Takeaways from the Brabrand virtual town hall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher and a parent. I agree on both ends that DL sucks, but I think anyone who thinks they have a say and what will be done next year is insane.

I think that's probably the best, most coherent recap of the situation across all these threads.

Truth.

It should be posted in a sticky at the top of this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really had no idea how much FCPS teachers hated parents until I started reading these posts. It's really disheartening.

I'm incredibly disappointed with how FCPS administration has handled distance learning. My first grader isn't learning anything. The teachers are still fumbling around with Blackboard Ultra and the technical problems continue, weeks into this.

I worry that won't change in the fall. Braband will suggest the same DL regime of 1 hr of live instruction, four days a week and parents will just have to figure out the rest. Kids will fall further behind.

I guess that's better than sending my DD back in the fall to schools where many teachers clearly hate parents and don't want to be there.

Also better than your child being exposed to Covid. That should be your greatest concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really had no idea how much FCPS teachers hated parents until I started reading these posts. It's really disheartening.

I'm incredibly disappointed with how FCPS administration has handled distance learning. My first grader isn't learning anything. The teachers are still fumbling around with Blackboard Ultra and the technical problems continue, weeks into this.

I worry that won't change in the fall. Braband will suggest the same DL regime of 1 hr of live instruction, four days a week and parents will just have to figure out the rest. Kids will fall further behind.

I guess that's better than sending my DD back in the fall to schools where many teachers clearly hate parents and don't want to be there.

The posters to this forum are probably not representative of most FCPS teachers. I think overall FCPS is a solid school system. I don't think the posters to this forum realize how bad they would look in the Fall if FCPS is remote learning while school districts all over the world (already happening) and all over the US are back at school.

I'm sure those same posters wouldn't care. In any event if that plays out, FCPS students won't be competitive or on par with those students. I'm sure that's one of the big issues that the Governor is wrestling with.

If kids are dead, deathly ill or incapacitated by an out of control pandemic they won’t be competitive. I think that’s what he’s wrestling with. Being competitive is a parent concern. No one else cares if your child goes to community college or ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really had no idea how much FCPS teachers hated parents until I started reading these posts. It's really disheartening.

I'm incredibly disappointed with how FCPS administration has handled distance learning. My first grader isn't learning anything. The teachers are still fumbling around with Blackboard Ultra and the technical problems continue, weeks into this.

I worry that won't change in the fall. Braband will suggest the same DL regime of 1 hr of live instruction, four days a week and parents will just have to figure out the rest. Kids will fall further behind.

I guess that's better than sending my DD back in the fall to schools where many teachers clearly hate parents and don't want to be there.

The posters to this forum are probably not representative of most FCPS teachers. I think overall FCPS is a solid school system. I don't think the posters to this forum realize how bad they would look in the Fall if FCPS is remote learning while school districts all over the world (already happening) and all over the US are back at school.

I'm sure those same posters wouldn't care. In any event if that plays out, FCPS students won't be competitive or on par with those students. I'm sure that's one of the big issues that the Governor is wrestling with.

If kids are dead, deathly ill or incapacitated by an out of control pandemic they won’t be competitive. I think that’s what he’s wrestling with. Being competitive is a parent concern. No one else cares if your child goes to community college or ivy.

whoooooo boy have i got bad news for you

p.s everyone will still care in the future if your kid went to community college or an ivy league school.

yikes. get a grip. the revolution isn't happening overnight.

[Anonymous]

Our kids simply cannot stay home for the rest of the summer and then months on end following that. Outside of DC and New York, the entire rest of the country is moving on. And NY will likely even move on to normal classroom instruction in the fall. We cannot allow this area be the only one in the country not returning our kids to school. How can something so straightforward be so out of our control?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kids simply cannot stay home for the rest of the summer and then months on end following that. Outside of DC and New York, the entire rest of the country is moving on. And NY will likely even move on to normal classroom instruction in the fall. We cannot allow this area be the only one in the country not returning our kids to school. How can something so straightforward be so out of our control?

You are very correct.

