Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 17:44     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.


A simple solution and a dismal situation at the same time. At some point teachers are going to have to go back to work in person even if a Principal like Neal gave them all the flexibility for term 3. There is probably a core group of DCPS educators that would like never to return to school, something will have to give although it's more likely to be DCPS than at the individual school level. Some schools decided to meet (or try to meet) parent demand while others did not. All the flexibility at the school level created the disparity of what is being offered. But there didn't appear to be another choice after the staffing survey from September was ruled invalid.


I think DCPS has an expectation that most students will be in school in Term 4, and the public health numbers should support that, but I don’t see any pathway that Deal gets there, and there is no accountability. Neal admitted in one of the video calls that way more parents want their kids in school than she is willing to allow and so she just made a call. And she sent us down a pathway that keeps kids out of school for nearly 1.5 school years. She could have started down a hybrid road that cohorted kids within their teams and aligned their schedules, and started to bring back some kids. But instead she alone decided to mostly ignore the needs of more than 1300 kids and focus on a smaller figure. I don’t argue that those who are failing middle school should get extra support, but I object to doing that at the expense of the other 90%.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 17:10     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The biggest hurdle is osse’s bathroom rule. One one child in at a time, and it has to sit empty for 15 minutes. If this gets relaxed, many more kids can be back.


This is stupid. There is no such rule for restaurants of course which is why we can all eat out but kids are not in school. 😔


Another stupid rule is that there needs to be a deep cleaning between two cohorts. Haven't we learned that surface transmission is not a significant factor?

Oh, and of course there is no scientific basis for the 11 student per class rule. 3 feet of distance are enough when masked.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 17:03     Subject: Re:Concerned about DCPS Term 4
I agree with PPs and am glad there is mention of how much less class time students have this year. The posters on this site asking how we know students aren’t learning as much in DL and arguing that they are are maddening. I teach HS and we are at least a month behind in the curriculum. There is not enough time to learn as much, even if we posit that DL is as effective as in person (which it isn’t.)
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 16:55     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.


This is the key to understanding that unlike her predecessors, Principal Neal prioritizes teachers over students. As far as I know, the DCPS position is not “we will open classrooms when there are enough teacher volunteers.” The DCPS position is teachers should be in the classroom unless you have a legal reason to stay home. I find it infuriating that Neal put no effort into bringing students back for classes. She is bringing in students who are failing into the school on Wednesdays for intervention - which really should have been happening at every DCPS school all year. That is not opening the school in my book - its the equivalent of an after school program, which would be happening after 3:30 on an afternoon in normal times. It just happens to be happening on a Wednesday morning due to the ridiculous schedule we have this year. If you all will recall, we were sold a lie last summer about how we need to keep Wednesdays open to “clean the schoo” for when we come back for hybrid. Well guess what - many schools have decided there will be no hybrid, so why is there still no instruction on Wednesdays? My Deal 8th grader sees each teacher 2x each week instead of 5 times, for roughly the same amount of time. That’s 40% instruction.

I get that people were hoping for more in person instruction at Wilson, but I do not think we should be underestimating the mental health boost students are getting by being out of the house one time each week. At least Principal Martin didn’t “ask for volunteers”. She told teachers that everyone must come in and we will share the burden evenly.



I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one that feels this way; this board has been silent about the ridiculous plan Deal has decided to implement. I'm assuming there were Deal teachers assigned to return through DCPS staffing and the principal decided not to marry up parent demand and available staffing in any meaningful way. Presumably there is also a cohort of teachers that were assigned to the school for term 3 that were given the option to stay at home. Otherwise there will be no ramp up of volunteers of teachers, at least not anytime soon because the only teachers offered the vaccine are those who returned in person. If there are really not teachers eligible or available to return to Deal they are also not in any queue to receive the vaccine unless a second wave of available appts has been announced for remaining DCPS teaching staff. Students were absolutely not prioritized in any way with this plan, but DCPS approved it so they are ok with it too.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 16:51     Subject: Re:Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The Mayor can now say schools are open and kids are back. Doesn’t matter
for how many. There won’t be another push for term 4.


But there should be. I have three kids. Only 1 is going to in person classes for one class a week. Granted they are at Deal & Wilson which have overcrowding issues. But, if Murch can get all the kids back in for two days of the week - I expect a lot more from them!

I did read that they weren't feeling that much pressure yet to reopen. So, if you want it - apply some pressure.

Mayor Bowser:
Website: http://murielformayor.com/
Address: John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004
Phone: 202 - 724 - 2643
muriel.bowser@dc.gov

DCPS Chancellor - Lewis Ferebee - lewis.ferebee@dc.gov

DC Council
I was going to put the council member in charge of Education Committee but did you know they eliminated that in January? It's now in the Committe of the Whole which Mendelson Chairs and everyone is on. Good? Bad?
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/504726/mendelson-announces-new-dc-council-committee-assignments/

Anyway - email Mendelson and your council member!

