Anonymous wrote:Somebody is really freaking out lol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The desire of some of you to simply turn the page on a failed policy that has been PROVEN to have been a mistake is amazing. School stayed open all over the world through the entire pandemic, and not only did it not cause worse outcomes in the pandemic, there is some evidence that keeping schools open may have lowered Covid rates in some cases.

Everyone gets this wrong sometimes. It's been a tough couple years and none of us handled it perfectly. But if you are still clinging to this idea that closing DC schools for a full year was a good and justified decision, I can't respect you anymore. You have shown an unwillingness to actually grapple with facts and admit error. I don't even like Bowser but those of you who think you would have done a better job on schools while also arguing that the school closures are no big deal are insane.

Found the strawman!

Anonymous wrote:Somebody is really freaking out lol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

And yet I’m sure you voted for Bowser, who closed the schools to try to score political points and then opened the schools later than almost every other jurisdiction and ran on what a great job she did opening the schools, while demonizing teachers, which you clearly fell for hook, line and sinker.

Yea, this is absolutely true. I'm agnostic on the whole school thing, but where did we get the idea that Bowser was all about opening them? She only staked out that position when it became clear that that's where the political winds were blowing. I don't get it.

But, again -- can we just move the hell on. Please? It's getting ridiculous.

You don't have kids in DCPS, do you?

Seriously, it sounds like you weren't involved at all in any of the 1,000 convos about school reopening. Maybe go read up through one of the thousands of threads on DCUM, to understand the school reopening issues.

Then, stop asking people to ignore issues related to CHILDREN and SCHOOLS.

We were the primary caregivers to our DCPS grandchildren while their parents were working full time. All of the virtual learning happened at our house under our supervision. So I'd say we experienced it first-hand enough to be entitled to express an opinion.

Anonymous wrote:The desire of some of you to simply turn the page on a failed policy that has been PROVEN to have been a mistake is amazing. School stayed open all over the world through the entire pandemic, and not only did it not cause worse outcomes in the pandemic, there is some evidence that keeping schools open may have lowered Covid rates in some cases.

Everyone gets this wrong sometimes. It's been a tough couple years and none of us handled it perfectly. But if you are still clinging to this idea that closing DC schools for a full year was a good and justified decision, I can't respect you anymore. You have shown an unwillingness to actually grapple with facts and admit error. I don't even like Bowser but those of you who think you would have done a better job on schools while also arguing that the school closures are no big deal are insane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I both voted for White but I was really on the fence and almost changed to Bowser last second. We are white and MC but live in a heavily gentrifying neighborhood with lots of UMC folks.

I don’t love Bowser and think she’s a pretty typical cynical, special-interest focused politician. But unlike White and many of his supporters, Bowser did actually seem to think that closing schools for an entire year, even after teachers had received priority vaccination and Covid rates were low, was a bad thing. Like Bowser at least seemed to get that closing schools for so long would have a horrible impact, especially on kids who are at high risk, and lead to increased hunger, drop out rates, and criminality among many DCPS students. And it did, and continues to have repercussions in the city, and most people seem not to care at all, which is very confusing to me. We’ve seen an increase in violent crime committed by teenagers and people argue about it but very few seem to remember “oh these kids were largely left to their own devices for months on end and many simply stopped going to school at all and this is an unsurprising outcome of that.” At least Bowser TRIED to get schools open again. I seriously cannot believe how little city progressives seem to care about this. You know what serves as a violence interruptor so fewer kids wind up in the criminal justice system? School! But whatever I guess.

Ultimately, though, Bowser failed to mobilize the DC constituencies that understood this, and failed to adequately convince teachers and reluctant parents (by making concessions on WTU demands and virtual options) and that’s on her. So I voted against her. But I’m not disappointed White lost, since he doesn’t seem to even see a problem with what happened.

I mostly feel like I live in some upside down world where we all make progressive sounds with our mouths but then support policies that are terrible for poor people and black people and families for… reasons.

If Bowser actually cared about schools, do you think she would have installed the crap chancellor we have?

No, but Bowser doesn't have to actually care about schools to want them open. She ultimately worked hard to open schools because she knew it was in her political best interests (and see how it paid off). Meanwhile, White and the other progressives on the council continued to advocate for school closures and virtual school even months after schools had been reopened without incident, to appease a couple specific demographics who are, frankly, insane outliers on this subject.

There's this tiny handful of parents and teachers in DC who STILL keep predicting massive outbreaks and terrible consequences of open schools (as recently as the April "surge" that was barely a blip and impacted schools almost not at all) and that is the target audience for White and others on the subject of education.

I'd rather have the self-interested political who can read the way the political winds are blowing and realize she better open school ASAP or have her constituents are going to lose their ever-loving minds. That's actually constituent service! Sometimes we want politicians to just do what most people want them to!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

And yet I’m sure you voted for Bowser, who closed the schools to try to score political points and then opened the schools later than almost every other jurisdiction and ran on what a great job she did opening the schools, while demonizing teachers, which you clearly fell for hook, line and sinker.

