APS School Board Watch Thread

[Anonymous]

Loft does need to go. She made the call on the no new material BS last spring and has no interest in doing what's best for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest anti-opening, seems to be rooting against hybrid parents is from our school. I am all for anyone's free speech, or posing questions for APS to answer. But at this point it has gone beyond that and I am not impressed. I didn't watch, but read these comments for the coverage.

Regardless of what anyone says in their public comments I believe the virtual option next year will be at the county level, for best resourcing decisions for the kids. 99% of families chose 5 day in-person now, in Falls Church City.

Loft needs to go. Possibly Duran will see the door too if APS becomes an outlier on this. I am not at all surprised at this meeting outcome of "nothing." But it's the wrong choice to fail to get kids in school more. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Huh? I didn't hear any anti-openers last night--and I listened myself instead of relying on an anonymous board for a recap. There were a few speakers who were fine with staying w/ current hybrid but I think one of them said her kid is in hybrid now too.

There aren't any anti openers. It's just the rapid APE group's straw man ranting.

[Anonymous]

I would even be ok with k-2 doing 5 half days and breaking up into 2 cohorts. The class is already split into 2 groups any way. This way lunch is available for those leaving school.to eat at home and available to those that didn't eat lunch before arrival. Kids in morning group would end the day with recess/grab lunch and afternoon group would start their day with grab lunch and recess. The 2 groups would interact only during this period and the reminder of the day would be for academics. Specials would rotate on Mondays. Buses would have an extra pick up time in afternoon,but think if you mix age groups of students middle, elementary, high school on buses as we did in elementary you could make this work. Put an extended day staffer on each bus to supervise and there you have a 5 day a week bus plan!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would even be ok with k-2 doing 5 half days and breaking up into 2 cohorts. The class is already split into 2 groups any way. This way lunch is available for those leaving school.to eat at home and available to those that didn't eat lunch before arrival. Kids in morning group would end the day with recess/grab lunch and afternoon group would start their day with grab lunch and recess. The 2 groups would interact only during this period and the reminder of the day would be for academics. Specials would rotate on Mondays. Buses would have an extra pick up time in afternoon,but think if you mix age groups of students middle, elementary, high school on buses as we did in elementary you could make this work. Put an extended day staffer on each bus to supervise and there you have a 5 day a week bus plan!

I have a friend in NJ, and she says this is how their school does it. Everyone eats lunch at home. One group in the morning, one in the afternoon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loft does need to go. She made the call on the no new material BS last spring and has no interest in doing what's best for the kids.

Yes, Loft has to go. She's a former HS principal. Does she have a background in curriculum for K-12? I don't believe she does. I feel like she's the wrong person for her job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loft does need to go. She made the call on the no new material BS last spring and has no interest in doing what's best for the kids.

[phone]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Loft and Duran are focusing 10000% of their thoughts on the maximum distancing. infuriating!!

they need to take a new vote from families and we need to take their power away NOW. they are not capable!!

They aren't addressing why in the world they didn't have a plan B for this 3ft guidance before now. We all knew this was coming. Think creatively, this is insane

I think this is the plan B, bring more kids in.

Of course this is plan B. And it's a logical one. I don't agree that "we all knew" 3 foot guidance was coming - at least not until recently. And they should be focused on the maximum safety measures they can provide. We are hardly out of COVID woods yet.

What may seem simple from the parents' perspective is way more multi-faceted and complicated from the school system of 23,000 students perspective. Transportation, class and teacher assignments, capacity issues in cafeterias and other spaces, etc. And it can't just turn on a dime. By the time plans can be thoughtfully made and implemented, we'll be into the fourth quarter anyway. I'd rather implement existing plans (which just began, by the way) as well as possible, learn and make appropriate adjustments, and better prepare for "normal" return to school in the fall.

But here is the thing - no one is asking them to turn on a dime. They’ve had A YEAR TO MAKE PLANS. Every school system in backwoods American can make it work, but we can’t? Shameful.

I agree APS could have done more and better than they have; that they don't seem to be making any real effort to progressively plan so they can move quickly when circumstances allow. However, I do not expect them to have planned a year ago for every transition scenario because they had no idea what the CDC guidelines were going to be at any point in future time as we moved through this pandemic. So, my point about turning on a dime was that I don't think they should be expected to just pivot to a 3-foot distance scenario or more days in school when we're only the 2nd week in fully implementing the hybrid scenario to begin with. There is only one more quarter left - which includes a week of spring break and the last few weeks of school which are essentially worthless anyway from an academic standpoint. Instead of trying to keep pace with every CDC guideline shift for the next few months, APS should be focused on aggressively planning for maximizing summer school opportunities and for making da--sure our kids are back in school 5 days a week in the fall (barring any return/new pandemic putting us back to square one).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Loft and Duran are focusing 10000% of their thoughts on the maximum distancing. infuriating!!

they need to take a new vote from families and we need to take their power away NOW. they are not capable!!