The facts also do not support keeping lids at home indefinitely or until this vaccine appears.

Some people are facing terrible anxiety over the overwhelmingly dramatic news headlines. Those people need to keep their kids home and isolated, doing their own homeschool curriculum. Fcps needs to give them a streamlined process to help them withdraw from school to homeschool.

Fcps also needs to make sure supports are in place, such as distance learning, for those families that need to keep their kids at home due to health conditions like immunocompromised kids, diabetic kids and other conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really had no idea how much FCPS teachers hated parents until I started reading these posts. It's really disheartening.

I'm incredibly disappointed with how FCPS administration has handled distance learning. My first grader isn't learning anything. The teachers are still fumbling around with Blackboard Ultra and the technical problems continue, weeks into this.

I worry that won't change in the fall. Braband will suggest the same DL regime of 1 hr of live instruction, four days a week and parents will just have to figure out the rest. Kids will fall further behind.

I guess that's better than sending my DD back in the fall to schools where many teachers clearly hate parents and don't want to be there.

Also better than your child being exposed to Covid. That should be your greatest concern.

That’s ridiculous. It’s not the bubonic plague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our kids simply cannot stay home for the rest of the summer and then months on end following that. Outside of DC and New York, the entire rest of the country is moving on. And NY will likely even move on to normal classroom instruction in the fall. We cannot allow this area be the only one in the country not returning our kids to school. How can something so straightforward be so out of our control?

You are very correct.

The facts also do not support keeping lids at home indefinitely or until this vaccine appears.

Some people are facing terrible anxiety over the overwhelmingly dramatic news headlines. Those people need to keep their kids home and isolated, doing their own homeschool curriculum. Fcps needs to give them a streamlined process to help them withdraw from school to homeschool.

Fcps also needs to make sure supports are in place, such as distance learning, for those families that need to keep their kids at home due to health conditions like immunocompromised kids, diabetic kids and other conditions.

There already is a system in place in FCPS for
Kids who are ill
And need to stay home for extended periods of time. A teacher comes to your house and works 1:1 with your child with materials provided by the teacher. That system can just be moved to distance learning and kids could sign up for it.

[Anonymous]

If everything is up to the Governor, than all of Virginia public schools need to do the same thing. It would be unfair for Fairfax to be paying for all the schools in the rest of the state that will open on time and as normal and then force our kids to sit at home and lose out on another year of education. Especially for high schoolers who would be competing against those kids and private school kids for in state college spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher and a parent. I agree on both ends that DL sucks, but I think anyone who thinks they have a say and what will be done next year is insane.

I think that's probably the best, most coherent recap of the situation across all these threads.

Truth.

It should be posted in a sticky at the top of this board.

Teachers most clearly understand how little control and agency we have over any of this. Parents are the ones getting so angry because they operate under the illusion they or we (the parents who also happen to be teachers) have any say in how this goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If everything is up to the Governor, than all of Virginia public schools need to do the same thing. It would be unfair for Fairfax to be paying for all the schools in the rest of the state that will open on time and as normal and then force our kids to sit at home and lose out on another year of education. Especially for high schoolers who would be competing against those kids and private school kids for in state college spots.

Exactly. Fcps needs to open. There is no actual data driving our school closures. Just pure panic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everything is up to the Governor, than all of Virginia public schools need to do the same thing. It would be unfair for Fairfax to be paying for all the schools in the rest of the state that will open on time and as normal and then force our kids to sit at home and lose out on another year of education. Especially for high schoolers who would be competing against those kids and private school kids for in state college spots.

Exactly. Fcps needs to open. There is no actual data driving our school closures. Just pure panic.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everything is up to the Governor, than all of Virginia public schools need to do the same thing. It would be unfair for Fairfax to be paying for all the schools in the rest of the state that will open on time and as normal and then force our kids to sit at home and lose out on another year of education. Especially for high schoolers who would be competing against those kids and private school kids for in state college spots.

Exactly. Fcps needs to open. There is no actual data driving our school closures. Just pure panic.

