honest question - what do we do with our kids after May 29?

[Anonymous]

I don’t know, DCPS is looking pretty good after I read this article about Fairfax’s difficulties with distance learning. Their kids JUST started last week, four weeks after the schools were shut down!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing the best they can. I am not a fan of Bowser, but she has done very well. FCPS started this week! So whatever your issues are, can you imagine being in a situation with nothing from DCPS for the last 5 weeks? It can always be worse. It can always be better. I think it is up to each individual family to decide how to make the best of the situation. Think more about positive and constructive solutions than dwelling on what angers and frustrates you. So when school ends, do what you need to make it work. We all have choices.

And PG never even really got off the ground! Agree DCPS has done a good job considering Fairfax, PG, and VA!

No all of VA is slacking. I teach in VA and we’ve been live since school was called. Zoom whole group and small group instruction, office hours for 1:1 meetings with students and parents, sample schedules for families with support from specials teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15:41
Sounds like you’ve identified the things in your life that need to change. You set your a life totally dependent on 2 incomes & away from all family. Sounds like choices have consequences...

I am so glad you are so rich and smug!

On the contrary. We made tough choices to manage the needs of our family. Walked away from many things we felt entitled to, so we could accept 100% responsibility for our kids 100% of the time.
If we made more $$, we’d have more kids. If I’d stayed in a high demand job- we’d have fewer kids ect. If we lived closer to family, that would have played in too. And smug, no. Just tired of parents blaming their work/life balance on no one picking up more of the ‘life’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm, be a parent and take care of your kids...

Not a troll. Just had the number of kids I could be 100% responsible for 100% of the time. And, took a career shift/salary cut/lifestyle down grade that made managing kids & career possible. Interesting that all the rage is at schools for not being open to dump your kids. And not at employers who are demanding full time work while you are at home with kids. We prioritize what we value

+1.

I wonder if the coronavirus will help US society as a whole to more fully see all the trade-offs we make - some do it very consciously, but I think many if not most would opt for something else. I for one would welcome a society that is far more human and family friendly and that prioritizes humans over corporations - let's make sure everybody has housing, a living wage and reliable, good healthcare. My feeling is that we need to tend to some of these basics before society becomes even more stratified and power is even more consolidated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Umm, be a parent and take care of your kids...

Not a troll. Just had the number of kids I could be 100% responsible for 100% of the time. And, took a career shift/salary cut/lifestyle down grade that made managing kids & career possible. Interesting that all the rage is at schools for not being open to dump your kids. And not at employers who are demanding full time work while you are at home with kids. We prioritize what we value

+1.

I wonder if the coronavirus will help US society as a whole to more fully see all the trade-offs we make - some do it very consciously, but I think many if not most would opt for something else. I for one would welcome a society that is far more human and family friendly and that prioritizes humans over corporations - let's make sure everybody has housing, a living wage and reliable, good healthcare. My feeling is that we need to tend to some of these basics before society becomes even more stratified and power is even more consolidated.

+1

I think more people see the cracks in our system now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Umm, be a parent and take care of your kids...

hahaha

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know, DCPS is looking pretty good after I read this article about Fairfax’s difficulties with distance learning. Their kids JUST started last week, four weeks after the schools were shut down!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/fairfax-schools-online-learning-blackboard/2020/04/18/3db6b19c-80b5-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

I thought the same thing. I'm charter and my school is doing better than Fairfax. My friends with kids in DCPS report theirs are doing better too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15:41
Sounds like you’ve identified the things in your life that need to change. You set your a life totally dependent on 2 incomes & away from all family. Sounds like choices have consequences...

I am so glad you are so rich and smug!

On the contrary. We made tough choices to manage the needs of our family. Walked away from many things we felt entitled to, so we could accept 100% responsibility for our kids 100% of the time.
If we made more $$, we’d have more kids. If I’d stayed in a high demand job- we’d have fewer kids ect. If we lived closer to family, that would have played in too. And smug, no. Just tired of parents blaming their work/life balance on no one picking up more of the ‘life’.

