Teachers are Vital Public Servants and Should Act Like It

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once I accepted that parents didn’t care if I lived or died, it was incredibly freeing. My guilt about not being allowed to do more vanished. I’ve started to regain a work-life balance that I haven’t had since before I switched careers to public education.

High Risk DH is interviewing for a private sector firm tomorrow. It’s a friend’s company and he’s pretty much guaranteed WFH until August. He’s sad about leaving teaching because it was a beloved choice after a military career, but it’s pretty clear that it is 100% on us to protect our health and not leave our kids orphans.

Right there with you pp.

I assume that he is going to keep teaching until he's gotten vaccinated then quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once I accepted that parents didn’t care if I lived or died, it was incredibly freeing. My guilt about not being allowed to do more vanished. I’ve started to regain a work-life balance that I haven’t had since before I switched careers to public education.

High Risk DH is interviewing for a private sector firm tomorrow. It’s a friend’s company and he’s pretty much guaranteed WFH until August. He’s sad about leaving teaching because it was a beloved choice after a military career, but it’s pretty clear that it is 100% on us to protect our health and not leave our kids orphans.

Many of us do care and want to continue with DL. We are going to lose good teachers.

Not really.

[Anonymous]

How many times can we have the same tired argument?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many times can we have the same tired argument?

Until done parents realize that teachers aren’t their personal servants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among my students, all of those returning are White and wealthy, except two students that are Asian and wealthy. The rest are staying in DL.

I teach in a Title One school with 90%+ students on free meals. Only two out of my 33 students will be returning to school. In our kindergarten classes, one child is returning in each of two classes. I think the other kindergarten class might have 5 kids coming back. So we will teach online from the classroom with those students logging in. Our school has mostly Hispanic and black students.

Are those the only children participating in DL right now? How many additional are DL but won’t do in-person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once I accepted that parents didn’t care if I lived or died, it was incredibly freeing. My guilt about not being allowed to do more vanished. I’ve started to regain a work-life balance that I haven’t had since before I switched careers to public education.

High Risk DH is interviewing for a private sector firm tomorrow. It’s a friend’s company and he’s pretty much guaranteed WFH until August. He’s sad about leaving teaching because it was a beloved choice after a military career, but it’s pretty clear that it is 100% on us to protect our health and not leave our kids orphans.

Many of us do care and want to continue with DL. We are going to lose good teachers.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These posts and opinion pieces do no one any good. Good teachers are working hard, if not harder and doing their best. What we see is students and parents not doing their part. Today is the last day of the marking period. My kids have been dismissed from all their classes as their work is done to allow other kids to get their outstanding work done vs. failing them like they should. It takes parents teaming with teachers to make DL work. Everyone expects teachers to do everything but they cannot and as a parent you are either part of the problem or solution.

It's almost like...parents have JOBS. That they also have to do. To feed, clothe, and shelter children.

Ok, so you NEED child care. Pay or it or apply for a voucher or other low cost child care. The school is there to educate, not for child care. Child care has been an added bonus but not during a pandemic. You paid for day care when your kids were 0-5, so you pay for it now.

Disclaimer: I am a parent who emailed our school board and superintendent asking them to delay the start of hybrid school, even though I want to send my 6 year old in person because he has lost ALL motivation for DL whatsoever and it's turned into a daily struggle, ecause I want to support our teacher's association and their safety concerns.

But at the point where you're saying parents need childcare for school aged children to help with DL, you are basically telling people to enroll in private school. Which exists to provide in person help with education, unlike day care with a desk for DL but little to no oversight of how the kids are doing. Do you really want to say that people should be leaving the public school system? What are the implications? I GET the safety issues, but saying any educational deficiencies are the fault of parents is not honest.

m

+1

I don’t want schools to open right now (cases are too high, we missed the window in the fall) but I do not understand the argument I keep seeing that completely devalues public education. Here us a prime opportunity for people to really see and understand the value of public schools, all the things the do for families and for the community. Even people who don’t have kids are seeing how vital they are, as they watch colleagues and neighbors struggle to keep up with this.

What a great opportunity to say look what we do! Look how important we are! Let’s invest in this, not just with money but with the kind of commitment we currently devote to, say, sports teams or attracting development?

