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Samson's Wig

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Posts posted by Samson's Wig

  1. The politics and incoherence are  enough to make a parent just want to say fuck it and find options outside of public school.  I know some just need the "free" babysitter, but holy shit this mess will lead to a decent percentage of kids never stepping foot in a public school ever again, which is the financial disaster the overabundant and overpaid administrators have been fearing for years.  Maybe in the end public schools will do what's been needed for a long time and fire about 80% of administrative staff, properly fund teachers and the classrooms, and maybe just maybe provide a half decent education for a few kids.

  2. 3 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

    Great point about the next few years. We are all so focused on this term. So real question, what programs get cut? Art?Advanced classes? Sports? 

    Lol.  In a couple of years public school in Texas may just be a sports training camp, and anyone wanting their child educated academically will be looking elsewhere.  Athletics has been the absolute top priority of public school in Texas for almost a century.  That won't change now, even though it should.  Art programs receive so little funding already that the only thing left would be to fire the teachers and repurpose the spaces. I wouldn't be shocked if that happens.   A band hall could be converted into one hell of a locker room.

  3. 7 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Are you talking about the parents not enrolling their kids, or the state leadership creating an environment where parents are left wondering if public school is a reasonable place to send their kids?  Because hot damn the state is doing their damnedest to make reasonable people sit back and wonder if there isn't a better place for their kids to learn right now.

    For Burnet, I think this is the crux of it: "CISD Superintendent Keith McBurnett said the district implemented a new student information system this year, which requires families to register even if they attended school last year...."

    I thought it was interesting that AISD included three options on their recent survey this week:  1) face to face; 2) virtual; or 3) not enrolling my kid in AISD.   I've heard that there has been a large number of students disenroll at my kids' elementary school, but this must be an issue district wide if AISD is asking about it in their survey, right?

  4. No doubt, Larry.  I think we may be watching the end of public schools in Texas unfolding.   What is left standing when the dust clears may not be a place many are willing to send their kids.  State leadership making a poor choice in a tough situation is understandable, but their inability to make a choice at all is baffling and is causing irreparable harm.  It's been so terrible that it's easy to assume this is being done purposefully in an attempt to create an environment where citizens push for vouchers, but that's giving these maroons too much credit. 

  5. 2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    This will complicate things

    https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/a-slap-in-the-face-educators-association-says-of-ag-paxtons-limits-on-local-health-officials-power-to-close-schools/

      Quote

    But Attorney General Ken Paxton’s announcement on Tuesday — that local health officials don’t have the power to keep schools closed — is causing confusion and fear about the rest of the semester.

      Quote

    But the Attorney General is now saying local health authorities can’t order closures like that.

    In response, the Texas Education Agency announced districts that remain closed solely based on local health authorities’ orders will risk losing state funding.

      Quote

    The TEA’s guidance still includes, though, a section that says schools can use the first four weeks as a transition period and do remote learning. A board vote can lead to four additional weeks of that “transition period.”

    You would think TEA wouldn't want to see public schools fail.  Paxton I get. 

  6. 2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    There are kids involved, it won't be handled safely.  Like the meme going around, there are going to be kids licking their hands, screaming "CORONAVIRUS" and chasing other kids around.

    But it could mean some parents get back to work.

    Good point.  I can see a small business that is used to running small camps/classes with 10-15 kids having a better chance of success than a public school with 1000 kids though.  They also might have more experience wrangling a group of kids than many pod monitors. 

  7. Now we're fucking talking.  I like to see small businesses finding ways to make some cash when things are otherwise down, and it will definitely help some parents out a ton.

    I still think we're going to be hearing a lot of statements of regret regarding pods, for a number of reasons. Small businesses that typically cater to kids/families that have the space and are otherwise sitting on their thumbs now offering opportunities for kids to get help that parents may not be able to provide sounds like it could be a win/win for everyone (if handled safely of course).

