APS VPL is a dumpster fire

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anonymous

Ms. Loft and her decisions are horrible. She is a former HS principal. How does this qualify her to oversee curriculum for pr-k (VPI) through 12?

She is also the former principal of Swanson MS. She is certainly qualified--and probably much more qualified than you.

Well I see her team has made an appearance here.

She was a train wreck at Swanson-two kids there while she was principal. I'm convinced she has some dirt on someone high up. There's no other explanation for her still being in her position despite the massive carnage she's left in her wake. I hope she's happy with the job she's done.

As a teacher, I just wished she'd assign all the K-12 specialists who work in Syphax to create materials that classroom teachers can use county wide during the pandemic.

It was painful recreating the wheel every. single. night. last year. This year, it's the third day of school and TODAY she sends an email to have asynchronous materials ready, per subject, per power standard. Why am I finding out about this NOW as I'm in person teaching beginning of the year standards, routines and learning about my students? Why the hell weren't specialists doing that stuff this summer? Why are you adding just one more thing to my already overworked plate?

They got screwed with the ATS closing today. Now making teachers do more work last minute?! Bless you. I I don’t know how you keep up with the constant moving bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After tomorrow, they'll have 5 days to get their house in order for the return from the break on Wednesday, September 8th. How they're going to get the staffing during that holiday weekend would be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The next School Board meeting will then be Thursday, September 9th.

I would just say I'll sit back and enjoy the show until then, but there are actual kids suffering. You don't promise something if you can't deliver and, when you start to realize you're going to have problems, you be as transparent as possible with them so people can make alternative plans. This is like Communications/Common Sense 101.

My kid has severe medical issues and is in the VLP. APS didn’t start the pandemic. This is all uncharted water. Why are so many people so hateful? You could not have done any better.

APS didn't start the pandemic, but APS didn't have to (a) have a virtual program open to non-medical kids (APS has 3% virtual enrollment vs. Fairfax's medical-only virtual program has 0.2%) and (b) fail to communicate staffing problems well in advance to parents.

There's a reason why pretty much every other district passed on doing what APS (so poorly) is doing. But there's no excuse for the failure to properly inform virtual school parents of the staffing problems well in advance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bridget Loft is responsible for no new instruction in Spring 2020, the push for Ed tech/device usage in classrooms, and the entire VLP (an effort she wanted to push regardless of the pandemic to address overcrowding.

There should be some accountability for the travesty which is VLP. Ms. Loft is it.

APS better tie these two things together - virtual learning program is unwanted (only 3% chose it DURING A PANDEMIC) and almost impossible to manage (why every other district chose to offer Virtual Virginia).

Build a 4th high school to Address overcrowding. Move an option school to Tuckahoe or Nottingham to free up a seats in the south where we need them.

Also, TEACHERS didn’t want concurrent.

+1. She also totally underestimated the challenge of the youngest learners (K-3) accessing education through a device. Zero attention or thought. Even her recent School Board slides herald Dreambox as the solution for catching students up for their major losses in math. Total nonsense.

NP. She isn't responsible for pushing Ed tech/devices in the classroom. That came from her predecessor Tara whats-her-name and Murphy.
And they're going to tout Dreambox as the solution because they don't actually have any solution for learning gaps. My kids are done with Dreambox but they continue to complain about it.

The slides are last week's SB meeting were from Loft and Duran. Why not hold them accountable? They've been in role more than long enough. Stop passing the buck. Loft should have a plan for addressing elementary math learning loss and and doesn't beyond Dreambox. Total abdication of responsibility. Loft needs to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are several problems with VPL. One obvious problem I see, in looking at the teacher recruitment, is that it specifically says you can be reassigned to teach in a school building at any time. So that means that you are signing on to teach wherever APS needs you, whether that be virtual or in-person. Teaching virtually appears to be a very different skill set than teaching in person. There might be appropriate candidates outside the geographic area who have the skill set to teach virtually- but APS is restricting the candidate pool to those who are able to teach virtually or in-person.

Another failure I see is that APS is pretending that virtual is 'equivalent' to in person. It's not and never can be. The 'equivalent' to in-person would be home bound instruction. This has existed for a long time for children who, for a variety of reasons, can't attend school in person. Those children who have a medical necessity to not come to school would be vastly better served by home bound instruction, rather than by being thrown into a 'virtual' class with a substitute.

