Reply to The voucher effect

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So many right wing loonies on the FCPS and AAP boards right now. Back to school and election silly season has them acting out again and  threatening vouchers and private school. Whatever. Complain away. Yell into the void. FCPS is a public school with over 160,000 kids. Reid isn't going to be able consult every individual parent on every decision she bas to make. That's impossible. Her job is to make the best decisions she can to advance education and opportunities for the most students. If you don't like the way she is doing her job that she was hired to do, then put your application in. Go for it! See how you deal with having to make these decisions and having lunatic parents yelling in your face, calling you names, threatening your life, and generally muddying every conversation. [/quote]

Two things:

1) When you dismiss legitimate complaints about FCPS as “MAGA” or “right wing”, you go a long way toward hollowing out the Democratic Party. It’s akin to making an argument that you don’t want me in your coalition. That might not impact whether a Democrat gets elected in deep blue Fairfax, but are you sure you want to turn away people from the Democratic Party? Is that going to get Dems back into power? I’m incredibly frustrated with what’s going on at the national level. I’m also mad as hell at what this school board is doing. The school board is doing one hell of a job recruiting me for the Republican Party.

2) can you point me to the posting for the superintendent job? Otherwise, your point about people being able to apply for it just comes off as unserious.[/quote]

No one is dismissing your complaints.  I have been arguing with you here and I AGREE with your COMPLAINTS.  We are disagreeing with your idea that vouchers will help solve the issues you are raising. The idea that blowing up the system to get what you want is harmful to me and my kids.  It isn’t going to touch the schoool board.

In simple language:
We agree with your complaints.

We disagree that your solution will help.[/quote]

Other than accusing your opponents of being MAGA, what’s [b]your[/b] solution? [/quote]

In any post I have put up, I have very carefully said that you aren’t MAGA. Your solution however uses a similar thought process.

Early Release: Look if my kid came home saying they had been on a lap top for 3 hours, I would contact the school. I would request that my child read a book and be allowed outside during that block so they switch groups.  I would look for camps like code ninja or martial arts programs that pick up from school for those days. I would also escalate as necessary. Principal, executive principal, etc if that continued. Keep in mind if your kid is in elementary, that may be the last thing they did or the most salient in their minds.

Redistricting:  Personally, I’m biding my time until the next maps come out.  Then it is full frontal assault.  Keep pinging them on WHY they want this.  Join the facebook group fairfacts. Email your area BRAC members, school board.  Keep the pressure on.  Talk about how beleaguered we are as a county and how they can’t possibly have accurate enrollment information with the unemployment and deportments. Pressure has worked to have them lessen the scope and allow grandfathering.  Keep it up.

Alienating parents:  I think not have homework is a huge issue because we as parents don’t know what our kids are doing and what they need help with.  Make it mandatory. Sure some will hate this, but weekly homework issued on Monday and due on Friday keeps parents informed. It would go a long way to establish connection between home and school.

[/quote]

I agree with you on homework (within reason and appropriate).

On early dismissal you seem to miss the part where Reid lied to parents in 2025, took no parental feedback before the 2026 decision, and now you think it’s on parents to scramble to fix it at their own expense. This is the alienation point: if I’m taking PTO or paying for additional services to cover what is already supposed to be educational time, the school is already failed.  Yes parents can mitigate the failure, but [b]everything you suggested to mitigate the failure is a private option[/b]. If you’re saying I need to pay private organizations to educate my child…why wouldn’t I just take a voucher to offset the cost of paying a private organization to educate my child? 
[/quote]

No I didn’t say that privates were the only option. I said to make a complaint and escalate first. I would absolutely do this repeatedly if was contemplating taking time off work over sending my kid to the aftercare.

Another idea, ask one of your kids friends/parents if they can come over and the reciprocate another day.

If you are unable to see that paying a private program for 40 hours a year for supplemental activities is different than paying a years worth of academic tuition I’m not sure we are agreeing on how math works.

To you “Reid lied to us” point all school systems in the area “lied” because they were all scrambling last year. This year we were told well before summer. Early release PD days are common in most school districts. [/quote]

I don’t know that I consider May “well before summer”  or that five minutes at the end of a board meeting constitutes communication but sure. You can feel satisfied by that if you want. The lie was that last year was the only year we were doing it, and that we “had” to. Now here we are. You feel satisfied, I feel disrespected and alienated. We both get the same number of votes in an election and so the school needs to figure out how to get people while feel like I do to pull the lever for them.

And this isn’t a math problem, so much as a roles issue. Yes, I can take PTO, or organize playdates, but the point is that my child is wasting eight days they’re supposed to be learning. If I want them to be learning on those eight days, your point is I should pay a private organization to make sure they’re learning.  [b]My point is if I am responsible for finding a private organization to educate my child eight of the days FCPS is already responsible for doing so, why don’t I just find one organization for the other 172 as well[/b]?
[/quote]

I've got bad news for you. When we sent my son to private there were far fewer school days than FCPS. I think he went 15 less days those years. Plus they decided to extend winter break by a week one year when the flu was rampant and they didn't want kids bringing it back to the classrooms (it was a tiny school, they could do this).  They pivoted to virtual school for a week (this wasn't covid).  If you're going private just for more academic hours, you'll have to be very picky. And that pickiness is going to cost you $20-$40k, vs $50/day for after care 8 times a year. Seems like a lot of money to prove a point, but maybe you have more disposable income than we do.

Every private school we applied to during those years had a wait list. There aren't enough spaces for more than a trivial percent of students to leave public for private.

The communication was far better from private to public, and class sizes were much smaller (which is what my child desperately needed at the time due to extra issues), but that's about all that could justify the cost.[/quote]

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