Will you just STFU with your opinions passed off as conclusions?

I have no idea what the right answer is here. Neither do you. That's the problem. And what other areas are doing doesn't really matter. It's helpful information but not dispositive. There is a discussion of what to do. Numbers are changing. Numbers can be viewed different ways. And even if the numbers are trending favorably to open, there are still safety precautions that need to be observed -and they will HAVE to do so for a number of reasons- and those precautions are difficult. Esp in public schools with overcrowded classrooms.

So this is not easy peasy in terms of what to do. Stop pretending like it is. Have some patience and, if you need to, send in your thoughts to those who are making the decisions. You are not smarter than anyone else on this. So zip it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first 30-45 minutes had mostly to do with the Covid response, then they started talking more about equity issues in the schools in general. I had to log off around 7, but I think they went about another hour judging by the length of the Facebook Live video. Not sure if more Covid info was discussed toward the end of the meeting. But here were my takeaways:


They want to make a final decision on next school year by July. They will have more information on the three options by June 15. It sounded like there is another town hall/virtual meeting scheduled for around June 15 where the options will be discussed in greater detail.

The three options are all distance learning; some kind of hybrid model where there are things like half-days, 3 days a week in school, some kids in school and some not, classes on Saturdays, etc. and the remainder will be distance learning some of the time; and all kids back in school with the option for any student to continue distance learning

Braband stated that August would be too late to make a final decision because they can’t turn things around within 2 weeks no matter what the decision is. So decision for 2020-2021 school year will likely come in July.

They need further guidance from the state and from the education/return to school committee formed by the Governor

I was struck by how many teachers in the comments on the FB live did not want to return to classroom teaching - lots of whining, lots of “our kids health is MORE important right now.” Many teachers did want to return but a larger (or more vocal?) amount absolutely did not. I was surprised about this because of how many teachers are also parents. Can't do your own classroom's distance learning and home tech troubleshooting at the same time you're trying to help your kids with distance learning, though perhaps they are all parents of older MS kids and up who can be more self-sufficient?

Preschool special ed classrooms weren't discussed, this was disappointing as this is a section of students who really can't distance learn

There was no real plan about, if there is distance learning, how to get ELL families more involved, “family training,” etc. A speaker brought up the fact that many parents have no idea how to help their students in distance learning. These students are falling very far behind compared to kids that have always been involved in things like Kumon, tutoring, Outschool etc.

They are distributing more devices to elementary and middle kids.

Equity issues are at play with Covid and in general, including not just race/ethnicity but also students with special needs, LGBT, and where you actually live in the county/what school you attend

Also I believe later in the meeting there was information discussed about AAP - did anyone catch that? It sounded like it was in the realm of expanding access to AAP for diverse students.

Preschool special ed should be the last piece of the puzzle


In no way should preschool be a priority above high school, middle school, kindergartners and elementary kids.

Wow, I guess we know where you stand. Say that to a parent with a special needs child. All the kids deserve an equal chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everything is up to the Governor, than all of Virginia public schools need to do the same thing. It would be unfair for Fairfax to be paying for all the schools in the rest of the state that will open on time and as normal and then force our kids to sit at home and lose out on another year of education. Especially for high schoolers who would be competing against those kids and private school kids for in state college spots.

Exactly. Fcps needs to open. There is no actual data driving our school closures. Just pure panic.

Will you just STFU with your opinions passed off as conclusions?

I have no idea what the right answer is here. Neither do you. That's the problem. And what other areas are doing doesn't really matter. It's helpful information but not dispositive. There is a discussion of what to do. Numbers are changing. Numbers can be viewed different ways. And even if the numbers are trending favorably to open, there are still safety precautions that need to be observed -and they will HAVE to do so for a number of reasons- and those precautions are difficult. Esp in public schools with overcrowded classrooms.

So this is not easy peasy in terms of what to do. Stop pretending like it is. Have some patience and, if you need to, send in your thoughts to those who are making the decisions. You are not smarter than anyone else on this. So zip it.

You do realize this a public online forum right? You can zip it yourself.