heck? Why in the world would we give all our funding to Friendship? You may be at a non title 1 but my school needs all it's 400 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

I honestly think she doesn't care about kids. And neither do the top D politicians. Nobody really does. And nobody cares about working women either. They know that in cities like DC, SF, and NY, parents will never vote Republican, so they're free to pander to teacher's unions for the $$$ and field work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish this working mothers point had been made a wee bit earlier by her but better late than never.

Right like before shuttered schools forced 1 million plus women out of the workforce and damaged their earning prospects for some for the rest of their lives. But yeah. Way to go I guess?

Does anyone else have mother friends who seemed enraged that anyone pointed this out? Like it was this weird issue in my peer circle that if you were a mother you had to just suck it up and not say anything about your earnings prospects being altered for your lifetime.

They were enraged that people are enraged?

If you expressed annoyance/anger/frustration about your job prospects going to hell you obviously wanted teachers to die. I'm not really being hyperbolic about the language.

Wow. Not my people. They are enraged and comfortable with.

Yeah, super fun part of the pandemic was losing most of my mom friends based on this.

I didn't lose any actual friends, but friends of friends, and I now have zero interest (negative interest) in being part of the "school community." My only satisfaction is that I basically get the last laugh as it becomes more accepted that keeping schools closed was a travesty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She should call for an end to the virtual option
The virtual option will potentially mess things up, and other countries are not doing it.

I think the virtual option is fine as a stand alone and it works well for some kids. What is the problem with offering it as a separate program in a large school district?

Right. Friendship PCS K-8 and 9-12 already existed pre-COVID. That's the fully virtual public option for kids in DC. Students who want to remain online when their schools reopen normally could be encouraged to transfer to Friendship.

The heck? Why in the world would we give all our funding to Friendship? You may be at a non title 1 but my school needs all it's 400 students.

It's completely untenable for small schools to be able to administer virtual programs on their own after this year. A total nonstarter. That's why there should be no virtual option; or if there is, it needs to be centralized. Parents and principals who don't want to lose students need to take that into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

Well, of course she is trying to do that. That is her job. And now that we know how vital schools are to the functioning of our society, it does make sense to reevaluate our priorities. I would be fine with paying teachers more and CEOs less. As a society we have no issue with CEOs walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars even when they do a crappy job. Capitalism has run amok and clearly doesn’t care about the working mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

“Lead advocate for professional group advocates for better working conditions for Said group”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

“Lead advocate for professional group advocates for better working conditions for Said group”

more like “professional grifter takes advantage of global crisis to get more power.” Children are not bargaining chips in the negotiations for “better working conditions.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

Well, of course she is trying to do that. That is her job. And now that we know how vital schools are to the functioning of our society, it does make sense to reevaluate our priorities. I would be fine with paying teachers more and CEOs less. As a society we have no issue with CEOs walking away with hundreds
of millions of dollars even when they do a crappy job. Capitalism has run amok and clearly doesn’t care about the working mother.

Her job is to comprise the education of millions of kids, with the worst impacts on minority kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish this working mothers point had been made a wee bit earlier by her but better late than never.

Right like before shuttered schools forced 1 million plus women out of the workforce and damaged their earning prospects for some for the rest of their lives. But yeah. Way to go I guess?

Does anyone else have mother friends who seemed enraged that anyone pointed this out? Like it was this weird issue in my peer circle that if you were a mother you had to just suck it up and not say anything about your earnings prospects being altered for your lifetime.

+1

I had to leave a group of friends over it. For some reason, I was not allowed to acknowledge this as reality. Both of my sisters lost their jobs because their kids were home and they couldn't afford childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish this working mothers point had been made a wee bit earlier by her but better late than never.

Right like before shuttered schools forced 1 million plus women out of the workforce and damaged their earning prospects for some for the rest of their lives. But yeah. Way to go I guess?

Does anyone else have mother friends who seemed enraged that anyone pointed this out? Like it was this weird issue in my peer circle that if you were a mother you had to just suck it up and not say anything about your earnings prospects being altered for your lifetime.

They were enraged that people are enraged?

If you expressed annoyance/anger/frustration about your job prospects going to hell you obviously wanted teachers to die. I'm not really being hyperbolic about the language.

Wow. Not my people. They are enraged and comfortable with.

Yeah, super fun part of the pandemic was losing most of my mom friends based on this.

I understand this completely. I have drawn back from neighborhood mom friends I used to see quite regularly who think school has been justifiably closed this entire time. I just don't get it. My sensible friends understand it's valid to question that and to complain about the impact on all of our careers.

We'll form our own friend group! With...childcare...and...hookers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Her continued insistence on 3ft is worrying. Where does she think all the extra staff will come from to make smaller class sizes? Or the space, in a city? This just compounds the harms to the minority kids who are concentrated in districts still even listening to teachers unions.

No. We are IPL with 3 feet distance. Our kinder rooms have 24 students.
The 3 feet does not matter. It just makes the classroom look like old school rows.

Classrooms can open at full capacity with 3 feet of distance.

Actually, they cannot, particularly in crowded MS and HS in DC. My kids high school principal has already started saying if cohosting and 3 feet rules are still in place high schoolers (who haven't had a SINGLE DAY of in person learning this school year) won't be able to come back full time.

As for Weingarten: All that's changed is the framing, but read the details (3 feet spacing, new HVAC, hire new teachers for smaller class sizes, etc). She's still moving the goalposts and could care less about getting kids back in classrooms. She's lying. This is all PR. Because early polling for midterm elections is showing that school reopenings are a HUGE issue in many parts of the country where union pressure on inept officials (like Bowser) have kept schools closed.

This! The union's latest scam is saying we want to reopen too! (We just demand all these unreasonable terms and conditions which actually preclude reopening). The difference is that many of us parents want schools to reopen NOW and with NO additional terms and conditions and in fact with terms and conditions removed (3 ft distancing, cohort rules, DC ADA regs, and CARES ACT), the way much of the rest of the nation and world have.

Screw Randi Weingarten - she's just trying to get more jobs and benefits for teachers, which is standing in the way of kids returning to school.

“Lead advocate for professional group advocates for better working conditions for Said group”

more like “professional grifter takes advantage of global crisis to get more power.” Children are not bargaining chips in the negotiations for “better working conditions.”

This attempt to shame teachers is noted and not working anymore on us. Many of us know that we’ve worked hard all year and served children so the continued attempts to say we don’t care about kids because we also would like to hang on to some self respect are in one ear and out the other. Good thing you’ve got your friends on this site tho