Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duran is fine but I wish he was able to build consensus across departments. It is very hard right now because each office is giving staff different and often contradicting messages. They need to get it together and present staff with cohesive messages rather than one edict from one office contradicting another. He has expanded departments in silos rather than encouraging cross communication.

+10000
He has also buffered himself with an extra layer of "cabinet" level positions AND has filled most of those positions with INCOMPETENT people.

Anonymous wrote:Duran is fine but I wish he was able to build consensus across departments. It is very hard right now because each office is giving staff different and often contradicting messages. They need to get it together and present staff with cohesive messages rather than one edict from one office contradicting another. He has expanded departments in silos rather than encouraging cross communication.

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Anonymous wrote:Is the 10 million inclusive of regular per pupil spending? If so it’s not that much higher than in person spending per child

If it's on top of the all the base costs, it's an additional 10 million...which would mean they are spending twice as much to educate kids from home....and additional $25k per student that could have gone to supplementing Virtual Virginia rather than APS rolling their own.

I didn't realize $10M for VLP was in addition to the $25k/student.. how did that ever get approved??

The school board is unwilling to challenge Duran on anything. They don’t ever want to look like they are undermining him. My discussions with board members last year made that perfectly and publicly clear. They are more sensitive to that than to any damage he causes, of which there is plenty.

So pathetic. Why are they afraid to undermine him??

I think he’s doing a good job. Maybe they do, too.

you actually think spending $10M on VLP that nobody wanted was a wise idea ? Under his watch APS reputation has been shattered.

I didn’t love that, but he’s pulling it. I don’t see that as the only thing he does or has done.

+1

He was trying to do something to address needs of families who needed virtual during the pandemic but didn’t want to ship them off to VV. It would have been more efficient to not reinvent the wheel but I can see his motivation.

Anyway, I’m happy with almost everything he’s done. And I appreciate the transparency and clear communication. Much better than before.

Everyone needs to remember that at the time they were planning for VLP, in some schools the majority of families were still saying they wanted to be virtual. There was a major shift later when people realized schools are not the source of Covid spread. But at some point there was a very large percentage of families still wanting to stay home. I have to say I was very happy to see it pulled for next year, waste of funds given other options available for a very small percentage of family sit still want it.

A very large percentage of families who were polled in November 2020 before we had vaccines. Then no one bothered to check what families wanted again until spring of 2021 at which point APS seemed caught off guard that somewhere around 95% of families wanted in-person. Which is the point when it was finally admitted kids could not be kept 6 feet apart at school and we all said ok whatever, just get them back learning in a classroom. In the interim, the families speaking out about struggles with virtual learning and asking schools to reopen more days were treated as Trump loving lunatics. But they were in the right. The same way people speaking out about harms to children from prolonged masking are going to be in the majority soon if not already. APS has been so out of touch with what the majority of families want this whole time.

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Anonymous wrote:He’s going to turn APS into a segregated system like AAP in Fairfax.

That wouldn’t be the worst thing. Tracking works way better than this differentiation nonsense that doesn’t work for anyone and makes the teachers job impossible.

Anonymous wrote:He’s going to turn APS into a segregated system like AAP in Fairfax.

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Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.

That simply is not true. Geometry intensified has been offered in MS for as long as I remember.

The ONLY MS intensified classes have been math. They're going to add intensified for English and Social Studies. I don't think science was mentioned? However, big caveat, was that in the discussion about it they said if there's a disparity in the race of the kids signing up for intensified classes they'll get rid of them again.

Durán’s equity police won’t be denied.

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Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.

That simply is not true. Geometry intensified has been offered in MS for as long as I remember.

The ONLY MS intensified classes have been math. They're going to add intensified for English and Social Studies. I don't think science was mentioned? However, big caveat, was that in the discussion about it they said if there's a disparity in the race of the kids signing up for intensified classes they'll get rid of them again.

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Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.

That simply is not true. Geometry intensified has been offered in MS for as long as I remember.

Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.

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Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.

I’m thrilled about this new plan!

Anonymous wrote:You're uninformed if you think that's what Duran is about. He's attuned to all sorts of needs. He is putting intensified classes in MS for the first time. Murphy shot that down for years.