Phil Mendelson: pmendelson@dccouncil.us
Anita Bonds (At Large): abonds@dccouncil.us
Elissa Silverman (At Large): esilverman@dccouncil.us
Robert White (At Large): rwhite@dccouncil.us
Christina Henderson(At Large): chenderson@dccouncil.us
Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1): bnadeau@dccouncil.us
Brooke Pinto (Ward 2): bpinto@dccouncil.us
Mary Cheh (Ward 3): mcheh@dccouncil.us
Janeese Lewis George (Ward 4): jlewisgeorge@dccouncil.us
Kenyan McDuffie (Ward 5): kmcduffie@dccouncil.us
Charles Allen (Ward 6): callen@dccouncil.us
Vincent Gray (Ward 7): vgray@dccouncil.us
Trayon White (Ward 8): twhite@dccouncil.us



Only 50 percent are back in the building at Murch. So hardly "all."

Mendo moved education to the committee of the whole when he stripped Grasso -- an incompetent boob -- of the chairmanship during his last term. This was a good move. Then he decided to keep it in the committee of the whole.


I’d take 50% over the measly 44 spaces that Eaton offered. Along with zero spots for 4th and 5th grade at all.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 16:05     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.


This is the key to understanding that unlike her predecessors, Principal Neal prioritizes teachers over students. As far as I know, the DCPS position is not “we will open classrooms when there are enough teacher volunteers.” The DCPS position is teachers should be in the classroom unless you have a legal reason to stay home. I find it infuriating that Neal put no effort into bringing students back for classes. She is bringing in students who are failing into the school on Wednesdays for intervention - which really should have been happening at every DCPS school all year. That is not opening the school in my book - its the equivalent of an after school program, which would be happening after 3:30 on an afternoon in normal times. It just happens to be happening on a Wednesday morning due to the ridiculous schedule we have this year. If you all will recall, we were sold a lie last summer about how we need to keep Wednesdays open to “clean the schoo” for when we come back for hybrid. Well guess what - many schools have decided there will be no hybrid, so why is there still no instruction on Wednesdays? My Deal 8th grader sees each teacher 2x each week instead of 5 times, for roughly the same amount of time. That’s 40% instruction.

I get that people were hoping for more in person instruction at Wilson, but I do not think we should be underestimating the mental health boost students are getting by being out of the house one time each week. At least Principal Martin didn’t “ask for volunteers”. She told teachers that everyone must come in and we will share the burden evenly.

Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 15:53     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
At our ES, my older DD's teacher heavily implied that she doesn't think anything new will happen between now and June. Our school has very few total in-person seats (maybe 1/6 capacity?) and they still aren't full because it's nearly all mixed-aged CARES classrooms. We'd do IPL in two seconds, but there isn't any for her grade.

I also agree that some of the safety protocols sound like they were written back in April when our understanding of Covid was totally different. DC is still hanging on to these "reopening phases" too, which haven't made sense since June. Why is there so much reticence to change course based on new information?
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 15:38     Subject: Re:Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The Mayor can now say schools are open and kids are back. Doesn’t matter
for how many. There won’t be another push for term 4.


But there should be. I have three kids. Only 1 is going to in person classes for one class a week. Granted they are at Deal & Wilson which have overcrowding issues. But, if Murch can get all the kids back in for two days of the week - I expect a lot more from them!

I did read that they weren't feeling that much pressure yet to reopen. So, if you want it - apply some pressure.

Mayor Bowser:
Website: http://murielformayor.com/
Address: John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004
Phone: 202 - 724 - 2643
muriel.bowser@dc.gov

DCPS Chancellor - Lewis Ferebee - lewis.ferebee@dc.gov

DC Council
I was going to put the council member in charge of Education Committee but did you know they eliminated that in January? It's now in the Committe of the Whole which Mendelson Chairs and everyone is on. Good? Bad?
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/504726/mendelson-announces-new-dc-council-committee-assignments/

Anyway - email Mendelson and your council member!

Phil Mendelson: pmendelson@dccouncil.us
Anita Bonds (At Large): abonds@dccouncil.us
Elissa Silverman (At Large): esilverman@dccouncil.us
Robert White (At Large): rwhite@dccouncil.us
Christina Henderson(At Large): chenderson@dccouncil.us
Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1): bnadeau@dccouncil.us
Brooke Pinto (Ward 2): bpinto@dccouncil.us
Mary Cheh (Ward 3): mcheh@dccouncil.us
Janeese Lewis George (Ward 4): jlewisgeorge@dccouncil.us
Kenyan McDuffie (Ward 5): kmcduffie@dccouncil.us
Charles Allen (Ward 6): callen@dccouncil.us
Vincent Gray (Ward 7): vgray@dccouncil.us
Trayon White (Ward 8): twhite@dccouncil.us



You absolutely cannot compare Murch to Deal and Wilson. The complexity of middle and high school schedules is enormous. At Murch the kids have, at most, two teachers and they are a cohort. That isn’t how things work in MS and HS. The comparison is really unfair.


