Reply to Who exactly will be managing the CARES classrooms?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So why is okay to put paras in the classrooms but not teachers? Is there a degree of safeness that is acceptable for some but not others? A two tiered system, one for teachers and one for less qualified workers? Sad thing is, it would be safe for teachers and students to return to the classroom  if everybody wore masks(most important) and classes were smaller.  This decision doesn't make any sense from a scientific/medical perspective. [/quote]

It is that there are not enough teachers to cover the adult- student ratio needed to have small pods for safety.[/quote]

Alright, so all of the teachers and then some of the paras. Or hire more teachers. It's preposterous to say "we don't have enough teachers, so instead let's not use any teachers."[/quote]

Once again, if they put all the teachers in the classrooms to teach small cohorts five days a week WHO WILL TEACH THE DL that most of the students will have to have because of the size of the cohorts? This plan DOES NOT WORK if the teachers are all in the schools because its basis is that there will be a large group of students who continue with distance learning. The hybrid plan (which had its own issues, specifically about scheduling) might have worked in THIS regard, but it would still have reduced an individual child's in-person time to two days a week in person, because the teachers couldn't teach DL and face to face at the same time. Why is this so difficult to understand?

The blithe way you say "hire more teachers" makes it clear you've never been involved with hiring at a school (but you can be if you join your school's PTA). You see, schools are given BUDGETS, which are based on enrollment and which go into effect July 1. Also, in many instances budget allocation is fixed (for example, you're not allowed to suddenly decide that no, you don't want an art teacher (for example) and you'll use that teacher's salary to hire another PK teacher). At this point, there is NO MORE money to hire new teachers (or paras) when the Mayor comes up with a plan on October 5th that no one had heard anything about before that. Everyone assumed that if schools would go back, it would be using the hybrid model that they had touted early in the summer, not this five days a week for SOME students that came out of nowhere. Obviously, staffing needs are different in these two scenarios. Furthermore, hiring teachers and paras TAKES TIME, way more than the five weeks the Mayor decided to give DCPS.  They have to interview, they have to pass background checks, and then they have to be brought on board - and by October, there isn't some giant pool of teachers from which to choose. One year, at my kids' former school, when I was involved with hiring, a teacher resigned two weeks before school started, and it took three months (and a major false start) to find a replacement, because the pool of teachers was SO shallow by that late in the hiring process.

Maybe everyone on DCUM has convinced themselves that teachers are no better than hired help who can easily be replaced, but that's not how it really works.[/quote]

What some schools have done is set it up so the teacher teaches in-person and distant at the same time.  It’s doable, it just takes a little technology...the kind of technology that could be set up with a few months forethought....[/quote]

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