Yea, this is absolutely true. I'm agnostic on the whole school thing, but where did we get the idea that Bowser was all about opening them? She only staked out that position when it became clear that that's where the political winds were blowing. I don't get it.

But, again -- can we just move the hell on. Please? It's getting ridiculous.

IT WAS A CHOICE BETWEEN TWO CANDIDATES. Bowser did the better job/had the better position on school closures compared to White, who wanted to keep schools closed in Jan 2022. Not sure why this is so hard to understand?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

And yet I’m sure you voted for Bowser, who closed the schools to try to score political points and then opened the schools later than almost every other jurisdiction and ran on what a great job she did opening the schools, while demonizing teachers, which you clearly fell for hook, line and sinker.

Yea, this is absolutely true. I'm agnostic on the whole school thing, but where did we get the idea that Bowser was all about opening them? She only staked out that position when it became clear that that's where the political winds were blowing. I don't get it.

But, again -- can we just move the hell on. Please? It's getting ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

And yet I’m sure you voted for Bowser, who closed the schools to try to score political points and then opened the schools later than almost every other jurisdiction and ran on what a great job she did opening the schools, while demonizing teachers, which you clearly fell for hook, line and sinker.

Yea, this is absolutely true. I'm agnostic on the whole school thing, but where did we get the idea that Bowser was all about opening them? She only staked out that position when it became clear that that's where the political winds were blowing. I don't get it.

But, again -- can we just move the hell on. Please? It's getting ridiculous.

You don't have kids in DCPS, do you?

Seriously, it sounds like you weren't involved at all in any of the 1,000 convos about school reopening. Maybe go read up through one of the thousands of threads on DCUM, to understand the school reopening issues.

Then, stop asking people to ignore issues related to CHILDREN and SCHOOLS.

Calm down. Nobody is closing school again but you are out of control

Well not now. Bowser won and she is not stupid enough to close schools again. She's a deeply flawed political, but not a total freaking moron, thankfully.

But had White won I would have zero confidence that schools would stay open.

Thus confirming your complete lapse from reality

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

And yet I’m sure you voted for Bowser, who closed the schools to try to score political points and then opened the schools later than almost every other jurisdiction and ran on what a great job she did opening the schools, while demonizing teachers, which you clearly fell for hook, line and sinker.

Yea, this is absolutely true. I'm agnostic on the whole school thing, but where did we get the idea that Bowser was all about opening them? She only staked out that position when it became clear that that's where the political winds were blowing. I don't get it.

But, again -- can we just move the hell on. Please? It's getting ridiculous.

You don't have kids in DCPS, do you?

Seriously, it sounds like you weren't involved at all in any of the 1,000 convos about school reopening. Maybe go read up through one of the thousands of threads on DCUM, to understand the school reopening issues.

Then, stop asking people to ignore issues related to CHILDREN and SCHOOLS.

Calm down. Nobody is closing school again but you are out of control

Well not now. Bowser won and she is not stupid enough to close schools again. She's a deeply flawed political, but not a total freaking moron, thankfully.

But had White won I would have zero confidence that schools would stay open.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When are we going to get over the whole "schools were closed for too long!" thing? We're on the tail end of a once in a century pandemic, and yes mistake were made -- but JFC are we going to harp on those mistakes until the end of time?

I will stop being mad about it when
1) there are no longer repercussions from it, for my family personally. There still are. Still paying for that tutoring to catch kids up from what they didn't get last year. Still dealing with some mental health challenges.
2) someone publicly OWNS the mistakes and says "we should not have done this, this was bad, we should never do it again."
3) we've gone a year without a proposal from a council member and/or portion of the teachers union to go back to virtual.
4) we do evaluations of the interventions that we CONTINUE TO DO to weigh their benefits and harms, and don't sweep things under the rug. That would go a long way for me in helping me believe that we don't stupid harmful stuff in the future, for some other thing that happens.

I’m tired of people like you. It is because of people like you who ignore the fact that we are in the worst pandemic we have ever seen who drove out the Janney principal. She was good but just couldn’t handle the nightmare parents any more. I’m shocked the Deal principal didn’t quit as parents treated her horribly as well. And I bet you are one of those fully remote employees too who takes no risk yourself

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're gonna get a lot of "yes" responses here. Bowser carried Upper Caucasia by a 2-1 margin, more than anywhere else in the city. The purported reason? She opened the schools, and Ward 3 parents are sooo concerned with the learning loss in poorer wards. The real reason? Closed schools were an inconvenience to THEM.

Cut me a break.

What happened when we opened schools? What happened when we dropped mask mandates? Did the urban genocide foretold by DC progressives unfold? Was the death warrant we were signing for teachers and Black children signed? No and no.

Closed schools are absolutely an inconvenience for EVERYONE. Particularly when there was no good reason to continue the policy, other than teachers attempting to use it as leverage indefinitely.

Did black children miss a disproportionally larger amount of school due to quarantines and no virtual platforms? Have teachers been covering additional classes for no extra pay because so much staff is out?

It's been a miserable effing year to teach. School closures wouldn't have changed that but I don't need some rando on here trying to paint a picture that the way Bowser opened schools was effective for our most at risk students