  8. On 7/24/2020 at 4:04 PM, fattyflattie said:

    Well we made the call yesterday.  Kids will be schooled at home thru the first semester at a minimum, on non-district material.  We can't meet the mandatory 0810-1525 virtual time slot while working.  Wife can teach them from 1200-1700 with some schedule readjustment, which so far her office has been cool with.  I don't know what to think about it, we were one of the only families on the street that were making time to work with our kids during the last 8 weeks or whatever it was of last semester.  How many people told us it was too much of a burden was astonishing; I feel bad for those kids.  And these are from parents that are all educated and doing pretty well generally.  My neighbor has home schooled all 3 of theirs, and even with aggy genes they are smart as a whip, so I think we can make it thru the year, and maybe even come out a bit ahead.    We narrowed it down from about 15 programs and have settled on 2.  I'm trying to talk the wife into possibly doing portions of both, or a full program and extra from the second.  Researching laptops for each kid now.  Good luck to y'all whichever way you decide. 

    wrt socialization, I'm not as concerned - I'm also not downplaying it.  We've been doing more as a family than ever before (no travel for work) and they still do zooms and calls and what not with the neighborhood friends.  Hell just riding their bikes in same general 50 yrds of each other makes them pretty happy.  But they seem to understand that right now everybody is going thru some shit, and its what it is.  Until then they just get to go boating, fishing, and down to the ranch more than usual.  They still talk with the neighbor kids as we pass by on walks and whatnot, and while not nearly the same as it was 6 months ago, it's more than it was in March.  And with 3, they keep themselves pretty damn busy. 

    Would love to know what your final two homeschool programs are.

  9. 6 hours ago, Anastasis said:

    Yeah, I don't know anyone doing that at all and it is certainly not what I am talking about when I talk about pods we are working on for my kids.  More about providing a limited co-education environment with the virtual learning context provided by the district, with children from other families who have similar habits wrt to COVID control. 

    I know of a handful of pods that have hired teachers away from the schools.  I can't wrap my head around what the teachers are thinking other than short term cash.  I suppose some of them may have quit anyway out of concerns about returning to the classroom.   Pods in general is a great idea and I hope it works well for those who do it.

  10. 2 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

    The author of the NYT piece had an issue with that too. Why? If these are exceptional circumstances, shouldn't parents be able to pod up with others that are the best fit for their child's needs that can also accommodate their ability to host said pods so as to allow for them to work as best as they can. If the districts are foisting online education on to the parents causing them to scramble, shouldn't the schools allow for parents to make the best of the situation. 

    I don't have a problem with pods at all.  People will do what's best for their kids.  I was speaking specifically of pods hiring public school teachers away from the schools.  When they're offering public school teachers more money than they make to teach at the school to come and tutor their handful of kids, thereby depriving public school kids of an experienced teacher, that's a bridge too far in my opinion.   And the teachers that take that faustian bargain will be the ones on the outside looking in when things return to normal.  Do I think it should be illegal?  No.  Do I think people can spend their money however they want?  Yes.  Do I think this particular move makes them self entitled assholes?  Yep.

  11. A ton of our kids' classmates are doing the pod setup this fall.  We decided it wasn't for us for a couple of reasons.  First, there's just no way to to trust that all people involved will act responsibly, no matter what they claim (and many pods are hiring college kids/ young adults to handle the teaching/babysitting - so you're exposing everyone to a demographic that can't control itself).  Even without a twenty something involved, you're increasing your kids and your exposure significantly by inviting a group of kids (and every they've been in contact with) into your home.   That part is a matter of risk tolerance, and I understand some folks landing on the side of it being worth it for the social interaction.  The second, and more important reason, is that getting my kids out of my house every now and then isn't worth the nightmare of having 4-8 extra kids in my house for those days it's our turn.  What a fucking nightmare that will be.  My wife and I both work out of the house (even before the pandemic), and having to just shut everything down for one week per month because an atomic bomb of noise, snot, shit, hurt feelings, bad attitudes, etc. has descended upon our sanctuary just isn't worth it.  Depending on your situation, especially if you're leaving the house to work and can hire someone else to deal with that nonsense, it might make more sense.