+1

Yes, I almost forgot about this medical hospital school program. It was though to get approved before covid so know if they used this home bound program the student certainly needed it. A doctor had to verify need and it can be medical or behavioral health related,but severe enough to warrant in home instruction. In home services for OT,PT, nursing m. home health aide has resumed so this is probably up and running too. If a family has more than 1 child they can use the same teacher for all subjects as well. All others may want to consider other options. I am a parent of a child with IEP and know how it feels to be stuck as last year I would have ran to private had it not been for the IEP. We are happy to be in person again and will feel better when our DS is eligible for vaccine. This why Im saying we should include behavioral health reasons also in addition to medical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bridget Loft is responsible for no new instruction in Spring 2020, the push for Ed tech/device usage in classrooms, and the entire VLP (an effort she wanted to push regardless of the pandemic to address overcrowding.

There should be some accountability for the travesty which is VLP. Ms. Loft is it.

APS better tie these two things together - virtual learning program is unwanted (only 3% chose it DURING A PANDEMIC) and almost impossible to manage (why every other district chose to offer Virtual Virginia).

Build a 4th high school to Address overcrowding. Move an option school to Tuckahoe or Nottingham to free up a seats in the south where we need them.

Also, TEACHERS didn’t want concurrent.

+1. She also totally underestimated the challenge of the youngest learners (K-3) accessing education through a device. Zero attention or thought. Even her recent School Board slides herald Dreambox as the solution for catching students up for their major losses in math. Total nonsense.

NP. She isn't responsible for pushing Ed tech/devices in the classroom. That came from her predecessor Tara whats-her-name and Murphy.
And they're going to tout Dreambox as the solution because they don't actually have any solution for learning gaps. My kids are done with Dreambox but they continue to complain about it.

The slides are last week's SB meeting were from Loft and Duran. Why not hold them accountable? They've been in role more than long enough. Stop passing the buck. Loft should have a plan for addressing elementary math learning loss and and doesn't beyond Dreambox. Total abdication of responsibility. Loft needs to go.

+1000


The plan should not be 100 dollars an hour tutoring for math and 80 for reading we spent all summer due to summer school being we canceled and some virtual vendor being offered to my DD with IEP. We now continue on with math tutoring due to the lack of math coaching available in school. Not all APS families have means to pay for this kind of help so they need to step it up and be held accountable!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of the opinion that APS should have directed virtual students to VV to begin with, but no one should be ok with them not appropriately delivering on their promise of virtual schooling. This is an APS failure, not failure of the families that chose their virtual offering.

Unless you’re ok with abject failure from our school system, you should not be shrugging your shoulders over this or blaming “crazy parents”. Crazy parents aren’t the decision makers here.

Bad decisions. Hold APS accountable.

THIS! Duran, Loft, School Board ... all should be held accountable.

Yes! The instinct to not hold school board or APS accountable is appalling. I very much hope to see a serious discussion about this at the next school board meeting. I could NOT believe the short shrift that Loft gave to the very concerning disparities in SOL results.

0 questions from the School Board about the then-upcoming launch of the VLP at the last School Board meeting. Then again, the School Board never even voted on establishing the VLP. They seem to enjoy taking any responsibility for governing whatsoever (other than passing a budget, renaming schools and redoing boundary lines).

Because they only care about their political careers. School Board needs to be disbanded.

[Anonymous]

Sure the Fairfax folks are doing so well with their little recall project

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anonymous

Ms. Loft and her decisions are horrible. She is a former HS principal. How does this qualify her to oversee curriculum for pr-k (VPI) through 12?

She is also the former principal of Swanson MS. She is certainly qualified--and probably much more qualified than you.

Well I see her team has made an appearance here.

She was a train wreck at Swanson-two kids there while she was principal. I'm convinced she has some dirt on someone high up. There's no other explanation for her still being in her position despite the massive carnage she's left in her wake. I hope she's happy with the job she's done.

As a teacher, I just wished she'd assign all the K-12 specialists who work in Syphax to create materials that classroom teachers can use county wide during the pandemic.

It was painful recreating the wheel every. single. night. last year. This year, it's the third day of school and TODAY she sends an email to have asynchronous materials ready, per subject, per power standard. Why am I finding out about this NOW as I'm in person teaching beginning of the year standards, routines and learning about my students? Why the hell weren't specialists doing that stuff this summer? Why are you adding just one more thing to my already overworked plate?

They got screwed with the ATS closing today. Now making teachers do more work last minute?! Bless you. I I don’t know how you keep up with the constant moving bar.

