Reply to NYC parents vs DC parents

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "NYC parents vs DC parents"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a native New Yorker, I am completely and totally sick of the Washington Teachers Union/ ELIZABETH DAVIS and her unrealistic notion of virtual school-going forever... My Kindergartener is new to her DCPS school and starting a BRAND NEW SCHOOL VIRTUALLY SUCKS. I hate everything about this. I'm beyond angry at the Mayor and "leadership" but mostly disgusted by the WTU and their complete lack of concern for how badly these new learners in elementary school are going to be behind due to the WTU's  BS demands. 
NYC managed to get the kids back in school in a much more complicated school district and after a Spring and Summer of MUCH worse conditions than DC but DC teachers can not? The parents in NYC are not standing for the city shutting down the schools and are FIGHTING BACK but in DC? every parent here is too Politically correct and scared to stand up to the WTU and demand we open schools. I'm so sick of this and can't believe parents are just lying down and taking this garbage.  [/quote]

OP, I also have an early elementary child who is new to her DCPS school, and I can't agree more. And our school has made no effort to help. The attitude seems to be to let parents figure it out on their own, but as a new family, we feel completely on our own. I feel particularly bad for our kid, because she knows that if she were in school in-person, she could be making friends, but DL doesn't facilitate that in any way. It might be sufficient for older kids to keep in touch with friends from prior years, but for kids this age (5-6) who don't already know each other, there's just no way for them to develop relationships.

I honestly feel equally frustrated with the union and DCPS itself. I do think the union has acted unreasonably at times, and I especially feel that their rhetoric has been divisive at a time when it's particularly unproductive. I can support teachers and want them to have reasonable safety measures, and also want schools to open, and those are not inconsistent positions. But DCPS and Bowser have been equally terrible, and are too happy to blame the union for a lot of stuff that isn't their fault at all. The union is not the reason DL is so inadequate and bad -- that's due to Central Office policies that ignore what teachers know is the better pedagogical approach. And the union isn't at fault for DCPS's terrible communication, and their refusal to really engage parents and teachers on what is working (and what is very much not) and how best to meet the needs of kids and families.

Honestly, if DCPS had engaged parents early and listened, I think they would have had an easier time negotiating with the union. Part of the problem is that they kept everyone in the dark and then when they announced things, teachers and parents alike were confused and frustrated. I do think there is some political posturing among parents (some people claim to love DL or act like opening schools is an automatic death sentence, which it clearly is not) but I also think a lot of parents sided with teachers because they know them, they actually talk to them, and DCPS has offered so little in the way of communication or leadership.

What a mess.[/quote]

What exactly do you think DCPS central did to interfere with the DL approaches? My understanding is that schools and teachers have a ton of latitude. I'm not sure that it makes sense to blame DCPS for how DL is being executed.

As for what DCPS could have done differently ... I think they have done multiple parent surveys, and were negotiating with WTU all summer.  So I'm not sure what else they could have done.  Maybe they could have accepted that they would have to make bigger concessions to the WTU from the get-go.  But given that many urban districts are in the same position, I'm not ready to conclude there is something uniquely bad about DCPS.  I do with they had pulled off what Detroit did or Rhode Island is doing now.  [/quote]

Central Office set requirement for how many hours of live instruction kids are getting, as well as certain requirements for how and when they are executed. This means that my K student has back to back classes from 8:45 until almost noon, except for two short breaks.  They want DL to mirror how in-person class would work, and aren't accounting for how hard it is for early learners to sit in front of a screen for that long, and how desperately they need to move their bodies and take a break from the screen.

Both parents and teachers at our school wanted fewer live sessions and were really unhappy about back to back sessions (for instance, going straight from a 30 minute morning meeting to a 30 minute small group). But the schedule was set by the district and our teacher has had minimal leeway within that. She has started shortening classes because she sees it's not working, but since most of them are full-group sessions (and we have more than 20 kids in class) that means the kids aren't getting much engagement. What would be better is to do half as much live instruction, but split it all up into smaller groups. So kids would only have maybe 90 minutes of class (ELA, math, special) but those classes would be with fewer kids and they'd get more attention and be more involved. But the morning meeting is mandated and teachers are limited in what they can do with the rest.

I do think charters have way more latitude. But if you are at a DCPS school, there are a ton of rules for how DL works. What differences there are, it's teachers basically breaking the rules in order to do something that works for the kids. [/quote]

I agree. Central office should have been more creative about virtual school. It cannot just mirror in-person school. They should have incorporated more small group sessions (5-6 kids max) as many kids feel weird participating online in large classes.[/quote]

Most kids don't even turn on their camera's so you think they would with 6 kids vs. more.  No, it sucks as kids aren't participating or interacting and parents aren't taking responsibility for helping make it better.  For the kids with camera's off they should kick those kids out and just let them watch videos and let the rest of the kids who want to participate actually do classes.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics