Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Why were most red states able to open, at least hybrid? Are their teachers unions less powerful?

Yes. And many red states don’t even have unions, which isn’t ideal either. But they have too much power in some blue states. I think there is a middle ground.

Anonymous wrote:I know a single mom who left her middle schooler at home for remote school and the child did not do any school at all. They just watched TV and apparently they were passed to the next grade. The mom was upset about it but it was a kind, what can you do? She had to work and dad isn’t around. I don’t think this was an outlier case either. I can’t imagine how many children were passed that didn’t meet the SOLs. My friend who is a teacher told me that one of her kids showed up maybe 6 times for the whole semester. She called and left messages, but the district said they weren’t following truancy protocols during Covid and that child passed, too.

I'm a single parent who left my middle schooler home alone to do virtual school. I emailed his teachers and told them the situation. I told them to email me if he was every absent from class. He was absent from one class last year and I gave him a week of consequences for it. My son's dad isn't around. I do it all. Kids whose parents support their teachers have successful kids no matter whether kids are in school or at home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Why were most red states able to open, at least hybrid? Are their teachers unions less powerful?

Yes.

Red states pay their teachers pennies so they have serious shortages in those states. Arizona is one of the worst. Without unions, you wouldn't have anybody who wanted to teach.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/arizona-teacher-shortage-hits-6-year-streak-as-asu-looks-at-how-to-retain-educators

First, these are extreme stories. There are kids who thrived in distance learning (their parents have posted on here) who are also at the other extreme. Most kids fall somewhere in between.

I get that parents are upset. For fricks sake, we've been through two years of a pandemic. It has sucked.

But the irrational anger has to stop because IT HELPS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In fact, it hurts forward progress. You all want apologies and blood (SOMEONE MUST PAY!!! I WILL NEVER FORGET!!!) and that doesn't do our kids one dang bit of good.

What you need to be putting your energy into is lobbying for the remediation we all know needs to start happening ASAP. The whining and tearing out your hair and looking for scapegoats is a WASTE OF FRICKIN TIME.

We need to be lobbying at the state and county levels for summer programs to help kids catch up or whatever other ideas people might have. It will cost money but the kids need the help. We should be trying to work with school boards and teachers to make remediation happen. IF you keep screaming at the sky and stamping your feet you aren't helping your kids.

And think carefully about who you vote for for the school boards. Knee-jerk voting for GOP RWNJs who are using the angry parent thing and cries of "parent's rights" to push their scary agendas will NOT help all our kids move forward. They don't want to fund anything for schools, no matter what they say. We may need new blood, but we need to think about who that could be.

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

BS. When schools started, teachers went back. It was the inept school districts that took forever to get schools up and running again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

Nice revisionist history. Europe was open summer 2020 and showed it was safe. Most of the country except for super blue enclaves opened fall 2020. It’s absolutely criminal what happened in the DMV.

+1 unless you dwell in the smallest of bubbles, you will recall plenty of people predicted this. They said we were throwing kids under the school bus and they were right.

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

No.

This statement makes it sound like one decision was made, based on one set of facts, and while unfortunate, we have to live with the consequences. That is not what happened. At least not in DCPS.

Instead, the closure of schools for 18 months was due to a series of decisions based on many sets of facts. Or, in some cases, the refusal to make a decision.

NO ONE denies that schools needed to be closed at some point, and that the preservation of human life trumped kids going to school for some length of time. Early in the pandemic, you are correct we knew little about the virus, how it was transmitted, and what could be done to protect people.

But by February 2021, we not only had quite a bit of data on the virus and its transmission, we had the following:

- VACCINES, which were at the time incredibly effective at preventing not only serious illness but also transmission of the virus, and these vaccines were available not only to all highly vulnerable people but ALL teachers and staff in public schools

- Months of data from schools not only across the US but across the world, that showed (1) children had very low risk from the virus, and (2) that reasonable preventative measures such as masks, health screenings, and improved air quality and flow, were more than sufficient in schools all over the world to keep children and adults safe from Covid.