Different poster here. I absolutely blame DCPS and the mayor for refusing to do anything about the overcrowding at schools like Deal and Wilson. For years, ward 3 folks have been lobbying them to do something. They couldn’t care less and now we have this mess. Thanks Chancellor and Mayor for making my kids education a political football.


+1. Plus, part of this solution has to be requiring that kids attend schools they can walk to or be driven to. No matter how many air filters or PPE the give to Deal or Wilson, those schools will never be able to fully open if hundreds of kids ride public transportation for 1.5 hours a day, 5 days a week. It will be outbreak after outbreak.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 15:01     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.


DC is actually really slow with the vaccines. IDK if it's because we have less or what but all teachers are a pretty long way from being fully vaccinated. DC is one of the few cities that have said teachers can only be vaccinated if they are teaching in person only. And even those teacher have only just received the first dose.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:59     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.


A simple solution and a dismal situation at the same time. At some point teachers are going to have to go back to work in person even if a Principal like Neal gave them all the flexibility for term 3. There is probably a core group of DCPS educators that would like never to return to school, something will have to give although it's more likely to be DCPS than at the individual school level. Some schools decided to meet (or try to meet) parent demand while others did not. All the flexibility at the school level created the disparity of what is being offered. But there didn't appear to be another choice after the staffing survey from September was ruled invalid.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:58     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This is it. Some schools will be able to expand a little bit but DCPS has brought back pretty much all of the teachers who could come (60%).

Your non-title 1 schools especially are filled. So if your child is at a school that is not title 1, it's very unlikely that there will be many more in person slots.

I am in person now and have 3 students, I feel thankful for having to be back in person. They are all just ELL students, easiest job ever. No one at my school wanted to come back and now class sizes have ballooned to 36-40.


See that seems so crazy to me. Is it that so few families wanted to return? In that case admin should have said all virtual because there isn’t enough demand for in person. It is a waste of resources to have a class of three and another class of 38.


Schools aren’t allowed to say that. They HAD to open (which is so dumb in these types of situations)


The 3 student class is ridiculous. The principal must not have surveyed demand very well. They could have not offered a class for that grade.



Oh I know, I had 10 students but 7 of them backed out at the last minute for fear of safety (what the families told me). These are 3 kids I never had before until now. Now everyone is mad because they lost their teacher and class sizes are higher. But we cannot not give these 3 families in person, bit of a pickle.

I imagine term 4 I'll have more students...
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:33     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:The biggest hurdle is osse’s bathroom rule. One one child in at a time, and it has to sit empty for 15 minutes. If this gets relaxed, many more kids can be back.


This is stupid. There is no such rule for restaurants of course which is why we can all eat out but kids are not in school. 😔
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:22     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:Principal Neal said that her hope is to bring more kids into the building at Deal as teachers get vaccinated and volunteer to return.


This is the key. Vaccines for all teachers and staff so they can return, which will lead to more IPL. Pretty simple solution. Sadly, only teachers who started this week, or had been teaching, got the vaccine last week, some just days before they started IPL.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:19     Subject: Re:Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:Here is the thing..there are TONS of inperson slots available throughout the district. These are in schools where most of dcum would never send their kids. I wish bowser would let you go to a new school temporarily if you really want the in person spot. I’m pretty sure no one would take her up on it, but she should offer.


Agree with your first part. The wish though would be really messed up. I wouldn’t put it past the mayor seeing how backwards and segregated the schools are already, especially at the middle and high school level. But wow, that would be next tier gentrification.
Anonymous
Post 02/06/2021 14:12     Subject: Concerned about DCPS Term 4
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:This is it. Some schools will be able to expand a little bit but DCPS has brought back pretty much all of the teachers who could come (60%).

Your non-title 1 schools especially are filled. So if your child is at a school that is not title 1, it's very unlikely that there will be many more in person slots.

I am in person now and have 3 students, I feel thankful for having to be back in person. They are all just ELL students, easiest job ever. No one at my school wanted to come back and now class sizes have ballooned to 36-40.


See that seems so crazy to me. Is it that so few families wanted to return? In that case admin should have said all virtual because there isn’t enough demand for in person. It is a waste of resources to have a class of three and another class of 38.


Schools aren’t allowed to say that. They HAD to open (which is so dumb in these types of situations)


The 3 student class is ridiculous. The principal must not have surveyed demand very well. They could have not offered a class for that grade.