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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]APS administration treated teachers terribly.  Everything from ongoing whiplash messages about when they'd go back, no answers from HR on who had to go back in person, no confidence in safety measures or what was or wasn't allowed, lack of IT support or guidance, shoddy teacher vaccine roll out, and on and on.  It was a hot mess.  From my conversations with teacher friends, there was more APS teacher angst over APS administration indecision, poor communication and lack of leadership than from any parents.  Not to mention that a ton of parent angst was completely the fault of APS leadership.  Let's put the blame on those with actual accountability.  [/quote]

Teacher here. In my opinion the group "Smart Restart" made the teachers situation a lot worse. They started to speak on behalf of all teachers, but they didn't understand that they were only talking to a small cadre of staff who were understandably scared about returning to school. For most of us though, we were tired of virtual education and were ready to go back once we were vaccinated. I wish APS would have waited until the second shot was in our arms, but I think parent pressure from the other side APE prevented that. I loved meeting and seeing my kids even twice a week. It's the virtual students I always felt bad for. I don't think I gave them a good education this year. Even to the ones who excelled at home. If there was anything you should have fought for all year, it was to make concurrent education not even a consideration.

I agree that APS treated us horribly too, but we're used to it. Prepandemic, APS was a lousy employer, and we're used to keeping our heads low and switching things up quickly. It just got worse. A lot of my relationships with parents were irreparably ruined, and I hope this summer I can regroup so that I can trust you again next year.

None of the other districts are that great either, except for salary. I love my school and teaching your children, and that's the only reason I'm staying.[/quote]

Thank you for your perspective. I hope you are able to rest this summer. Please know that these parent groups don't speak for most parents. I hope all of them go away now that schools are returning to five days a week.

[/quote]

I'm in Smart Restart. We did not advocate for staying virtual. We advocated for things like ventilation, outdoor lunch, testing. Many of the parents in SR sent their kids hybrid.

APE tried to paint SR - and everyone else not in APE for that matter- as "stay closed" but that is and was not true at all.

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SR absolutely advocated that kids shouldn't go back hybrid until there were X bazillion air changes per nanosecond in every classroom in Arlington with detailed spreadsheets of the sq footage of every classroom in APS.  They told tales of catastrophic contagion if this unattainable-in-2021 threshold wasn't met.

There was also prolific SR posting about APS buying the wrong air filters for classrooms, inciting a great deal of fear in teachers.  My own child's teacher was petrified, having spoken with a SR leader whose child was also in her class.  [/quote]

Also the lunch needs to be outside OR ELSE messaging. This doesn't look like the Twitter feed of a group that is onboard with in person school, even now. https://twitter.com/smartrestartaps[/quote]

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