How the DC education system is structured - and why oversight of the mayor on DCPS is needed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

Right, even if I agreed with you, how would SBOE control make this better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

(and I should clarify that when I say “very well” that doesn’t mean easy. I know the first weeks of dealing with dysregulated kids who have not been in school was extremely hard. principals have so much on their plates. but we had to get the kids back and the reentry was only going to get harder the longer schools were closed. I’m glad the Mayor got more help to the schools in the form of covid coordinators. I’m ready to consider Wednesdays now too.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

(and I should clarify that when I say “very well” that doesn’t mean easy. I know the first weeks of dealing with dysregulated kids who have not been in school was extremely hard. principals have so much on their plates. but we had to get the kids back and the reentry was only going to get harder the longer schools were closed. I’m glad the Mayor got more help to the schools in the form of covid coordinators. I’m ready to consider Wednesdays now too.)

Right, I think some of the problems cited are not really about mitigating covid spread, they are about the rules that OSSE/DOH have imposed to mitigate spread, and the lack of resources to follow those rules.

We might eventually agree that OSSE / DOH rules are unnecessary (hey if they aren't being followed because schools haven't been giving resources to follow them, and yet case rates are still low and falling, then why do we have them in the first place?), and that will solve the problems of following the rules.

There are of course the people who are still very very very worried about covid (some with good reason, many not) and their worries may keep driving the difficult rules, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

I disagree with your conclusion. I can get on board with certain increased oversight but I think dispersing control of schools would be far, far worse in terms of fixing the problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

The mayor opened the schools, they are open, covid cases are going down. I'm not sure where the evidence of "poisoned system" is. I could get into the argument that keeping the schools closed was actually the huge failure regarding schools but I actually don't want to get into the WTU-blaming cycle because it's a distraction. The schools had to be reopened (even if closure was justified) and she did it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

(and I should clarify that when I say “very well” that doesn’t mean easy. I know the first weeks of dealing with dysregulated kids who have not been in school was extremely hard. principals have so much on their plates. but we had to get the kids back and the reentry was only going to get harder the longer schools were closed. I’m glad the Mayor got more help to the schools in the form of covid coordinators. I’m ready to consider Wednesdays now too.)

Right, I think some of the problems cited are not really about mitigating covid spread, they are about the rules that OSSE/DOH have imposed to mitigate spread, and the lack of resources to follow those rules.

We might eventually agree that OSSE / DOH rules are unnecessary (hey if they aren't being followed because schools haven't been giving resources to follow them, and yet case rates are still low and falling, then why do we have them in the first place?), and that will solve the problems of following the rules.

There are of course the people who are still very very very worried about covid (some with good reason, many not) and their worries may keep driving the difficult rules, etc.

What OSSE/DOH rules are you referring to? The quarantine rules? The definition of close contact? Those are ALL WORKING. The change that should be made is to allow test-to-stay instead of quarantining. A universal testing program may have some benefit in schools with outbreaks but that's going to need to be funded. The Council, if it actually cared, could have done that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

(and I should clarify that when I say “very well” that doesn’t mean easy. I know the first weeks of dealing with dysregulated kids who have not been in school was extremely hard. principals have so much on their plates. but we had to get the kids back and the reentry was only going to get harder the longer schools were closed. I’m glad the Mayor got more help to the schools in the form of covid coordinators. I’m ready to consider Wednesdays now too.)

Right, I think some of the problems cited are not really about mitigating covid spread, they are about the rules that OSSE/DOH have imposed to mitigate spread, and the lack of resources to follow those rules.

We might eventually agree that OSSE / DOH rules are unnecessary (hey if they aren't being followed because schools haven't been giving resources to follow them, and yet case rates are still low and falling, then why do we have them in the first place?), and that will solve the problems of following the rules.

There are of course the people who are still very very very worried about covid (some with good reason, many not) and their worries may keep driving the difficult rules, etc.

What OSSE/DOH rules are you referring to? The quarantine rules? The definition of close contact? Those are ALL WORKING. The change that should be made is to allow test-to-stay instead of quarantining. A universal testing program may have some benefit in schools with outbreaks but that's going to need to be funded. The Council, if it actually cared, could have done that.

I'm thinking about quarantine, and the issues around contact tracing, teaching kids who are quarantined (or not), what some want as a record of how many close contacts test positive, etc.

We might find, for example, that quarantines aren't actually that useful in mitigating spread at schools (particularly under current conditions of falling-to-low community rates, low positivity rates in schools, etc.). Get rid of the quarantines related to close contacts of asymptomatic cases (and I'm not even talking about test-to-stay) and you get a reduction of kids that have to be followed, traced, etc. And before everyone calls me a Trumper who wants kids to die, there are recent studies finding the low rate of spread among asymptomatic schoolchildren, and schoolchildren who test positive even with symptoms.

[Anonymous]

To reiterate: If everyone is complaining that the rules aren't being followed and we still have low rates, maybe the rules aren't necessary. Or at least some of them.

