Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

Folks aren’t saying virtual was fine. Everyone knows it had issues especially considering it had to be done without any prior notice or proper planning and setup of resources. Teachers and district are willing to help make up for that. Teachers are working harder than ever, districts have provided access to tutoring, and are reaching out. Is more needed still, Yes. Should they have better discipline, Yes.

All the above said, parenting is much different. From my perspective it’s more competitive for no gain and people are trying to parent by group decree. It’s like folks need assurance from a whole host of folks to make parenting decisions. That or they are pushing kids until they are anxious so they can brag about them to others. Gentle parenting has become basically never say No and mean it parenting. Not to mention they won’t let kids fail. All this is showing up in the classroom making teaching and recovery harder and harder. Folks want discipline in the moment at school, which I can agree with, but also some of the behaviors should not be occurring with such prevalence to begin with. Parents want school to enforce kids not using their phones, yet it’s obvious that parents aren’t monitoring screen time or putting limits so it’s not accessible during school hours. Plus ya’ll are the one giving kids phones in the first place. Control of that device and discipline around such starts with you.

First of all, none of the people blaming parents mentioned any of these issues, so stop with the "yes yes". ADMIT that MCPS has made horrible choices, stop pretending you already did admit it as a way of deflecting and attacking parents.

No, you DON'T know what is happening in kids' homes. Kids are SMART. They can tell when they are in a place with no limits, and adjust their behavior accordingly. You can't possibly be someone who works with children and not know this obvious fact. Kids learn this from when they are literal babies. It is not remotely sustainable for schools to not discipline kids, and this problem builds on itself when the well behaved kids see other kids behave poorly and have no consequences. When studying makes no difference because everyone gets As. Come on.

Parents give their kids phones for a wide range of reasons. Why do YOU have a phone? Why do teachers have phones? Let's be real.

My kid doesn't have a phone, she is too young, but she still gets screens in schools. Stop pretending you KNOW parents are not limiting screen time when schools REQUIRE screen time in school.

So much deflection and lies.

I sat on the metro the other day and watched a toddler stand on the seat next to his mother and repeatedly smack her in the head. The parental response was, “Please don’t do that, sweetie.” Needless to say, “sweetie” kept doing it.

And then people get on this message board and bemoan the behavior of their child’s classmates. Never their own child, that’s a given.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

Folks aren’t saying virtual was fine. Everyone knows it had issues especially considering it had to be done without any prior notice or proper planning and setup of resources. Teachers and district are willing to help make up for that. Teachers are working harder than ever, districts have provided access to tutoring, and are reaching out. Is more needed still, Yes. Should they have better discipline, Yes.

All the above said, parenting is much different. From my perspective it’s more competitive for no gain and people are trying to parent by group decree. It’s like folks need assurance from a whole host of folks to make parenting decisions. That or they are pushing kids until they are anxious so they can brag about them to others. Gentle parenting has become basically never say No and mean it parenting. Not to mention they won’t let kids fail. All this is showing up in the classroom making teaching and recovery harder and harder. Folks want discipline in the moment at school, which I can agree with, but also some of the behaviors should not be occurring with such prevalence to begin with. Parents want school to enforce kids not using their phones, yet it’s obvious that parents aren’t monitoring screen time or putting limits so it’s not accessible during school hours. Plus ya’ll are the one giving kids phones in the first place. Control of that device and discipline around such starts with you.

First of all, none of the people blaming parents mentioned any of these issues, so stop with the "yes yes". ADMIT that MCPS has made horrible choices, stop pretending you already did admit it as a way of deflecting and attacking parents.

No, you DON'T know what is happening in kids' homes. Kids are SMART. They can tell when they are in a place with no limits, and adjust their behavior accordingly. You can't possibly be someone who works with children and not know this obvious fact. Kids learn this from when they are literal babies. It is not remotely sustainable for schools to not discipline kids, and this problem builds on itself when the well behaved kids see other kids behave poorly and have no consequences. When studying makes no difference because everyone gets As. Come on.

Parents give their kids phones for a wide range of reasons. Why do YOU have a phone? Why do teachers have phones? Let's be real.

My kid doesn't have a phone, she is too young, but she still gets screens in schools. Stop pretending you KNOW parents are not limiting screen time when schools REQUIRE screen time in school.

So much deflection and lies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

It is intensive but that’s due to your own choices. I never had my kids do all of those activities growing up. They are in college now. They both like to read and know how to relax without being on their phones. If you keep your kids so busy that they have no down time, don’t be surprised if they are always anxious.

