So over APS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

Incorrect, at least for Wakefield. PP above is correct. No in-person learning for hybrid students AND they are async at home. My HS'er is still asleep. It's basically a week off. DC has an AP test this week, and otherwise no real work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

Incorrect, at least for Wakefield. PP above is correct. No in-person learning for hybrid students AND they are async at home. My HS'er is still asleep. It's basically a week off. DC has an AP test this week, and otherwise no real work.

Have you ever been in a school the last few weeks of the year? There was no learning happening then, and APS is laser focused on SOLs so once that drops off its like lopping off the engine of an airplane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

Whoops PP here. I realize that this is not consistent across all APS high schools. Sorry. Unfortunately the number of groupings required for SOL assessments takes a lot of teachers and staff to pull off.

[Anonymous]

Sorry pp here again. Additionally you aren't allowed to test your own students on the SOLs so different teachers need to be examiners and proctors for students they don't normally teach. It's a logistical puzzle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

Incorrect, at least for Wakefield. PP above is correct. No in-person learning for hybrid students AND they are async at home. My HS'er is still asleep. It's basically a week off. DC has an AP test this week, and otherwise no real work.

Have you ever been in a school the last few weeks of the year? There was no learning happening then, and APS is laser focused on SOLs so once that drops off its like lopping off the engine of an airplane.

I realize that there's typically no learning the last few weeks of school. But this year, there's been virtually no learning ALL year. If they need the classrooms for SOLs and AP testing, they should still do synchronous learning. We are at Yorktown.

[Anonymous]

This is why I thought it was nuts for the APE folks to be arguing for more adjustments to be made to send kids into school these last few weeks. The last two or three weeks of school are just filled with a bunch of asynchronous time where some kids will try to finish up assignments and other kids will just sort of play around. Teachers have papers to grade and SOLs to proctor and their classrooms to clean up and nobody wants to assign or grade additional projects that are going to be counted toward the final grade. If you don't know this at APS you either have very young kids or haven't been paying attention.

And no, that doesn't mean we should be working even harder this year to get more kids more learning and more schooltime. You think kids want to learn a bunch of new material at this point in the year? Kids are exhausted, too.

[Anonymous]

I got to say DCUM let me down. I was promised no work after SOLs and my 3rd grader has a research project. Just want this year to be over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are the high schoolers async this week? I realize there’s SOLs and AP exams but that’s not a reason to cancel school. WTF? DD has nothing to do all week except for an SOL on Friday. The entire year has been a a waste.

High schoolers are NOT asynchronous. They are virtual and synchronous. They need the classroom space for SOL groups but the actual classes are all still happening virtually.

Incorrect, at least for Wakefield. PP above is correct. No in-person learning for hybrid students AND they are async at home. My HS'er is still asleep. It's basically a week off. DC has an AP test this week, and otherwise no real work.

Have you ever been in a school the last few weeks of the year? There was no learning happening then, and APS is laser focused on SOLs so once that drops off its like lopping off the engine of an airplane.

I realize that there's typically no learning the last few weeks of school. But this year, there's been virtually no learning ALL year. If they need the classrooms for SOLs and AP testing, they should still do synchronous learning. We are at Yorktown.

Didn't the school talk email say it was synchronous due to a lack of proctors NOT due to a lack of classroom space. So teachers are filling in for proctors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a new phenomenon. APS has been on a decline for a while. The pandemic has just shown a huge spotlight on it. Parents are now seeing the reality of an APS education. Lots are wisely abandoning ship.

Yes, we and others we know are seriously contemplating other areas regionally or nationally. We just are waiting for the green light from our offices. But, why spend exorbitant amounts of money to live somewhere and have your child receive no to a maybe subpar education? Makes no sense really. Live somewhere else more affordable and get a better return on your education investment. Win win.

Spot on. My kid has been in APS for 10 years, and I’ve always been under the impression it was good. Now I know better. With so many APS apologists around, it’s hard to make the case that the quality is not there. You get hit with all the BS from posters above about being a helicopter parents, it being a pandemic, it being Thursday. The excuse du jour. It’s NEVER APS’s fault. Always the fault of parents and kids.

Always remember: there is a LOT of real estate equity riding on the narrative that Arlington schools are excellent, and not mediocre and coasting on the high test scores of a population of highly-educated families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a new phenomenon. APS has been on a decline for a while. The pandemic has just shown a huge spotlight on it. Parents are now seeing the reality of an APS education. Lots are wisely abandoning ship.

Yes, we and others we know are seriously contemplating other areas regionally or nationally. We just are waiting for the green light from our offices. But, why spend exorbitant amounts of money to live somewhere and have your child receive no to a maybe subpar education? Makes no sense really. Live somewhere else more affordable and get a better return on your education investment. Win win.