Unless you are homeschooling (which is a whole other issue -- most parents who homeschool don't have the depth of knowledge to teach everything adequately to their older kids and that's its own problem), this really means that when things are normal and your kids are in school you have a lot of extra capacity that you aren't doing foo with. I mean, it's nice that you're being stretched right now in a way you can handle, but spare me the lecture about providing for your family when most of the time you're sitting about with nothing to do lady.

This is like the grasshopper telling the ant that it should keep a little energy in reserve so that it can pull it out in an emergency. Dude unlike you *we are going hard all the time.* But hey keep up the condescension, it's amusing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think DCPS is doing the best they can. I am not a fan of Bowser, but she has done very well. FCPS started this week! So whatever your issues are, can you imagine being in a situation with nothing from DCPS for the last 5 weeks? It can always be worse. It can always be better. I think it is up to each individual family to decide how to make the best of the situation. Think more about positive and constructive solutions than dwelling on what angers and frustrates you. So when school ends, do what you need to make it work. We all have choices.

I think DC has done fine considering what they have. However make no mistake, the reason many kids don't have computers is because the Mayor didn't think it was important to push computers to schools until last year. The Mayor has under invested in schools for years and thousands of kids at home without computers is a direct result of that.

She has down well communicating and planning once the emergency started. But she is no friend to public education in this city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:15:41
Sounds like you’ve identified the things in your life that need to change. You set your a life totally dependent on 2 incomes & away from all family. Sounds like choices have consequences...

I am so glad you are so rich and smug!

On the contrary. We made tough choices to manage the needs of our family. Walked away from many things we felt entitled to, so we could accept 100% responsibility for our kids 100% of the time.
If we made more $$, we’d have more kids. If I’d stayed in a high demand job- we’d have fewer kids ect. If we lived closer to family, that would have played in too. And smug, no. Just tired of parents blaming their work/life balance on no one picking up more of the ‘life’.

So when it’s not a pandemic, you sit at home doing nothing....

[Anonymous]

I wonder if this crisis will end some of the worst forms of "intensive parenting." When i was a kid we could not afford camps. In the summer we just ran around the neighborhood with our friends. Biked, picnics, hide and seek, etc. Our parents basically ignored us: we just had to come home for dinner. That was the norm then. Maybe, of necessity, it will become the norm again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if this crisis will end some of the worst forms of "intensive parenting." When i was a kid we could not afford camps. In the summer we just ran around the neighborhood with our friends. Biked, picnics, hide and seek, etc. Our parents basically ignored us: we just had to come home for dinner. That was the norm then. Maybe, of necessity, it will become the norm again.

I’m all for cage free parenting. It’s just not so easy If little Tommy kills grandma.

[Anonymous]

Did you get the extended warranty??

[Anonymous]

closing schools and distance learning raises huge equity issues. There are many, many dcps students who do not have access to any of the content that is bing given/posted by dcps, or if they do (printed packets), may not have a safe or comfortable space at home to complete the work. I think that closing May 29th my have to do with not wanting the gap between low income and higher income students to become even bigger.

[Anonymous]

The equity issue continues no matter what. Lower income families are more likely to have to work essential jobs as food workers, delivery drivers and other positions that pay poorly. So it is likely that is no one there to carefully monitor work and support. Closing schools does nothing to fix that issue. It is incredibly hard to monitor work while on a conference call or while holding a 1:1 but it is harder to check in on school work when you are physically not home. So, that idea that it solves or lessens the inequity does not fly. So while OP might be arranging for 3 hours of work time over the summer, someone else will not have that luxury.

The equity gap grows no matter what because if you do online work some kids can’t access. If you don’t do online work, kids who have parents who are able to design learning programs get access and others don’t. It happens no matter what.