When I hear people saying "Oh, you just forgot what went into this decision" THAT makes me almost as angry as the fact that we let children languish at home in virtual school for months and months and months and months even while bars opened, restaurants started serving people inside, malls refilled with shoppers, people traveled domestically and internationally, concerts and festivals were held, and so on and so forth.

I didn't forget anything. I was paying attention the whole time. I have been wearing a mask for two years. I am triple vaccinated. I haven't been on a plane since December 2020. Every member of my family is tested for Covid once a week. I have paid attention to Covid rates in DC, hospitalization rates, the number of ICU beds and available respirators, the developments in new virus variants, etc., since the early days of the virus, and I haven't forgotten any of it.

And I still think it is grotesque that schools were closed for as long as they were with no good faith effort to address the mental health, academic, social, or practical needs of public school children. Private school kids in this city went to school. Public school kids did not. And now we are seeing not only learning loss but serious mental health and social ramification, as well as social consequences like the increase in juvenile crime.

I didn't "forget", thanks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

Nice revisionist history. Europe was open summer 2020 and showed it was safe. Most of the country except for super blue enclaves opened fall 2020. It’s absolutely criminal what happened in the DMV.

+1. By Fall 2020 we knew what Covid was, how it was spread, who was most affected.

I live in a highly blue school district and with the exception of the spring of 2020 my kids have been doing in-person school and in-person activities this entire time. None of us have gotten covid (at least not that we know) and I don't know anyone personally who had a severe case or died. The red areas around us were even more wide open. Your individual experience does not equate to what the entire country experienced.

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

I work with children in a culture and a place where they are taken care of by multigenerational households, often primarily grandparents. A lot of those grandparents died. Sometimes it was because of transmission through the children. I saw a lot of teddy bears perched on top of the body bags coming out of the hospital -- the kids wanted the send what they loved to be a comfort to who they had loved.

Do you want to know what their mental health is like now?

Our community was hit harder than most. Nobody knew that it would shake out that way in the beginning.

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

Nice revisionist history. Europe was open summer 2020 and showed it was safe. Most of the country except for super blue enclaves opened fall 2020. It’s absolutely criminal what happened in the DMV.

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I'm shook by This American Life's "School is Out Forever" podcast this week that looks at two families and how the pandemic shaped them.

To summarize: One single mom ended up having to leave her third grader at home alone and used a security camera to watch her at work. She'd speak to her daughter over the speaker. Daughter and mom developed a codependent relationship and tried to transition back to school but couldn't handle not being with her mom all day and mom couldn't handle not knowing all of what her daughter did all day. Mom ended up pulling her out of school to do "virtual school" and it turns out her daughter wasn't doing any work at all. Reminds me of Black mirror "Arkangel"

Second story is a girl who basically did not go to middle school due to pandemic/ COVID/ family instability. Apparently that is just fine and she's graduating middle school and going to high school despite any schooling for two years.

If these stories are even the case for .05% of kids in America, I'm terrified for the future of this country.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/

This is true even for kids who go to actual in-person school. No one is retained.

I know a single mom who left her middle schooler at home for remote school and the child did not do any school at all. They just watched TV and apparently they were passed to the next grade. The mom was upset about it but it was a kind, what can you do? She had to work and dad isn’t around. I don’t think this was an outlier case either. I can’t imagine how many children were passed that didn’t meet the SOLs. My friend who is a teacher told me that one of her kids showed up maybe 6 times for the whole semester. She called and left messages, but the district said they weren’t following truancy protocols during Covid and that child passed, too.

I'm in very blue RI where almost every district opened in person in the fall of 2020. It's still been tough. I wish we at least had the option to have our kids repeat a grade. I know that wouldn't work for some kids, but it would be great for mine and many of her peers. In may/June 2020 administrators in my district (primarily low income kids of color) had great ideas for how to provide additional support and enrichment for kids and families, but the money and institutional pressure was not there to follow through. And, now the kids are struggling so much emotionally and are so much to deal with. I would love to see more high quality academic recovery/enrichment, but who are the trained people who can provide those services?