So over APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny. I actually see it the other way. In APS for 9 years. Among the parents in this system, it’s NEVER the kid or families’ fault. Always the school. People this privileged SHOULD leave for private schools. They are there for you. There are a LOT of entitled folks with the money for private. Go there. They will hold your hand (and your kids)!and tell your kid is a genius. In my opinion, teacher do too much handholding even in APS. If your work wasn’t properly submitted, it’s late. It’s on you to figure out the tech if you’re in middle or high school. Its 4th quarter. Take some responsibility for your work.

The tech doesn’t work all the time and teachers are not consistent in where the assign things or how they want them submitted. Many assignments cannot be verified by parents or must be refine (not just resubmitted) if there is a problem. We should be grading kids based on what they have learned, not their ability to navigate Canvas, MS Teams, Googledocs, IXL, BrainPOP, Newsela, and Nearpod.

Maybe in first quarter. But not in 4th quarter for middle and high school kids without special needs. They have to navigate these tech tools in the real world too. By now, they should have figured this out. My kids have had glitches, for sure. And teachers have worked with them to fix them. Sometimes my kids have gotten the wrong assignment off canvas. I don't blame that on the teacher. It's true there is a lot to navigate. But the kids are capable of it. And when a mistake is made and they've exhausted their self-advocacy, instead of looking for someone to blame, I teach my kids to accept it and move on. Some teachers are more forgiving than others. That's how it's always been, on paper and now with tech. Let's be clear, technology is here to stay and it is not the fault of APS or your kids' teachers. Secondary students have to manage this AND learn math, language, what have you. We can't go back to the 50s or even the 80s.

It was a year-long struggle for my motivated, straight-A, strong EF kid to manage submissions. Heck, I work in IT and still took me forever to figure out if kid missed anything.

The technology isn't great and it's inconsistently used. Extra challenges that make getting dinged for a late assignment (even though it was turned in) demoralizing for kids.

Teachers could have been more lenient on tech issues and focused more on content/knowledge.

It was a tough year for everyone and I hope being in-person next year removes a lot of these issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny. I actually see it the other way. In APS for 9 years. Among the parents in this system, it’s NEVER the kid or families’ fault. Always the school. People this privileged SHOULD leave for private schools. They are there for you. There are a LOT of entitled folks with the money for private. Go there. They will hold your hand (and your kids)!and tell your kid is a genius. In my opinion, teacher do too much handholding even in APS. If your work wasn’t properly submitted, it’s late. It’s on you to figure out the tech if you’re in middle or high school. Its 4th quarter. Take some responsibility for your work.

The tech doesn’t work all the time and teachers are not consistent in where the assign things or how they want them submitted. Many assignments cannot be verified by parents or must be refine (not just resubmitted) if there is a problem. We should be grading kids based on what they have learned, not their ability to navigate Canvas, MS Teams, Googledocs, IXL, BrainPOP, Newsela, and Nearpod.

Maybe in first quarter. But not in 4th quarter for middle and high school kids without special needs. They have to navigate these tech tools in the real world too. By now, they should have figured this out. My kids have had glitches, for sure. And teachers have worked with them to fix them. Sometimes my kids have gotten the wrong assignment off canvas. I don't blame that on the teacher. It's true there is a lot to navigate. But the kids are capable of it. And when a mistake is made and they've exhausted their self-advocacy, instead of looking for someone to blame, I teach my kids to accept it and move on. Some teachers are more forgiving than others. That's how it's always been, on paper and now with tech. Let's be clear, technology is here to stay and it is not the fault of APS or your kids' teachers. Secondary students have to manage this AND learn math, language, what have you. We can't go back to the 50s or even the 80s.

There is no need for it to be a technological labyrinth impeding the workflow and learning. Employers don't make their tech systems harder than they have to be just because they don't want to bother training their employees on how to use it or implementing a consistent way of using it across the office/company. That decreases production. Purpose of technology is to make things easier and increase work productivity. The purpose of tech in education is supposed to be making teacher's admin work easier so they can focus more time on instruction and helping students; and to enhance students' learning. It's not supposed to make it more frustrating, more difficult, more tedious, or repeatedly teach "life lessons" of "gotcha! too bad!"