[Anonymous]

So it's either true that
1) the rules are being followed and they are leading to the low rates (in which case the complaints about test availability, HVAC, etc. are not true)
OR
2) they aren't being followed (and the complaints about test availability, HVAC, etc. ARE true) but they don't matter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's another example of the Chancellor lying:

https://dcpsreopenstrong.com/chancellor/important-update-on-asymptomatic-and-symptomatic-testing-at-dcps/

This post is an email sent by Chancellor Ferebee to the DCPS community on August 27, 2021.

Dear DCPS Families,

DC Public Schools is committed to the health and safety of our students and staff. We have a robust, layered mitigation strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 based on three key pillars: prevent, screen, and inform.

...

We are writing with an update on how schools will administer these tests. Students will now be automatically enrolled in the testing program which supports asymptomatic testing, symptomatic testing and testing for close contacts. Please disregard the COVID-19 testing consent forms previously shared in messages from DCPS.

The test will be a non-invasive, saliva-based PCR test. Instead of a nasal swab, students will hold a small vial with a funnel attached and produce a saliva sample.

To opt-out, parents/guardians or students over the age of 18 will now need to email or provide their schools with a signed opt-out form available at osse.dc.gov/page/school-based-covid-19-testing.

Asymptomatic testing will begin on a rolling basis at schools starting September 2, 2021. If any student or staff member is experiencing COVID-19 symptoms while at school, on-site rapid tests will be available beginning on the first day of school.

Two bolded points.

1. It's great the mayor went to opt-out testing. Kudos to her. But it is a sign of the MASSIVE disorganization at DCPS that she did this THREE DAYS before the first day of school. After many schools and parents and PTOs spent a lot of time scrambling to get the opt-in forms signed.

2. In my experience with friends and parents at about 15 schools across the city, it is FALSE that rapid tests are available. My kid had symptoms at our school and got sent home and told to see a doctor for a test. This is utter malpractice. It's bad enough there are no rapid tests - every school system should have them for teachers and kids on hand. But this is the chancellor lying about it. This is the kind of thing an IG with subpoena power would prevent.

I’m amazed that you think a school board populated by 11 yahoos would do this better. Have you ever been to an ANC meeting?

THIS

[Anonymous]

There is no unbiased decision, objective views to be made as everyone works for the Mayor!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no unbiased decision, objective views to be made as everyone works for the Mayor!

The Council and the SBOE can't give objective views?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many parent have good reason to suspect DCPS is slow walking testing and downplaying outbreaks to deflect from persistent case spikes early in school year They've never remotely come close to hitting the stated targets for testing, which is kind of straight from the Trump playbook. The just incessant inane flex over their non-response with pointless "Re-open strong" bs.

Kids who don't feel well get sent home without testing. Siblings remain in class. In the rare cases where testing actually does occur it takes up to a week to get results with no information in the interim or follow up with contact tracing where appropriate. No one can be considered a "close contact" because they blindly assert that masks are uniformly worn and perfectly fitted at all times no matter the real world application. The so-called HVAC improvements are overblown, unevenly distributed and often insufficient. Very few children get to eat lunch outside even in perfect weather.

If you plant your head in the sand I guess you can honestly say 'I don't see a cloud in sight', but how dumb would you have to be to believe anything they say?

This all goes back to the Mayor's effort to expedite reopening and downplay necessary pandemic response measures. She owns all of this.

“many parents” think no such thing. the vast majority of us are extremely happy school reopening is going so well. truly the only change in my perspective is that I now agree early release Weds could be appropriate to give teachers more planning time. I was against the loss in instructional time before, but now see how much extra work adjusting it has been.

Enjoy the kool aid!

You can support re-opening AND still be critical of the poor performance. The two are not mutually exclusive

You’re living in an alternate universe. Covid is not spreading in schools. We’ve had two cases in our school and kids will be vaccinated in a matter of weeks and all teachers who want them have boosters, and starting next month all adults will have to be vaccinated. It’s going very, very well.

I also agree that things are going well in terms of Covid mitigation and think that people who think it isn't are increasingly living in some other world.

That said, some of the things that people raise as issues don't have to do with covid -- regardless of whether HVACs are highly pertinent to reducing covid spread, we can agree that they are important for creating a better learning environment. The ineptitude that is pretty much always on display from DCPS (which may be deliberate slow-walking or might just be that THIS IS DC AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT RUNS SLOWLY) could be helped with....maybe better quality people? Idk. If there's obvious LYING from the Chancellor, that's certainly not ok and undermines trust of parents in the district to provide education. That might be helped.

I agree; I think Covid put a microscope on schools and the Mayor's impact on schools, at least for me. While a lot of the failures the PP wrote about have nothing to do with Covid, they're indicative of a poisoned system, top down.

The mayor opened the schools, they are open, covid cases are going down. I'm not sure where the evidence of "poisoned system" is. I could get into the argument that keeping the schools closed was actually the huge failure regarding schools but I actually don't want to get into the WTU-blaming cycle because it's a distraction. The schools had to be reopened (even if closure was justified) and she did it.

I thought it was clear my point was that my issues with Mayoral Control have nothing to do with Covid. HVACs; Inequitable Modernizations; A racist evaluation system; inequitable distributions of funding; budget cuts in schools while central office balloons