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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some nuances I'm not seeing reflected here - as the working parent of a young child, I definitely was told that by wanting in-person school, I "just wanted free daycare"...but usually that sentiment was expressed by people of conservative political persuasions who probably thought women should be SAHMs anyway ("if you can't/don't want to take care of your own kids you shouldn't have had them!"). From teachers/teacher advocacy groups, I mostly heard a lot of "not [reopening] until it's safe", which seemed to be unclear at best and a constantly moving goalpost at worst.  I was incensed by teachers who took full advantage of priority vaccination and then still refused to return to in-person teaching.

All that said...the majority of APS and FCPS parents chose remote learning in the fall of 2020 (not sure about other counties). You can split hairs and say it's because the proposed in-person offerings weren't workable (staggered starts, alternate days), but looking back 15 months ago, we didn't know what we do now, and most people erred on the side of keeping kids home.

The "OpenFCPS" crowd was an uneasy alliance of Covid deniers, parents who wanted/needed their kids out of the house, and people with serious concerns about their children's educational needs being met (or not)...while they were loud, they were never able to formulate a cogent "Plan B" that included CDC-compliant risk mitigation measures.

I can understand being mad at local school boards, at teachers, at teachers unions. Some of the stuff that was done (remote school from within school facilities, for a fee?!) was the antithesis of equity. And the fact that working parents got the rawest deal of the pandemic has been broadly documented. All fair points.

But to go from there to...voting in the party that opposes paid family and medical leave, dispenses with public health mitigation measures like masks and vaccinations, and siphons off public school money to private schools and corporate-helmed charters (while simultaneously decreasing overall incoming tax revenue) seems to me to be textbook cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.  I won't go so far as to say flipping one's vote to Youngkin was racist, but I absolutely believe that the people who did so en masse (college-educated white women) acted in an effort to preserve their own privilege in shaping public schools to best serve their own interests. Just because Youngkin was smart enough to largely keep his mouth shut during the campaign doesn't mean he's not the policy equivalent of Trump et al.[/quote]

So your point is, that it’s a white college-educated woman’s responsibility to shut up, pay taxes, and not expect a thing for them?[/quote]

Wait...what?!  That's quite a leap. If high-quality, safe, continuously open public schools are your goal, don't you think it's a bit short-sighted to think you'll get that from the party that consistently denigrates public health measures and either directly or indirectly defunds public education? Seems rather like expecting Rs to do something about gun control because Democrats moved too slowly on the issue for your taste...[/quote]

given that Democrats literally closed schools for 1.5 years, you don’t have much credibility. That’s the whole problem. [/quote]

I think 2 thing are worth noting: 1) what PP said.  D's did not offer "high-quality, safe, continuously open public schools."  So it's not like there's a home with the D's any longer for that.  
2)  people who are mad often vote against a thing more than for a thing.  I know we all want to be rational and reasonable and stuff, but when D's didn't prioritize education , and on top of that told parents (moms, mostly) to just shut up and accept it, that made some people mad.  Thus is the nature of politics.[/quote]

To point 1, I said that's the goal, right? And there are logical and illogical ways to try and achieve that goal.  
To point 2, you're totally right about the "voting against things" part. It's really pathetic. But how were [predominately D-led] public school administrations supposed to 'prioritize education' when teachers wouldn't return to work and many of the parents who wanted in-person school wouldn't agree to mitigation measures? What magic solution do these 'switch' voters believe was available 15 months ago?[/quote]

oh yeah, somehow public schools were completely unable to open in the *exact same cities* where private and Catholic schools remained open. You need to be a little more introspective here. It was a political failure. [/quote]

You really don't read, or think critically, do you?  TEACHERS REFUSED TO COME BACK.  FACILITIES COULDN'T BE ARRANGED TO SUPPORT DISTANCING REQUIREMENTS.  THERE WAS NO VACCINE IN AUGUST 2020. Comparing private schools (with one or two facilities, potentially losing a handful of teachers) to school systems with hundreds of facilities and thousands of teachers is completely asinine.[/quote]

I don't understand why you're trying to make this argument anymore. The voters have spoken - they think it's bullsh*t.  You can relitigate all you want, but people believe what they believe.  So I suggest that Democrats take it to heart.  [/quote]

This is all a DCUM echo chamber talking point. Here is some polling data to add facts to the conversation

https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-covid-schools-c758ac4f-f1de-4016-b683-babf8d4fdbaa.html

"Asked how schools in their community had done in terms of balancing health and safety with other priorities since the start of the pandemic, [b]71% of U.S. adults — and 75% of parents — said schools had done a good job as opposed to a poor job.[/b]

That's about the same response as when respondents were asked how good a job individuals in their communities had done (72%), slightly higher than the good rating local governments got (68%) and better than their governor (63%).
Local businesses got the highest share of "good" ratings on balancing those interests (80%)."

"What they're saying: "A lot of the energy, criticism that’s been happening, it’s not coming from a large chunk of the population," said Ipsos senior vice president Chris Jackson. "It's very much a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario.""

So please stop with the schools were closed and made parents mad and thats why dems lost rhetoric. Youngkin dogwhistled a bunch of uneducated white women (non - college women was the biggest shift) and that was that. Enjoy your four years with DeSantis in the vest[/quote]

Was the title the exact question asked: How good of a job are local schools doing in balancing health and safety with other priorities?

That question asks how they are doing now. It doesn't ask how they did last year. If you asked me that exact question, I too would say somewhat good. However, I am still pissed at the Dems for last year, which was not good at all. [/quote]

Direct quote from the article: “Most parents are OK with how their schools handled the pandemic."[/quote]

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