Instead I keep seeing the argument that ACTUALLY public school can easily be done from home if parents just provide all the other stuff, which is a great argument for... less money for teachers? Closing schools? Funneling money away from schools to parents?

It is so weird and counterproductive.

A) Schools are overcrowded - so any kids that transfer or attrition out is less of a budget stretch.

B) Hard for the schools to argue for 'more' money when they're already 70-75% of the county budgets in NOVA with $1 billion annual expenses.

C) Seems like parents are not recognizing what value they had before.

I am really unclear what your point is. Kids should transfer to private (which i think does actually reduce funding to schools, some portion is based on enrollment), schools should get less money, and then...it doesn't matter because you think parents didn't value schools anyway (???) so they should all go private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among my students, all of those returning are White and wealthy, except two students that are Asian and wealthy. The rest are staying in DL.

I teach in a Title One school with 90%+ students on free meals. Only two out of my 33 students will be returning to school. In our kindergarten classes, one child is returning in each of two classes. I think the other kindergarten class might have 5 kids coming back. So we will teach online from the classroom with those students logging in. Our school has mostly Hispanic and black students.

Are those the only children participating in DL right now? How many additional are DL but won’t do in-person?

All of my students are in DL now. In two weeks, we are returning to school and only two of my 33 students are going to come to school in person. Everyone else is staying at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among my students, all of those returning are White and wealthy, except two students that are Asian and wealthy. The rest are staying in DL.

I teach in a Title One school with 90%+ students on free meals. Only two out of my 33 students will be returning to school. In our kindergarten classes, one child is returning in each of two classes. I think the other kindergarten class might have 5 kids coming back. So we will teach online from the classroom with those students logging in. Our school has mostly Hispanic and black students.

Are those the only children participating in DL right now? How many additional are DL but won’t do in-person?

All of my students are in DL now. In two weeks, we are returning to school and only two of my 33 students are going to come to school in person. Everyone else is staying at home.

If I were a parent in that situation, I wish I could have a chance to reconsider. Not worth it for the kids or teachers. But with DL we have no way of getting in touch with any other families who we don't happen to know from elsewhere- no class directory, ability to email other kids, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Among my students, all of those returning are White and wealthy, except two students that are Asian and wealthy. The rest are staying in DL.

I teach in a Title One school with 90%+ students on free meals. Only two out of my 33 students will be returning to school. In our kindergarten classes, one child is returning in each of two classes. I think the other kindergarten class might have 5 kids coming back. So we will teach online from the classroom with those students logging in. Our school has mostly Hispanic and black students.

Are those the only children participating in DL right now? How many additional are DL but won’t do in-person?

All of my students are in DL now. In two weeks, we are returning to school and only two of my 33 students are going to come to school in person. Everyone else is staying at home.

If I were a parent in that situation, I wish I could have a chance to reconsider. Not worth it for the kids or teachers. But with DL we have no way of getting in touch with any other families who we don't happen to know from elsewhere- no class directory, ability to email other kids, etc.

The kids coming back are ones with very poor attendance online. I know one of them stays with her grandparents during the day and they don't know how to use a laptop. At least at school, she will receive instruction whereas now she gets none.

[Anonymous]

Teaching is a job. A job you can quit. I'm sure there are teachers on the fence about staying who read this forum and you lot have tipped the scales far in favor of leaving the profession with your vitrol. Expect a lot of turnover.

[Anonymous]

“ A growing consensus finds that children from less-advantaged backgrounds are falling behind academically because remote learning does not work as well for them as for kids from more advantaged families.”

This really annoys me. When will they start writing the truth - that higher SES kids are doing better because they’re learning independently and they have the skills, books, computers, and sometimes parents needed to do that. Public distance learning isn’t working. Period. It’s just that higher SES families don’t really need school at all, even if most of them haven’t figured that out yet.

[Anonymous]

The kids from the less-advantaged backgrounds are more likely to choose to stay virtual. It's the rich white people who want to send their kids back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kids from the less-advantaged backgrounds are more likely to choose to stay virtual. It's the rich white people who want to send their kids back.

Great. We should just let kids from less-advantaged backgrounds stay home forever - who CARES if they get an education or not? Sounds like a great plan.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but if you are a teacher and choose to get vaccinated then you should return to work in person. Otherwise leave the vaccine for some elderly person or with comorbidities who needs it more.