[Anonymous]

Same. I have been a defender of APS for a long time but this year was terrible. I have one kid at HBW and they were fine but I pulled my elementary kid out to homeschool. I honestly don’t know what exactly APS could have done better but little kids crying and frustrated all the time because they didn’t understand how to navigate apps is just absurd. All that stress on top of not actually learning anything? No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny. I actually see it the other way. In APS for 9 years. Among the parents in this system, it’s NEVER the kid or families’ fault. Always the school. People this privileged SHOULD leave for private schools. They are there for you. There are a LOT of entitled folks with the money for private. Go there. They will hold your hand (and your kids)!and tell your kid is a genius. In my opinion, teacher do too much handholding even in APS. If your work wasn’t properly submitted, it’s late. It’s on you to figure out the tech if you’re in middle or high school. Its 4th quarter. Take some responsibility for your work.

The tech doesn’t work all the time and teachers are not consistent in where the assign things or how they want them submitted. Many assignments cannot be verified by parents or must be refine (not just resubmitted) if there is a problem. We should be grading kids based on what they have learned, not their ability to navigate Canvas, MS Teams, Googledocs, IXL, BrainPOP, Newsela, and Nearpod.

Maybe in first quarter. But not in 4th quarter for middle and high school kids without special needs. They have to navigate these tech tools in the real world too. By now, they should have figured this out. My kids have had glitches, for sure. And teachers have worked with them to fix them. Sometimes my kids have gotten the wrong assignment off canvas. I don't blame that on the teacher. It's true there is a lot to navigate. But the kids are capable of it. And when a mistake is made and they've exhausted their self-advocacy, instead of looking for someone to blame, I teach my kids to accept it and move on. Some teachers are more forgiving than others. That's how it's always been, on paper and now with tech. Let's be clear, technology is here to stay and it is not the fault of APS or your kids' teachers. Secondary students have to manage this AND learn math, language, what have you. We can't go back to the 50s or even the 80s.

There is no need for it to be a technological labyrinth impeding the workflow and learning. Employers don't make their tech systems harder than they have to be just because they don't want to bother training their employees on how to use it or implementing a consistent way of using it across the office/company. That decreases production. Purpose of technology is to make things easier and increase work productivity. The purpose of tech in education is supposed to be making teacher's admin work easier so they can focus more time on instruction and helping students; and to enhance students' learning. It's not supposed to make it more frustrating, more difficult, more tedious, or repeatedly teach "life lessons" of "gotcha! too bad!"

Exactly. And if an employee struggles with a new piece of technology, in the real world, they get help from tech support or whatever. And they are adults!

[Anonymous]

Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

You can only workaround crap tech so much. It's still waaaaaaaay more laborious than it needed to be.

My kid "managed" but it was still a PITA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

That's great. But I wouldn't be ok with "90% of his assignments were just fine." There should never be any problem with any assignments based on technology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

I can’t WFH. My MS and ES kids were largely unsupervised during school hours, something I made painstakingly clear at several points throughout the year to various teachers and principals. My previously straight-A “gifted” MS kid has often been failing half the classes, often due to missing work and other times due to poor teaching in this format.

Sometimes our internet went out. Sometimes another kid kicked one of my kids out of Teams. Sometimes one of my kids had a question but the teacher didn’t allow time for them to ask or didn’t acknowledge their “raised hand” on Teams. Honestly, there are so many issues I don’t even know where to start, but as an adult (native English speaker with an advanced degree) I found Canvas a nightmare to navigate. Was it my role to “look for the solutions”? What might the solution have been? I tried over and over and over this year and it would have been such a relief if APS wanted to work with us to find solutions instead of creating more problems. It took me 6 months to get a simple weekly checklist of what my ES kid was expected to do, and we often did this work at the end of my workday at 7-8pm because the teachers really couldn’t be bothered to give any extra assistance.

I would say my kids are resilient and this has certainly taught them a lot. Sadly, one lesson has been that there are a lot of adult authority figures in their lives who aren’t interested in helping them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny. I actually see it the other way. In APS for 9 years. Among the parents in this system, it’s NEVER the kid or families’ fault. Always the school. People this privileged SHOULD leave for private schools. They are there for you. There are a LOT of entitled folks with the money for private. Go there. They will hold your hand (and your kids)!and tell your kid is a genius. In my opinion, teacher do too much handholding even in APS. If your work wasn’t properly submitted, it’s late. It’s on you to figure out the tech if you’re in middle or high school. Its 4th quarter. Take some responsibility for your work.

The tech doesn’t work all the time and teachers are not consistent in where the assign things or how they want them submitted. Many assignments cannot be verified by parents or must be refine (not just resubmitted) if there is a problem. We should be grading kids based on what they have learned, not their ability to navigate Canvas, MS Teams, Googledocs, IXL, BrainPOP, Newsela, and Nearpod.

