Anonymous wrote:Oh, stop your damn whining. All of you.

Really? i mean, our kids have spent a full year at this point at 20% less instruction than the year before. And we are supposed to "stop our damn whining"? Its a good thing the covid vaccine researchers didn't throw up their hands and say "its a pandemic, I can't be expected to do any work" or the doctors, nurses, grocery store workers, etc. Educating our young is important. Yes, we needed time to figure it out to keep safety considerations in mind. Yes, it made sense that there would be some disruptions. But, yes, I expect better than FCPS has delivered. And its totally fine to say that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the many inexplicable things about this school year is how suddenly principals were allowed to just decide their own school's calendar. Like when else could a principal just decide, there will be no education on Mondays? Or, today will be a snow day? Or, today is a "catch up" day (again, a no school day).

Right? No school on Mondays at one school, and then a mile away, another school has instruction every Monday! Its bizarre!

Or perhaps they just didn’t communicate it to you because Mondays are for interventions and your student is on grade level?

Both my children have IEPs and need interventions and they don't receive any interventions on Mondays. This is the first time I'm hearing that Mondays are for interventions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible to be a working parent of young children with these Mondays. I can't get anything done. Kids are fighting and screaming and have nothing to do. DH is at work (as in not in the home). We can't afford any other type of care. How can they call this a proper school day? They have nothing to do. (1st and 4th).

Wow, I had the opposite problem. My second grader was busy with homework from 9:30am - 2:30pm and then had tutoring and girl scouts. She was online more today than she is on a normal school day!

Your second grader had five hours of homework, then online tutoring, then online girl scouts? OMG. What a shitty parent you are.

More like what a shitty teacher, assigning all that homework.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is not a good idea to hate on teachers so much on this forum. A lot of teachers read it. Many of those teachers are good ones. After reading these posts, they may feel disinclined to give as much of themselves and their time to ingrates. Yes there are lazy and burnt out employees in any profession, but the teachers I knew sacrificed a lot to help their students. I realize people want to vent, but you are really poisoning your own well here by vilifying the people who help raise and nurture your children.

I am a great teacher. I still love teaching in spite of this awful year. But you are absolutely right. Seeing the disparaging comments from parents here and elsewhere and bearing all the blame for everything that happened while having literally no control over any of it taught me a very important lesson. I stopped working at all outside contract hours. I stopped reading YA books in my free time to always have something to recommend to students; I took back my reading time and read what I like. I will never again spend my own money on books, classroom supplies, etc. I can say these are all positive changes for me and my own family, but a lot of teachers realized we were constantly filling in these gaps, going above and beyond, and then took ALL the brunt of angry parents who said we have degrees in coloring, don’t care about kids, are lazy, etc. I am great at my job and do everything in my ability for my students within the hours of my contract but the days of free labor or pouring my own money back into the school are done.

You’re just now realizing this? When I taught I always followed this motto. I shook my head at all the young teachers busting their butts...for nothing. Everyone is replaceable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the many inexplicable things about this school year is how suddenly principals were allowed to just decide their own school's calendar. Like when else could a principal just decide, there will be no education on Mondays? Or, today will be a snow day? Or, today is a "catch up" day (again, a no school day).

Right? No school on Mondays at one school, and then a mile away, another school has instruction every Monday! Its bizarre!

Or perhaps they just didn’t communicate it to you because Mondays are for interventions and your student is on grade level?

Anonymous wrote:

I will never again spend my own money on books, classroom supplies, etc.

As a parent, I will also never again donate to school funds, supplies, gifts for PTA drives, or school fundraising events. But I think it is good teachers are learning more about work-life balance. Also remember, a lot of trolls are on this site.

Why would stop doing these things that benefit kids?

I will never again spend my own money on books, classroom supplies, etc.

As a parent, I will also never again donate to school funds, supplies, gifts for PTA drives, or school fundraising events. But I think it is good teachers are learning more about work-life balance. Also remember, a lot of trolls are on this site.

Anonymous wrote:One of the many inexplicable things about this school year is how suddenly principals were allowed to just decide their own school's calendar. Like when else could a principal just decide, there will be no education on Mondays? Or, today will be a snow day? Or, today is a "catch up" day (again, a no school day).

Right? No school on Mondays at one school, and then a mile away, another school has instruction every Monday! Its bizarre!

One of the many inexplicable things about this school year is how suddenly principals were allowed to just decide their own school's calendar. Like when else could a principal just decide, there will be no education on Mondays? Or, today will be a snow day? Or, today is a "catch up" day (again, a no school day).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible to be a working parent of young children with these Mondays. I can't get anything done. Kids are fighting and screaming and have nothing to do. DH is at work (as in not in the home). We can't afford any other type of care. How can they call this a proper school day? They have nothing to do. (1st and 4th).

Wow, I had the opposite problem. My second grader was busy with homework from 9:30am - 2:30pm and then had tutoring and girl scouts. She was online more today than she is on a normal school day!

Your second grader had five hours of homework, then online tutoring, then online girl scouts? OMG. What a shitty parent you are.

Anonymous wrote:It is not a good idea to hate on teachers so much on this forum. A lot of teachers read it. Many of those teachers are good ones. After reading these posts, they may feel disinclined to give as much of themselves and their time to ingrates. Yes there are lazy and burnt out employees in any profession, but the teachers I knew sacrificed a lot to help their students. I realize people want to vent, but you are really poisoning your own well here by vilifying the people who help raise and nurture your children.