They aren't addressing why in the world they didn't have a plan B for this 3ft guidance before now. We all knew this was coming. Think creatively, this is insane

I think this is the plan B, bring more kids in.

Of course this is plan B. And it's a logical one. I don't agree that "we all knew" 3 foot guidance was coming - at least not until recently. And they should be focused on the maximum safety measures they can provide. We are hardly out of COVID woods yet.

What may seem simple from the parents' perspective is way more multi-faceted and complicated from the school system of 23,000 students perspective. Transportation, class and teacher assignments, capacity issues in cafeterias and other spaces, etc. And it can't just turn on a dime. By the time plans can be thoughtfully made and implemented, we'll be into the fourth quarter anyway. I'd rather implement existing plans (which just began, by the way) as well as possible, learn and make appropriate adjustments, and better prepare for "normal" return to school in the fall.

But here is the thing - no one is asking them to turn on a dime. They’ve had A YEAR TO MAKE PLANS. Every school system in backwoods American can make it work, but we can’t? Shameful.

I agree APS could have done more and better than they have; that they don't seem to be making any real effort to progressively plan so they can move quickly when circumstances allow. However, I do not expect them to have planned a year ago for every transition scenario because they had no idea what the CDC guidelines were going to be at any point in future time as we moved through this pandemic. So, my point about turning on a dime was that I don't think they should be expected to just pivot to a 3-foot distance scenario or more days in school when we're only the 2nd week in fully implementing the hybrid scenario to begin with. There is only one more quarter left - which includes a week of spring break and the last few weeks of school which are essentially worthless anyway from an academic standpoint. Instead of trying to keep pace with every CDC guideline shift for the next few months, APS should be focused on aggressively planning for maximizing summer school opportunities and for making da--sure our kids are back in school 5 days a week in the fall (barring any return/new pandemic putting us back to square one).

I strongly disagree with this. #1 most important thing is to get to 5 days a week in September. We need to do everything we can now to prepare for that. Getting more kids in classrooms now will only help us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Loft and Duran are focusing 10000% of their thoughts on the maximum distancing. infuriating!!

they need to take a new vote from families and we need to take their power away NOW. they are not capable!!

They aren't addressing why in the world they didn't have a plan B for this 3ft guidance before now. We all knew this was coming. Think creatively, this is insane

I think this is the plan B, bring more kids in.

Of course this is plan B. And it's a logical one. I don't agree that "we all knew" 3 foot guidance was coming - at least not until recently. And they should be focused on the maximum safety measures they can provide. We are hardly out of COVID woods yet.

What may seem simple from the parents' perspective is way more multi-faceted and complicated from the school system of 23,000 students perspective. Transportation, class and teacher assignments, capacity issues in cafeterias and other spaces, etc. And it can't just turn on a dime. By the time plans can be thoughtfully made and implemented, we'll be into the fourth quarter anyway. I'd rather implement existing plans (which just began, by the way) as well as possible, learn and make appropriate adjustments, and better prepare for "normal" return to school in the fall.

But here is the thing - no one is asking them to turn on a dime. They’ve had A YEAR TO MAKE PLANS. Every school system in backwoods American can make it work, but we can’t? Shameful.

I agree APS could have done more and better than they have; that they don't seem to be making any real effort to progressively plan so they can move quickly when circumstances allow. However, I do not expect them to have planned a year ago for every transition scenario because they had no idea what the CDC guidelines were going to be at any point in future time as we moved through this pandemic. So, my point about turning on a dime was that I don't think they should be expected to just pivot to a 3-foot distance scenario or more days in school when we're only the 2nd week in fully implementing the hybrid scenario to begin with. There is only one more quarter left - which includes a week of spring break and the last few weeks of school which are essentially worthless anyway from an academic standpoint. Instead of trying to keep pace with every CDC guideline shift for the next few months, APS should be focused on aggressively planning for maximizing summer school opportunities and for making da--sure our kids are back in school 5 days a week in the fall (barring any return/new pandemic putting us back to square one).

I strongly disagree with this. #1 most important thing is to get to 5 days a week in September. We need to do everything we can now to prepare for that. Getting more kids in classrooms now will only help us.

I agree with the "everything we can now to prepare for" 5 days a week in September. But I disagree that focusing on getting as many kids in classrooms as possible as quickly as possible is necessarily the right focus or measure for doing so. Especially if focusing on that causes repeated changes and disruptions in transportation or scheduling or any other classroom issue. "#1 most important thing" to me is to provide as much quality, effective education for all students now (which multiple, continuous disruptions due to changes will negatively impact), while planning and preparing (putting all the safety measure like air filtration and whatever else as well as lessons learned from current experiences) for full opening in-person in August.