This request has nothing to do with ATS closing yesterday. Parents were seeing news reports of mass quarantines in the news from schools that opened a few weeks ago and asked APS for a plan. This is how APS is responding: pre-written assignments directed to the power standards. Not actual replacement of the missed work.

[Anonymous]

Parent here. What did you expect? If there isn't going to be concurrent or livestreaming for kids who are quarantined, then teachers have to send work home for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m of the opinion that APS should have directed virtual students to VV to begin with, but no one should be ok with them not appropriately delivering on their promise of virtual schooling. This is an APS failure, not failure of the families that chose their virtual offering.

Unless you’re ok with abject failure from our school system, you should not be shrugging your shoulders over this or blaming “crazy parents”. Crazy parents aren’t the decision makers here.

Bad decisions. Hold APS accountable.

THIS! Duran, Loft, School Board ... all should be held accountable.

Yes! The instinct to not hold school board or APS accountable is appalling. I very much hope to see a serious discussion about this at the next school board meeting. I could NOT believe the short shrift that Loft gave to the very concerning disparities in SOL results.

0 questions from the School Board about the then-upcoming launch of the VLP at the last School Board meeting. Then again, the School Board never even voted on establishing the VLP. They seem to enjoy taking any responsibility for governing whatsoever (other than passing a budget, renaming schools and redoing boundary lines).

Because they only care about their political careers. School Board needs to be disbanded.

I can bet that every single SB member knew about the open VLP teacher positions (it was asked by a member of APE at the townhall). If the SB had asked at the last SB meeting, then they would have put themselves on public notice and implicitly would have been taking on responsibility for it. They want to avoid all responsibility for the functioning of the school system (e.g., failure to vote at all on return to school last year) - but they love boundaries, school names and national Democratic issues (e.g., SROs, Indigenous People's Day, wearing orange for gun violence).

[Anonymous]

so APE now pretends to care about the kids in virtual?

LMAO over here

[Anonymous]

Which member of APE asked it at the town hall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so APE now pretends to care about the kids in virtual?

LMAO over here

Yes, they've already released a statement on it, demanding APS help those kids ASAP. Has any other parent or student organization yet?
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQ1algm7PocXqkJR-xduEgi2dffmC4NKg4tXgjAJ9sYfGceivOgqy-vwRRx1QFykBLjrKm9p_wiqCXt/pub?urp=gmail_link

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After tomorrow, they'll have 5 days to get their house in order for the return from the break on Wednesday, September 8th. How they're going to get the staffing during that holiday weekend would be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The next School Board meeting will then be Thursday, September 9th.

I would just say I'll sit back and enjoy the show until then, but there are actual kids suffering. You don't promise something if you can't deliver and, when you start to realize you're going to have problems, you be as transparent as possible with them so people can make alternative plans. This is like Communications/Common Sense 101.

My kid has severe medical issues and is in the VLP. APS didn’t start the pandemic. This is all uncharted water. Why are so many people so hateful? You could not have done any better.

Your kid could be in Virtual Virginia right now. A fully supported, fully functional Virtual program. That is what is happening in all of the other school divisions, that made the decision to use that resource. Instead, APS chose to sink a substantial amount of their funding and staff time into a home grown program, and now your child is stuck without education. It did not have to be this way. You should be mad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After tomorrow, they'll have 5 days to get their house in order for the return from the break on Wednesday, September 8th. How they're going to get the staffing during that holiday weekend would be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The next School Board meeting will then be Thursday, September 9th.

I would just say I'll sit back and enjoy the show until then, but there are actual kids suffering. You don't promise something if you can't deliver and, when you start to realize you're going to have problems, you be as transparent as possible with them so people can make alternative plans. This is like Communications/Common Sense 101.

My kid has severe medical issues and is in the VLP. APS didn’t start the pandemic. This is all uncharted water. Why are so many people so hateful? You could not have done any better.

Your kid could be in Virtual Virginia right now. A fully supported, fully functional Virtual program. That is what is happening in all of the other school divisions, that made the decision to use that resource. Instead, APS chose to sink a substantial amount of their funding and staff time into a home grown program, and now your child is stuck without education. It did not have to be this way. You should be mad.

It sounds like parents were most concerned with IEPs expiring. Why couldn't APS just agree to honor IEPs for students who return to APS from VV or private schools following the pandemic? That has to be more efficient than starting a brand new virtual program for $11m.