How come other states can make it work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My sister lives in CT. Schools have been open for hybrid since the fall. Of course, they've also been intermittently closed, re-opened, and closed again since fall.

My hometown in CT has been doing hybrid for middle and high school since the fall and half days everyday for elementary. They are now starting plans to fully open back up. It has been very successful. They take COVID seriously but also want kids to learn.

Does your home town CT ES schools have close to 1000 students like here? I grew up in NE and our schools were by towns or small county's.

I have kids at two different FCPS schools, neither has 1000 students. More like 600-700.

I teach at an ES that was just shy of 1000 students last year.

I’m not sure what difference it makes whether a school has 200, 500 or 1000 students. With a hybrid model the individual class sizes will be similar. Even with students all in the structure size corresponds to the number of students. Capacity is capacity no matter the size of the population.

I think it's the amount of crowding. I live in ACPS and everything is so overcrowded. The parents in my New England hometown would have flipped way before it got to this point. They've expanded the schools quickly when needed and there's a lot of extra space to do so. Acres of sports fields, too, at the middle school and high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Studies show it is about 1) politics (bluer voters means more likely to stay closed, but NYC and others can make an exception) and 2) power of the teacher’s unions.

In FCPS’s specific case the school board being utter novices has to be a factor.

How do you figure that blue states being cautious is politics and red states is not?

Also, how do you figure the problem is unions when FCPS is closed and NYC is open?

Most won’t understand your post. There are unions in NY. There are not any in VA.

You need to let the Virginia Education Association that there aren't unions in VA. From their website:

"We’re a Union of more than 40,000 teachers and school support professionals working for the betterment of public education in the Commonwealth."

https://www.veanea.org/about/who-we-are/

Weird that they get that so wrong.

[Anonymous]

What I've seen at ACPS since the summer is a lack of will to go back. Hutchings doesn't want to anger teachers or unions anywhere because he wants to be Sec. of Education. Maybe he's afraid they won't buy his forthcoming book.

But to be fair it's also more complicated than that because of factors that he is not responsible for.

Because of the utter failures of previous school boards, superintendents, city councils and mayors, the schools are completely overcrowded. The school buildings are also falling apart. Mold, asbestos, septic overflows, HVAC and poor ventilation are just the start of the list. Not the best conditions to reopen in... covid or not.

[Anonymous]

“
Different CT poster. My hometown has been all in person for a while and each ES is K-4 and has about 600 students.”

The school size is not as big a deal as the school system size. The latter is where there is no faith in follow through (pretty rightly so).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I've seen at ACPS since the summer is a lack of will to go back. Hutchings doesn't want to anger teachers or unions anywhere because he wants to be Sec. of Education. Maybe he's afraid they won't buy his forthcoming book.

But to be fair it's also more complicated than that because of factors that he is not responsible for.

Because of the utter failures of previous school boards, superintendents, city councils and mayors, the schools are completely overcrowded. The school buildings are also falling apart. Mold, asbestos, septic overflows, HVAC and poor ventilation are just the start of the list. Not the best conditions to reopen in... covid or not.

And after all this, despite the opportunity to vote for a second high school, we will still be stuck with an overcrowded single high school of nearly 6,000 students projected a few years from now. Beyond disappointed in ACPS right now. There’s no reason they couldn’t all least have special education students back in classrooms right now. So much learning loss and students who have simply dropped off the radar completely. What’s the plan to remediate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“
Different CT poster. My hometown has been all in person for a while and each ES is K-4 and has about 600 students.”

The school size is not as big a deal as the school system size. The latter is where there is no faith in follow through (pretty rightly so).

Yet another CT poster here. I think the issue with school system size is that large school systems that cover a huge county are governed by completely different politics than town-based school systems. In my town in Fairfield County, CT, most people had kids in the schools or were going to have kids in the schools -- that is why people moved there. And even retirees whose kids were grown largely saw their property values as being tied to the quality of the school system. None of that is true in Fairfax or Arlington or MoCo -- or anywhere else except maybe Falls Church City. Growing up my parents said they were constantly surprised when talking to friends and family in the DC area about how little control parents seem to have here over the schools, as compared to the local district where I grew up. Overall, I think that can have pros and cons, but when it comes to schools reopening - I think it definitely helps. After all, a lot of the people that elect the school boards in this area don't really care at all about local educational issues. I know I didn't when I was a single 20-something. But single 20-somethings don't really live in the small towns of CT unless they already have kids.

[Anonymous]

100% political. Red area = your kids get schooling. Blue area = school for rich children only. Seriously unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100% political. Red area = your kids get schooling. Blue area = school for rich children only. Seriously unbelievable.