We actually don't do that many activities but thanks for the suggestion!

It sounds like you aren't parenting a young child right now. I can only tell you the trend I am seeing in my social circle, which is that we find ourselves parenting very intensively compared with how our parents raised us. Sorry that doesn't track with the ridiculous discussion in this thread about how all parents are lazy and that's why public schools are struggling (nevermind the numerous poor choices MCPS has made with regards to curriculum, discipline in schools, screens, and standards).

Again, these are choices you make. If you are a parent and are still making choices due to trends, it’s time to mature and make your own choices. Plenty of parents chose this busy all of the time lifestyle when my kids were young too. The point is that YOU don’t have to. There is a middle ground between this over the top intense parenting and being MIA as a parent and the choice is entirely up to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

It is intensive but that’s due to your own choices. I never had my kids do all of those activities growing up. They are in college now. They both like to read and know how to relax without being on their phones. If you keep your kids so busy that they have no down time, don’t be surprised if they are always anxious.

We actually don't do that many activities but thanks for the suggestion!

It sounds like you aren't parenting a young child right now. I can only tell you the trend I am seeing in my social circle, which is that we find ourselves parenting very intensively compared with how our parents raised us. Sorry that doesn't track with the ridiculous discussion in this thread about how all parents are lazy and that's why public schools are struggling (nevermind the numerous poor choices MCPS has made with regards to curriculum, discipline in schools, screens, and standards).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

Folks aren’t saying virtual was fine. Everyone knows it had issues especially considering it had to be done without any prior notice or proper planning and setup of resources. Teachers and district are willing to help make up for that. Teachers are working harder than ever, districts have provided access to tutoring, and are reaching out. Is more needed still, Yes. Should they have better discipline, Yes.

All the above said, parenting is much different. From my perspective it’s more competitive for no gain and people are trying to parent by group decree. It’s like folks need assurance from a whole host of folks to make parenting decisions. That or they are pushing kids until they are anxious so they can brag about them to others. Gentle parenting has become basically never say No and mean it parenting. Not to mention they won’t let kids fail. All this is showing up in the classroom making teaching and recovery harder and harder. Folks want discipline in the moment at school, which I can agree with, but also some of the behaviors should not be occurring with such prevalence to begin with. Parents want school to enforce kids not using their phones, yet it’s obvious that parents aren’t monitoring screen time or putting limits so it’s not accessible during school hours. Plus ya’ll are the one giving kids phones in the first place. Control of that device and discipline around such starts with you.

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is declining for your kids academically or otherwise?
Lots of posts also saying classes are hard or too accelerated and lots of pressure to do well academically. Courses seem rigorous for the most part.
If your kid goes, pays attention and puts in the work to learn, they will learn and succeed.

If kids don’t go, play on their screens instead of pay attention, don’t do the homework or study at home, then they may not succeed so much. All this stuff is the parents’ responsibility and to motivate their kids.

Yes MCPS can change many things but it’s still going to come down to what you and your kid put into to it.

My problem is my kid didn’t work very hard in MCPS and still got pretty good grades. 3.8/4.5. Never learned to study efficiently or any time management skills. The first year of college was brutal for her as she simply wasn’t prepared. And she took 10 AP classes, so it’s not like there wasn’t rigor.

If she took 10 AP classes with rigor and never learned any time management or study skills I’d question the rigor of those classes or if what you’re saying is true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

It is intensive but that’s due to your own choices. I never had my kids do all of those activities growing up. They are in college now. They both like to read and know how to relax without being on their phones. If you keep your kids so busy that they have no down time, don’t be surprised if they are always anxious.

Anonymous wrote:Low income kids suffered the most from virtual. Let's get that straight. Their families had reasons for keeping them home but it wasn't because virtual was working from an educational standpoint.

It is one thing to say that we had to do virtual to protect people's lives. That is reasonable even if some might also reasonably disagree.

It is another thing to say virtual was fine and any problems resulting from it were the parents' faults. That's preposterous and false. Virtual was horrible from an educational standpoint even if you can argue it was necessary. Another thing that is horrible is schools not disciplining kids, also schools not properly teaching reading, and also schools basically eliminating any real standards. And the use of screens as "educational" tools to enrich educational software providers. All of these things were choices MCPS and many other school systems made.

