Anonymous wrote:This NY Community College recently dropped its vaccine mandates due to pressure from parents and students. Maybe is parents speak up against these nonsensical policies (vaccine mandates and masking), schools will take the time to implement policies based on science and not on fear.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hvcc-drops-student-covid-19-vaccination-mandate/ar-AA10Oztf

If not, we’ll start seeing booster mandates for 12 year olds.

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Anonymous wrote:ITDS never expressed regret about Zoom school and acted as if it were entirely normal to teach young children that way. In the 2020-2021 school year, it was as if word had gone out to the staff to act as if in-person school had never existed. They were asynch two days a week and the teacher's assistant played Candy Crush during class time. You could hear the jingle when she failed to mute.

We withdrew our child mid-year.

We kept tabs on the school into the Spring of 2021 when parents petitioned to open two days a week. The school declined, offering one day of "in-person learning opportunities" per week -- how Orwellian is that?

I'm glad to see more parents are coming to the conclusion we did. The school may never return to normalcy. If masks aren't optional now, when we know Covid poses almost no risk to children, vaccines are available, almost every other school in the country is mask optional, most kids have had Covid, and Covid burden in the community is low, then when?

Unfortunately, many other charters are not doing any better. I suspect we'll see a return now of the old days when middle and upper-middle income families left the city for suburban schools. This will have a ripple effect on everything. As tax collections decline, public services will get worse and crime will rise. The downward spiral has begun.

That's really sad. For the record, our DCPS opened to kids with IEPs and other needs in Feb 2021, and then there were spots for almost everyone who wanted in April 2021 for the final term. I think almost 75% of the school was back in person by April 2021, if not more. Really, I fault OSSE for not being on top of charters here. I struggle to understand the pyschology behind ITDS's decisions and certainly will never send my kid there. (They had been a back-up middle school option.)

As a relatively new parent in the DC school system, the various charter schools collective responses to COVID has really opened my eyes to how little input parents have in our children's education at charter schools. So who ultimately has oversight over the charter schools? Is there any accountability? If I have a complaint, who would I turn to? Serious question, because I don't know.

You can file a complaint with the Charter Board if you file a complaint with the school that they do not resolve.

Have you ever done that and was it effective?

No, but I am thinking about doing it now that my kids will have to mask at school.

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Anonymous wrote:Someday this students will be the subject of a rigorous study of ways they've regressed compared to their age cohort in the entire rest of the world.

I'm glad my kids will be the control group.

Off topic, but this would not be a rigorous study. If we are going to be the thread asking for science, let's keep in mind science.

Anonymous wrote:MV said masks at least until Mid-oct.

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Anonymous wrote:This is not an issue parents get to decide. Why is that SO hard for some of you to understand? There has been ONE word on the ITDS listserves about this and that’s it because you all know how dumb you sound and will only continue this ranting anonymously. Seriously just leave the school if you are that up in arms about this. Plenty of other schools you can go to in DC.

What are you so scared of? Clearly ITDS has created a culture of conformity and fear such that parents feel they can’t speak out. Hopefully this thread inspires a parent to be open about it on the listserv.

Anonymous wrote:Someday this students will be the subject of a rigorous study of ways they've regressed compared to their age cohort in the entire rest of the world.

I'm glad my kids will be the control group.

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Anonymous wrote:This is not an issue parents get to decide. Why is that SO hard for some of you to understand? There has been ONE word on the ITDS listserves about this and that’s it because you all know how dumb you sound and will only continue this ranting anonymously. Seriously just leave the school if you are that up in arms about this. Plenty of other schools you can go to in DC.

Parents are afraid of being verbally assaulted by crazy mask-forever people even though they just want what almost every child in America had last year—the right to send their kids to school without a mask if they want. ITDS and other charters who are requiring masks aren’t health experts. They are just making up random rules with absolutely no scientific basis.

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Anonymous wrote:This is not an issue parents get to decide. Why is that SO hard for some of you to understand? There has been ONE word on the ITDS listserves about this and that’s it because you all know how dumb you sound and will only continue this ranting anonymously. Seriously just leave the school if you are that up in arms about this. Plenty of other schools you can go to in DC.

Parents are afraid of being verbally assaulted by crazy mask-forever people even though they just want what almost every child in America had last year—the right to send their kids to school without a mask if they want. ITDS and other charters who are requiring masks aren’t health experts. They are just making up random rules with absolutely no scientific basis.

Anonymous wrote:This is not an issue parents get to decide. Why is that SO hard for some of you to understand? There has been ONE word on the ITDS listserves about this and that’s it because you all know how dumb you sound and will only continue this ranting anonymously. Seriously just leave the school if you are that up in arms about this. Plenty of other schools you can go to in DC.

Anonymous wrote:This is not an issue parents get to decide. Why is that SO hard for some of you to understand? There has been ONE word on the ITDS listserves about this and that’s it because you all know how dumb you sound and will only continue this ranting anonymously. Seriously just leave the school if you are that up in arms about this. Plenty of other schools you can go to in DC.

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Anonymous wrote:ITDS requiring masks. I am so unhappy about this. No clear path for reconsidering like some other schools. It’s just too much.

Are masks required for the meet your teacher night or for students going returning to school?

Confirmed. I just clarified with an ITDS teacher that all students are required to wear masks. We need to start a petition to at least make it optional. Or go to a different school, which sounds a million times nicer at this point.

I and every other ITDS parent I've talked to since this got announced would absolutely sign this. Do it!!

Another ITS parent - I’d sign too!

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Anonymous wrote:ITDS requiring masks. I am so unhappy about this. No clear path for reconsidering like some other schools. It’s just too much.

Are masks required for the meet your teacher night or for students going returning to school?

Confirmed. I just clarified with an ITDS teacher that all students are required to wear masks. We need to start a petition to at least make it optional. Or go to a different school, which sounds a million times nicer at this point.

I and every other ITDS parent I've talked to since this got announced would absolutely sign this. Do it!!

Anonymous wrote:Any word from Lee Montessori? We are high on the waitlist for East End and would like to know the mask policy before we get an offer, if possible. Not determinative for us but a factor.