Maybe in first quarter. But not in 4th quarter for middle and high school kids without special needs. They have to navigate these tech tools in the real world too. By now, they should have figured this out. My kids have had glitches, for sure. And teachers have worked with them to fix them. Sometimes my kids have gotten the wrong assignment off canvas. I don't blame that on the teacher. It's true there is a lot to navigate. But the kids are capable of it. And when a mistake is made and they've exhausted their self-advocacy, instead of looking for someone to blame, I teach my kids to accept it and move on. Some teachers are more forgiving than others. That's how it's always been, on paper and now with tech. Let's be clear, technology is here to stay and it is not the fault of APS or your kids' teachers. Secondary students have to manage this AND learn math, language, what have you. We can't go back to the 50s or even the 80s.

Folks, what we have here — cheerleading for the 2020-21 situation versus going back to the 50s or 80s — is what we call a false dichotomy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

I can’t WFH. My MS and ES kids were largely unsupervised during school hours, something I made painstakingly clear at several points throughout the year to various teachers and principals. My previously straight-A “gifted” MS kid has often been failing half the classes, often due to missing work and other times due to poor teaching in this format.

Sometimes our internet went out. Sometimes another kid kicked one of my kids out of Teams. Sometimes one of my kids had a question but the teacher didn’t allow time for them to ask or didn’t acknowledge their “raised hand” on Teams. Honestly, there are so many issues I don’t even know where to start, but as an adult (native English speaker with an advanced degree) I found Canvas a nightmare to navigate. Was it my role to “look for the solutions”? What might the solution have been? I tried over and over and over this year and it would have been such a relief if APS wanted to work with us to find solutions instead of creating more problems. It took me 6 months to get a simple weekly checklist of what my ES kid was expected to do, and we often did this work at the end of my workday at 7-8pm because the teachers really couldn’t be bothered to give any extra assistance.

I would say my kids are resilient and this has certainly taught them a lot. Sadly, one lesson has been that there are a lot of adult authority figures in their lives who aren’t interested in helping them.

I am so sorry for what you had to go through. This should never have happened. APS should be capable of better and had advance planning time (last spring) and failed to use it. Let's see if they can get the ship back on track this fall, but they don't get a pass on the disaster of the last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids get tech help too. From their teachers and their school tech coordinator, both of whom were incredibly responsive at both my kids' schools. You all really don't seem to look for the solutions. We had plenty of issues but were able to work through them. And my kids are better for it. My 8th grader has learned terrific trouble shooting skills and patience. And 90% of his assignments were just fine. My 6th grader managed well too. Maybe they both got lucky, but I think that most kids did just fine. Maybe not elementary. wouldn't try to speak to that!

I can’t WFH. My MS and ES kids were largely unsupervised during school hours, something I made painstakingly clear at several points throughout the year to various teachers and principals. My previously straight-A “gifted” MS kid has often been failing half the classes, often due to missing work and other times due to poor teaching in this format.

Sometimes our internet went out. Sometimes another kid kicked one of my kids out of Teams. Sometimes one of my kids had a question but the teacher didn’t allow time for them to ask or didn’t acknowledge their “raised hand” on Teams. Honestly, there are so many issues I don’t even know where to start, but as an adult (native English speaker with an advanced degree) I found Canvas a nightmare to navigate. Was it my role to “look for the solutions”? What might the solution have been? I tried over and over and over this year and it would have been such a relief if APS wanted to work with us to find solutions instead of creating more problems. It took me 6 months to get a simple weekly checklist of what my ES kid was expected to do, and we often did this work at the end of my workday at 7-8pm because the teachers really couldn’t be bothered to give any extra assistance.

I would say my kids are resilient and this has certainly taught them a lot. Sadly, one lesson has been that there are a lot of adult authority figures in their lives who aren’t interested in helping them.

I am so sorry for what you had to go through. This should never have happened. APS should be capable of better and had advance planning time (last spring) and failed to use it. Let's see if they can get the ship back on track this fall, but they don't get a pass on the disaster of the last year.

History most often repeats itself. Their failure this year across multiple dimensions is an unfortunate harbinger of how they'll handle this fall.

[Anonymous]

Guessing that many more people than usual are going to be taking extra classes at NVCC to make up for the knowledge deficits. And that's ok.

[Anonymous]

Easy for you to say. What if they can't afford it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guessing that many more people than usual are going to be taking extra classes at NVCC to make up for the knowledge deficits. And that's ok.

Not an option for my 4th grader!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guessing that many more people than usual are going to be taking extra classes at NVCC to make up for the knowledge deficits. And that's ok.

Not an option for my 4th grader!

Sure it will be down the road. That’s my point.