Question on APE (or other APS related groups)
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Anonymous
I'll assume you're directing your reply to a previous PP because the immediate PP, me, was making a positive statement regarding APE - defending its position to not take a specific position on mask mandates. Personally, I agree with many of the reported positions APE is taking on things and appreciate their tracking of so many issues. |
Anonymous
You obviously have never met her or bothered to engage in a conversation with her. She is extremely smart and articulate, but, go ahead and slander away. Ugh. Sorry, OP, you got way more than your asked for with your question. From my point of view, I'm a parent of a lower ed child--COVID has been a total nightmare. I'm a left leaning political person, but, part of the APE facebook group, because in my experience, they are advocating for a lot of what I need from my school district to support young learners. They are big tent--they allow all viewpoints to participate--so, yes, there will be extremism, but, that's part of being inclusive. It doesn't represent the whole of the group. Not being a part of Smart Restart--they left a really bad impression with me with their zero covid approach and extreme tactics--as referenced upstream in this thread. AEM is so bent on being PC that it breaks itself. It has been an exhausting time to live in Arlington--all around. Everyone is exasperated. There are still good, thoughtful, caring, normal parents here, but, try to tune out the extremes online. |
Anonymous
We should trust her because she’s smart and articulate? I would expect she is given her chosen profession as an attorney. But being smart and articulate does not equal trustworthy or particularly nice. |
Anonymous
I didn’t say anything about her intelligence. I said she has no backbone and she’s pandering to anti-science RWNJs. If she can’t stand up for these obvious, easy things then why would I trust her in more complex, tough situations? |
Anonymous
+1 million |
Anonymous
I don't disagree with that attitude when looking at it from this one specific issue. However, on the other hand, it's reassuring to know that she would listen to what I have to say about something even if she doesn't agree with me. That's a heckuva lot more than I can say for every single school board member except two over the past 12 years I've been actively involved, including talking one-on-one with each one of them. |
Anonymous
I’m not yet ready to agree to that lowest of low bars. Masking right now should be a softball issue. If she cannot or will not commit to supporting them right now, I will never be able to vote for her. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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CDT worked for the same pro-charter consultancy that Katie Cristol worked for, and when KC got called out for it during her campaign, her defenders announced that she wasn't pro-charter but even if she was, charters aren't legal in Virginia so nothing would happen and even if they were legal the County Board doesn't control the school board.
And then the corporate Democrats that run the ACDC worked very hard to get CDT on the school board, and the shittiness repeated itself, and here we are. Arlington, like DCUM, is full of people who like to proclaim their Democratic alliance and then advocate for the least progressive course of action. And now all the people who are pissed off that schools couldn't provide the same level of social support (which is not supposed to be schools' job) they did pre-pandemic are complaining about their own inconvenience and painting people who want teachers to feel appreciated and COVID spread to be as limited as possible as driven by fear, wanting schools closed forever, unconcerned about education and students' mental health, indifferent to women's careers, etc. And their solution is vouchers and charters, which solve none of the societal problems that made COVID in the U.S. worse than it had to be. |
Anonymous
Hard disagree. That is exactly what we should expect of elected officials. That they listen to opposing viewpoints and continue to challenge their own thinking. Masking during Omicron is clear for most of us - but probably a different conversation by March. Look at the Dr. Lateef's (dem chair of the PWCS SB) comments in PWCS on masking, the mandate and the way forward. A CB member said it best recently, most people just want to know they've been heard. Really happy that our newest SB member is showing the same openness. |
Anonymous
| Masking isn't really the slam dunk some people seem to think it is. We have incredibly high masking rates in Arlington, including in schools. Somehow, our Omicron curve looks exactly like everyone else's. |
Anonymous
This. I think it's just that people don't want to believe that they can't control the virus. |
Anonymous
Schools were closed during most of that curve. It was the result of unmasked holiday gatherings. Anyone with a social circle right now can probably list a dozen instances of people catching covid in the last month from an unmasked social gathering. It's rampant and unlike any other period during the pandemic. At the same time, we haven't heard of whole classes catching omicron last week at school. I think that would immediately change if kids unmasked and most parents know it. (Some may be okay with that under the everyone-is-going-to-catch-it theory, but most aren't.) |
Anonymous
| People may have accepted that most will catch omicron, but if we unmask then most are also going to also catch delta. Delta didn't hit this area hard in the August wave, so we'll be sitting ducks. |
Anonymous
They don't 100% stop it but they do reduce transmission. At least the masks that responsible people are putting on their kids. |