Spot on. My kid has been in APS for 10 years, and I’ve always been under the impression it was good. Now I know better. With so many APS apologists around, it’s hard to make the case that the quality is not there. You get hit with all the BS from posters above about being a helicopter parents, it being a pandemic, it being Thursday. The excuse du jour. It’s NEVER APS’s fault. Always the fault of parents and kids.

Always remember: there is a LOT of real estate equity riding on the narrative that Arlington schools are excellent, and not mediocre and coasting on the high test scores of a population of highly-educated families.

This. Exactly. APS and Duran REALLY have rolled the dice on how they handled this year. Especially with neighboring shining stars like Fairfax and MoCo diverging and making greater efforts to return students. Every APS family who has struggled through this will not forget. And every incoming family who contemplates where to land will likely be uninterested in the game of virtual school dysfunction vs. more days per week.

I think APS went bust on this gamble in a number of ways, and even if the sting isn't immediate, it will be in the years to come as the test scores and "results" drop off and people give up and move on. This will be the prophecy that APS wrote for itself, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid had almost 100 missing assignments last quarter and the teacher never reached out (elementary school). I stopped checking Canvas because it never occurred to me that my A student had simply checked out and started lying to me about completing his work. Could I have done better monitoring? Absolutely! Could my little kid have just been more responsible? Of course! Could the teacher have reached out to meet with me to discuss rather than just dumping the info on the report card? I think so. I’ve been very understanding of APS navigating the pandemic and having to rely heavily on remote learning, but this made me realize the teacher probably doesn’t like my kid and doesn’t care if he learns anything this year. Not really the vibe anyone wants for their kid.

APS teacher here. I’m so sorry this happened and I hope you have complained at the principal level. That is ridiculous. I give between 2-4 canvas assignments per day and if I had 2+ days where a student didn’t turn in work, I’d be contacting parents. this year has been hard for both parents and teachers but that is ridiculous by any measure.

I appreciate this but it is so clearly not the standard which suggests to me that APS teachers have not been told there is any expectation to reach out to parents when kids stop turning in work. I have kids in 2 different APS schools (ES and MS) and between them they have 14-15 teachers. At various points in the year, they have gone WEEKS without turning in work and I have not had 1 teacher reach out to me to ask what was going on. I would have obviously appreciated it, but beyond that: what if one of these kids was/is really struggling? Had become homeless? Was getting hurt at home? It really alarmed me that no one at the school seemed to care enough to send a one-line email. So, while I agree that this is ridiculous, I'm a DP telling you firsthand that this has been commonplace in APS this year and is one of many reasons why parents are so pissed.

[Anonymous]

^^^ exactly, it's been one thing after another this year. too many things to even keep track of. this week of no school work at the high school level was just the icing on the cake. i don't care what the reason is, just care that there's no teaching/learning happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not a new phenomenon. APS has been on a decline for a while. The pandemic has just shown a huge spotlight on it. Parents are now seeing the reality of an APS education. Lots are wisely abandoning ship.

Yes, we and others we know are seriously contemplating other areas regionally or nationally. We just are waiting for the green light from our offices. But, why spend exorbitant amounts of money to live somewhere and have your child receive no to a maybe subpar education? Makes no sense really. Live somewhere else more affordable and get a better return on your education investment. Win win.

Spot on. My kid has been in APS for 10 years, and I’ve always been under the impression it was good. Now I know better. With so many APS apologists around, it’s hard to make the case that the quality is not there. You get hit with all the BS from posters above about being a helicopter parents, it being a pandemic, it being Thursday. The excuse du jour. It’s NEVER APS’s fault. Always the fault of parents and kids.

Always remember: there is a LOT of real estate equity riding on the narrative that Arlington schools are excellent, and not mediocre and coasting on the high test scores of a population of highly-educated families.

This. Exactly. APS and Duran REALLY have rolled the dice on how they handled this year. Especially with neighboring shining stars like Fairfax and MoCo diverging and making greater efforts to return students. Every APS family who has struggled through this will not forget. And every incoming family who contemplates where to land will likely be uninterested in the game of virtual school dysfunction vs. more days per week.

I think APS went bust on this gamble in a number of ways, and even if the sting isn't immediate, it will be in the years to come as the test scores and "results" drop off and people give up and move on. This will be the prophecy that APS wrote for itself, sadly.

Uh. APS returned more kids than Fairfax and Montgomery. Also, if you’re a MS or HS parent and you’re posting on DCUM you are perfectly capable of setting ParentVue to give you a weekly count of your kids’ missing assignments. Not difficult.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Yes, it is that difficult. Parentvue is NOT accurate. Plus some teachers use Canvas and DO NOT update it. My DD's assignments says they are all late, but in fact they are not. Cannot rely on this.