Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many schools across the country who opened were dealing with less populous areas and differenct demographics. It is difficult to compare apples to oranges.

I have one kids who did great and another who is still struggling, but it is also hard to determine if that is due to staying home or just who she is.

It is too easy to blame the school if your kid is having a hard time and not address any issues your kids may be having. This sounds like parent shaming, and that is not my intent, its just that it is hard to determine causality with so many variables.

Exactly. There were so many other things happening at the same time - family members getting sick/dying, job insecurity, etc.

Were the kids who were impacted the most impacted because of things happening outside of school? Too many variables.

We all know the pandemic sucked. APS did a reasonable job in an extremely bad situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

The APS response to a deadly global pandemic was reasonable and similar to many other school districts. Kids went back in person after adults had vaccine.

I must admit that I'm fascinated by this point of view, which seems to be held by a rather vocal minority of the population. No matter how much evidence there is of increased depression and suicide attempts, learning loss, declining test scores, increased violence in schools, worsening gaps in minority achievement, declining enrollment, etc., there are many who will say that none of this matters. Teaching kids during the pandemic was impossible, I guess, except for all the places that were able to do it.

Yes, the pandemic sucked. We know.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

The APS response to a deadly global pandemic was reasonable and similar to many other school districts. Kids went back in person after adults had vaccine.

Have you read or seen any of the studies coming out about how kids fared in the districts that stayed closed longest vs. those who opened again sooner? Many schools in other parts of the US were similar last year to what Catholic schools here did locally, which was to open with as much spacing as possible and to require masks. Those kids, overall, did better in every aspect -- academically, socially, emotionally -- vs. the kids in APS. APS' test scores last year plummeted across the board, and it's seen a marked increase in discipline and emotional issues. Local pediatricians have been discussing the mental health crisis here as well, which is very real, and very concerning.

APS' response was only reasonable to those with an inside the beltway mentality who did not know or understand that most of the rest of America managed to open up and do much better. Our approach maybe made sense in August when everyone was worried open schools were going to be a disaster. But by October, it was clear that most of the country that opened was doing just fine. And when APS did "open" it was only a limited basis, and far later than most other places. So no, our response was neither reasonable nor similar to how things were done elsewhere.

I have a kid in private and a kid in public. The kid in private was in person all last year.

Both schools are full of kids who are struggling. It's not because APS stayed virtual.

I mean, there is actual research people. Here's a summary from the NYT:

"The researchers broke the students into different groups based on how much time they had spent attending in-person school during 2020-21 — the academic year with the most variation in whether schools were open. On average, students who attended in-person school for nearly all of 2020-21 lost about 20 percent worth of a typical school year’s math learning during the study’s two-year window.

Some of those losses stemmed from the time the students had spent learning remotely during the spring of 2020, when school buildings were almost universally closed. And some of the losses stemmed from the difficulties of in-person schooling during the pandemic, as families coped with disruption and illness.

But students who stayed home for most of 2020-21 fared much worse. On average, they lost the equivalent of about 50 percent of a typical school year’s math learning during the study’s two-year window."

So yes, there are many kids struggling this year. But kids in districts that stayed closed longer (like APS) are struggling more.

APS went back in person around the same time as MANY other schools.

Anonymous wrote:Many schools across the country who opened were dealing with less populous areas and differenct demographics. It is difficult to compare apples to oranges.

I have one kids who did great and another who is still struggling, but it is also hard to determine if that is due to staying home or just who she is.

It is too easy to blame the school if your kid is having a hard time and not address any issues your kids may be having. This sounds like parent shaming, and that is not my intent, its just that it is hard to determine causality with so many variables.

Anonymous wrote:Oh darn, the link doesn't show the whole thing. But basically, the more remote school there was (horizontal axis) the more learning loss there was (vertical axis). And the effects were worse the higher poverty a school was (different colors of lines). These are real data, that need to inform our thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

The APS response to a deadly global pandemic was reasonable and similar to many other school districts. Kids went back in person after adults had vaccine.

Have you read or seen any of the studies coming out about how kids fared in the districts that stayed closed longest vs. those who opened again sooner? Many schools in other parts of the US were similar last year to what Catholic schools here did locally, which was to open with as much spacing as possible and to require masks. Those kids, overall, did better in every aspect -- academically, socially, emotionally -- vs. the kids in APS. APS' test scores last year plummeted across the board, and it's seen a marked increase in discipline and emotional issues. Local pediatricians have been discussing the mental health crisis here as well, which is very real, and very concerning.

APS' response was only reasonable to those with an inside the beltway mentality who did not know or understand that most of the rest of America managed to open up and do much better. Our approach maybe made sense in August when everyone was worried open schools were going to be a disaster. But by October, it was clear that most of the country that opened was doing just fine. And when APS did "open" it was only a limited basis, and far later than most other places. So no, our response was neither reasonable nor similar to how things were done elsewhere.

I have a kid in private and a kid in public. The kid in private was in person all last year.

Both schools are full of kids who are struggling. It's not because APS stayed virtual.

I mean, there is actual research people. Here's a summary from the NYT:

"The researchers broke the students into different groups based on how much time they had spent attending in-person school during 2020-21 — the academic year with the most variation in whether schools were open. On average, students who attended in-person school for nearly all of 2020-21 lost about 20 percent worth of a typical school year’s math learning during the study’s two-year window.

Some of those losses stemmed from the time the students had spent learning remotely during the spring of 2020, when school buildings were almost universally closed. And some of the losses stemmed from the difficulties of in-person schooling during the pandemic, as families coped with disruption and illness.

But students who stayed home for most of 2020-21 fared much worse. On average, they lost the equivalent of about 50 percent of a typical school year’s math learning during the study’s two-year window."

So yes, there are many kids struggling this year. But kids in districts that stayed closed longer (like APS) are struggling more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For kids who think public school is horrible this year. I promise (from a teacher perspective at least) private school is also horrible. I have a number of friends that teach at private school and they are miserable this year (2 of them are leaving teaching all together at the end of the year). It is not like private school kids magically know how to behave better than public school kids. And it is not like private school teachers get amazing support from Admin just because they are private. This year has been a lot.

But doesn't this relate to whether schools were open or closed last year? We switched to Catholic which was open close to normal last year, and my kids are having a great school year this year. I'm so glad we didn't send them back into APS, which I think is going to take many, many, many years to recover from having been closed for so long last year. Arlington did so much harm to kids in the way it handled COVID, and we are going to be seeing that for a very long time. And APS still won't admit that it made a huge mistake in how it handled things, worst in the region, I believe, and our region overall was among the worst in the nation.

The APS response to a deadly global pandemic was reasonable and similar to many other school districts. Kids went back in person after adults had vaccine.

I must admit that I'm fascinated by this point of view, which seems to be held by a rather vocal minority of the population. No matter how much evidence there is of increased depression and suicide attempts, learning loss, declining test scores, increased violence in schools, worsening gaps in minority achievement, declining enrollment, etc., there are many who will say that none of this matters. Teaching kids during the pandemic was impossible, I guess, except for all the places that were able to do it.