I am a great teacher. I still love teaching in spite of this awful year. But you are absolutely right. Seeing the disparaging comments from parents here and elsewhere and bearing all the blame for everything that happened while having literally no control over any of it taught me a very important lesson. I stopped working at all outside contract hours. I stopped reading YA books in my free time to always have something to recommend to students; I took back my reading time and read what I like. I will never again spend my own money on books, classroom supplies, etc. I can say these are all positive changes for me and my own family, but a lot of teachers realized we were constantly filling in these gaps, going above and beyond, and then took ALL the brunt of angry parents who said we have degrees in coloring, don’t care about kids, are lazy, etc. I am great at my job and do everything in my ability for my students within the hours of my contract but the days of free labor or pouring my own money back into the school are done.

Anonymous wrote:It is impossible to be a working parent of young children with these Mondays. I can't get anything done. Kids are fighting and screaming and have nothing to do. DH is at work (as in not in the home). We can't afford any other type of care. How can they call this a proper school day? They have nothing to do. (1st and 4th).

Wow, I had the opposite problem. My second grader was busy with homework from 9:30am - 2:30pm and then had tutoring and girl scouts. She was online more today than she is on a normal school day!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We try and be positive about all of this but Mondays are a joke. DS is good about entertaining himself but he is done with his school work by lunch. We have him do all the must dos and may dos. Then he does his AoPS math. He also has his speech in the morning. His friends are done pretty quickly as well. DS's biggest complaint is that his friends don't have to do the may do assignments but he does. We simply told him that it is assigned school work and it gives him something to do for a little bit while we are working.

I have no idea how the schools are able to use Monday as a school day for tracking purposes because there is no more then an hours worth of work assigned.

Our school assigns a few hours (which I think is what they are supposed to do).

However I do suggest that everyone on this thread who is upset about Monday contact the state superintendent of schools. Tell him to never give another hours waiver like this again and how it is not the same as a real school day. His contact info is here:

Dr. James Lane, superintendent@doe.virginia.gov, 804-225-2057

That will do more to ensure that we never have something like this again than complaining on DCUM.

Yes. 2-3 hours.

I just finished my lunch. I did Morning Meeting 9:00 to a little after 9:30. I then went over each assignment for the day. I met with a reading group at 10:00 and another at 10:20. I’ve spent some time here at school trouble shooting some tech issues with our SBTS. I will now work on getting things ready for tomorrow.

My students have:
A math assignment with lesson slides about area.
ST Math
A recorded lesson about book talks and an assignment to complete a book talk using Flipgrid.
A social studies assignment about resources.

I know it’s not ideal and I hope we can be back to our “normal” schedule on the fall.

I don't understand. I thought all FCPS schools were now totally "asynchronous" (AKA no learning) on Mondays?

PP here. We are a two-teacher household and both of our schools have MM on Mondays. Our understanding is MM is still a requirement. Beyond that I think it is up to individual teachers. For example, as I mentioned I started with students at 9:00 (8:45 if you count the time I open the Meet) and finished with my second group around 10:30. One of my colleagues meets with groups and then has a “lunch bunch” with students. It varies. Some grade levels have their CT meetings prior to lunch.

How is that possible when several ES schools on this thread told families Mondays were canceled, including no morning meetings?

It's possible because that's what we were told by our principals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We try and be positive about all of this but Mondays are a joke. DS is good about entertaining himself but he is done with his school work by lunch. We have him do all the must dos and may dos. Then he does his AoPS math. He also has his speech in the morning. His friends are done pretty quickly as well. DS's biggest complaint is that his friends don't have to do the may do assignments but he does. We simply told him that it is assigned school work and it gives him something to do for a little bit while we are working.

I have no idea how the schools are able to use Monday as a school day for tracking purposes because there is no more then an hours worth of work assigned.

Our school assigns a few hours (which I think is what they are supposed to do).

However I do suggest that everyone on this thread who is upset about Monday contact the state superintendent of schools. Tell him to never give another hours waiver like this again and how it is not the same as a real school day. His contact info is here:

Dr. James Lane, superintendent@doe.virginia.gov, 804-225-2057

That will do more to ensure that we never have something like this again than complaining on DCUM.

Yes. 2-3 hours.

I just finished my lunch. I did Morning Meeting 9:00 to a little after 9:30. I then went over each assignment for the day. I met with a reading group at 10:00 and another at 10:20. I’ve spent some time here at school trouble shooting some tech issues with our SBTS. I will now work on getting things ready for tomorrow.

My students have:
A math assignment with lesson slides about area.
ST Math
A recorded lesson about book talks and an assignment to complete a book talk using Flipgrid.
A social studies assignment about resources.

I know it’s not ideal and I hope we can be back to our “normal” schedule on the fall.

I don't understand. I thought all FCPS schools were now totally "asynchronous" (AKA no learning) on Mondays?

PP here. We are a two-teacher household and both of our schools have MM on Mondays. Our understanding is MM is still a requirement. Beyond that I think it is up to individual teachers. For example, as I mentioned I started with students at 9:00 (8:45 if you count the time I open the Meet) and finished with my second group around 10:30. One of my colleagues meets with groups and then has a “lunch bunch” with students. It varies. Some grade levels have their CT meetings prior to lunch.

How is that possible when several ES schools on this thread told families Mondays were canceled, including no morning meetings?

Oh, stop your damn whining. All of you.