Except schools in the (blue) boston suburbs are open. Yes those are rich areas, but not richer than parts of Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

will someone please explain what concurrent is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They didn’t make it work. They accepted schools rotating constantly in and out of remote and in person, staff and students constantly quarantining, increased viral spread. Teachers have died, oh well. If you’re interesting, rent a house in Tennessee for 2nd semester and enroll your kids.

This. Happened in CO, OH, IN, CA, and other places.

Yes. With a virus with a 99.99% survival rate..some people still get sick and die. Teachers would have died whether they were working, or not. Grocery store clerks died. Nurses died. Postal workers died.

I don't believe that survival rate is accurate. Further, you don't get to decide the risk tolerance for teachers. You just don't.

Grocery store clerks, postal workers, nurses . . . yes, they died. They should not have but people could not be bothered (collectively) to think beyond their own wants and THOSE PEOPLE caused those deaths. Further, teachers are not essential in the same way. They do not need to be onsite to teach, all the bitching and whining to the contrary. There are certainly failings in DL, and I have some complaints, but that is not due to teachers but how the district has implemented in (FCPS).

Dp. In fairfax county, there have been only 136 deaths of people age 64 and under, which includes a grand total of 0 in the 0-17 group. There have been 51,000 confirmed cases in this age group, which makes for a 99.73% survival rate. It's probably even higher than that because I'm sure theres many more people who have been barely sick and not tested, or maybe only one person in a sick family got tested. The risk of suicide and other delays in school academically and socially in this age group is higher than the actual risk of dying of covid.

Now the death rate of the elderly in the county is abysmal though and those should be prioritized for vaccine, along with anyone high risk under 65.

Then open schools. Open civilization. For the vast majority of people, this is not the bubonic plague that the media hypes it up to be.

[Anonymous]

100% political. Red state kids get school. Unbelievable.

You can have school in a blue state. Just pay 40k per year. No biggie.

[Anonymous]

Our private has been open since September and only 2 children 2 separate times have been reported to have COVID till now. They contracted it somewhere outside of school and no one else in the school was infected so far. We have daily temp checks before school. Everyone is seated 6 ft apart, masks are worn at all times except lunch, teachers come to the classroom and recess is done in “ Classroom PODS” u cannot venture outside of your pod At PE or recess. Lunch is eaten at your desk and extra curricular clubs are thru zoom or google meets. Both times when the two kids tested positive, classes were moved online and they closed the school for deep cleaning and for the health dept to do contact tracing-It’s not ideal, it’s a risk we take, but are kids really wanted to go back to school and our youngest is terrible at distance learning. Crossing my fingers we make it ok till June.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our private has been open since September and only 2 children 2 separate times have been reported to have COVID till now. They contracted it somewhere outside of school and no one else in the school was infected so far. We have daily temp checks before school. Everyone is seated 6 ft apart, masks are worn at all times except lunch, teachers come to the classroom and recess is done in “ Classroom PODS” u cannot venture outside of your pod At PE or recess. Lunch is eaten at your desk and extra curricular clubs are thru zoom or google meets. Both times when the two kids tested positive, classes were moved online and they closed the school for deep cleaning and for the health dept to do contact tracing-It’s not ideal, it’s a risk we take, but are kids really wanted to go back to school and our youngest is terrible at distance learning. Crossing my fingers we make it ok till June.

That’s great for you. The point is, those of us who don’t have a spare 40k should also be able to educate our children.

[Anonymous]

They’re not making it work.
The schools that have reopened are only doing it two days a week. And kids/teachers are constantly having Togo back and forth between concurrent and
and 100% virtual due to Covid exposures at school.
I have several family members in various states whose kids are doing concurrent, and they tell me it’s an absolute sh**show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Studies show it is about 1) politics (bluer voters means more likely to stay closed, but NYC and others can make an exception) and 2) power of the teacher’s unions.

In FCPS’s specific case the school board being utter novices has to be a factor.

How do you figure that blue states being cautious is politics and red states is not?

Also, how do you figure the problem is unions when FCPS is closed and NYC is open?

NYC has surveillance testing and a VERY SMALL percentage of its students back. Nothing like what FCPS and APS and the like are attempting WITHOUT TESTING.

Why are people focusing on FCPS, when all of the surrounding counties as well as half the counties in Virginia are also 100% virtual?
Jeff if you are reading this please, please, please start a FCPS only forum. Those of us in other NOVA districts are sick of people acting like FCPS is the only school system in Northern Virginia.