Parenting these days is different than it was in the past. Among my friends many of us have had our own parents tell us we spend a ton of time with our kids, much more than they did. Parenting is much more intensive than it used to be. It's entirely possible we are all doing it horribly wrong, but it's certainly not for a lack of trying to do it right. It's hard knowing that many of us try to do the right thing, limit screen time, establish and enforce rules, and then send them into an environment where screen time is not limited at all and rules are not enforced.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is declining for your kids academically or otherwise?
Lots of posts also saying classes are hard or too accelerated and lots of pressure to do well academically. Courses seem rigorous for the most part.
If your kid goes, pays attention and puts in the work to learn, they will learn and succeed.

If kids don’t go, play on their screens instead of pay attention, don’t do the homework or study at home, then they may not succeed so much. All this stuff is the parents’ responsibility and to motivate their kids.

Yes MCPS can change many things but it’s still going to come down to what you and your kid put into to it.

My problem is my kid didn’t work very hard in MCPS and still got pretty good grades. 3.8/4.5. Never learned to study efficiently or any time management skills. The first year of college was brutal for her as she simply wasn’t prepared. And she took 10 AP classes, so it’s not like there wasn’t rigor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

That doesn’t work when you have parents who take kids out whenever they feel like it.

I see posts in my feed all the time with parents being like “we played hooky today!”

And then they wonder why their kids don’t care about school.

+1 my kids complain that we never take the them out of school for vacations. They said *everyone* does it.

The schools themselves have encouraged this by telling us education is less essential than staffing Amazon warehouses. Of course a lot of families became disconnected from schools.

Schools didn’t say they were less essential than staffing Amazon warehouses. Schools and teachers tried to explain how difficult it would be to adhere to any safety protocols in schools with old facilities and KIDS. Have your been in some of our MS/HS during class change? Have you seen how. K/1st graders disregard personal space? And when folks didn’t listen they used the law to protect themselves by saying they were not defined as essential. And they aren’t as they aren’t the difference between life and death.

Many parents were going to work in old facilities without proper safety protocols, because those protocols were not evidence based or realistic. If they hadn't, there would have been massive food shortages and much more inflation. With schools, the decision was made that the consequences of no in person schooling were not as important as those other things. Well fine but now those consequences are here. Stop blaming the very parents that risked their lives to make sure you had food during the pandemic. It's offensive.

Any job that could went remote so there was much more distancing and you cannot compare a large school of 500-3400 students plus staff to an office or anything else.

As usual you like to pretend all MCPS parents are working from home in their jammies making $200k which is completely divorced from reality.

You lack comprehension. The PP said, any job that could went remote. Teachers could go remote so they did.

No, virtual teaching does not work for the vast majority of students as the current state of affairs clearly shows

Thats because the parents weren't willing to be active participants in their kids educations.

How dare they hold jobs! You should only use kids if you're wealthy.

The wealthy parents were the ones pushing reopening. At our lower income school very few kids went back to the hybrid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The absentee rates are alarming. Get the kids in school. Keep them interested.

That doesn’t work when you have parents who take kids out whenever they feel like it.

I see posts in my feed all the time with parents being like “we played hooky today!”

And then they wonder why their kids don’t care about school.

+1 my kids complain that we never take the them out of school for vacations. They said *everyone* does it.

The schools themselves have encouraged this by telling us education is less essential than staffing Amazon warehouses. Of course a lot of families became disconnected from schools.

Schools didn’t say they were less essential than staffing Amazon warehouses. Schools and teachers tried to explain how difficult it would be to adhere to any safety protocols in schools with old facilities and KIDS. Have your been in some of our MS/HS during class change? Have you seen how. K/1st graders disregard personal space? And when folks didn’t listen they used the law to protect themselves by saying they were not defined as essential. And they aren’t as they aren’t the difference between life and death.

Many parents were going to work in old facilities without proper safety protocols, because those protocols were not evidence based or realistic. If they hadn't, there would have been massive food shortages and much more inflation. With schools, the decision was made that the consequences of no in person schooling were not as important as those other things. Well fine but now those consequences are here. Stop blaming the very parents that risked their lives to make sure you had food during the pandemic. It's offensive.

Any job that could went remote so there was much more distancing and you cannot compare a large school of 500-3400 students plus staff to an office or anything else.

As usual you like to pretend all MCPS parents are working from home in their jammies making $200k which is completely divorced from reality.

You lack comprehension. The PP said, any job that could went remote. Teachers could go remote so they did.

No, virtual teaching does not work for the vast majority of students as the current state of affairs clearly shows

Thats because the parents weren't willing to be active participants in their kids educations.

My kid is in K now and I was very clearly told my kid needs to be in school and I can't do what they do at home.

Of course you can teach you k the basics. Many of us do as MCPS curriculum is weak.