    FWIW, a significant number of people at our kids' elementary school have completely disenrolled their kids for the year (info coming from a source in the school).  I'm not surprised and the big concern here is that AISD will be another fatality of the Covid pandemic.  The district was gasping for air before this came along, and it won't take that many folks bailing to put the final nail in the coffin and turn AISD into the severely underfunded inner city school district it's destined to become at some point anyway.  If your long term plans involve staying in the city and sending your kids to public school, now is the time to do what you can to ensure it's not a complete disaster in the coming years (although I have no clue what we can actually do about it - with our without the new caronavirus we're on the same trajectory every other large city district in America has traveled). 

    • Like 2
  12. Some things I've been working on just to help with things that caused problems this spring:

    1. Converting dining room into a classroom setting, with cheapo desks for them so that there is a specific spot they associate with learning.  Dining table can serve as a group activity spot if needed.
    2. Setting up a digital wall calendar on a vertical 24" monitor so that everyone's schedule is front and center and we can quickly see who needs to be doing what at a glance  You can easily build one using a Raspberry pi and an old monitor, https://www.raspberrypi.org/, or just buy one ready-to-go from Dakboard: https://dakboard.com/site
    3. Purchased a big ass magnetic giant erase board  to hang on the wall to be used for quick access to organizational items (zoom passwords, etc.) and to serve as a space for instruction.
    4. Updating their computer situation as my daughter's macbook air did not play well with any of the software utilized this spring, including Blend.  It became a huge issue after updating to Catalina.  Updating an old PC for use this go-round.  Fingers crossed.
    5. Still determining best way to handle this, but some type of filing system in the dining room to keep all of the paperwork, assignments, etc. organizing and easily accessed.
    6. Finally, and most importantly, I'm stockpiling liquor.  

    These things will help keep me sane this fall based on what we experienced this spring.  Most of the frustration was born out of a lack of organization on my part and the school/district/teachers' part.  Mitigating even a bit of that will go a long way to making this a more functional experience for the kids and me.

    • Like 2
  13. 1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Everybody is on the same page which will help from a support point of view, and they were looking at those schools/teachers who were able to get a full compliment of content/activities up on Blend - I know they talked to my kid's teachers, because like I said elsewhere, every single day, they had a full day's worth of activities and assignments ready for the kids.  It was actually a little too much, given that we were trying to do our own thing.

    And we know several teachers who are right now working on their lesson plans, doing webinars/classes on how to use Blend, Seesaw, etc. now that they have some certainty on how things are going to play out.  They are dreading it, but at the same time, they know how things are going to play out.

    There are going to be some shocked/upset parents when they realize a week or two in that they are going to have to be a lot more involved with their kid's activities, and that participation is going to be required.  It's going to suck for those parents.

    You make a good point (or two or three).  I'm definitely glad everyone will be forced to be on the same page.  In the spring, even though both kids were in 2nd grade, every teacher they had was using their own software and system.  Between language arts, math, art, music, p.e., and foreign language, we had 9-10 different teachers doing their own thing and none of it worked well.  I wanted to shoot someone (starting with myself).

  14. We have some friends with a ten year old boy who is having some wild emotional swings involving lots of tears and overblown emotional outbursts.  His mother keeps blaming it on too much testosterone.  The kid is chunky and already has manboobs.  I've often wondered if it's not too much estrogen.  Maybe the juvenile delinquent in this story just needed an extra testosterone boost to chill the fuck out, rather than a hormone I think we can all agree just leads to more irrational and destructive behavior. 

    • Like 1
  15. 17 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    AISD send this email out a few minutes ago

    • Austin ISD has learned much about continuous learning. Simply put, at-home instruction will not look like it did in March, April and May.
    • The AISD Academics, Professional Learning, Technology teams and teachers have been working hard over the summer to create high-quality, online instructional resources for students in all grades that will be much more comprehensive and robust than what existed in the spring. 
    • Austin ISD is designing high-quality course content that can be delivered either 100% virtually or face-to-face. We also know the connection between teachers and students, whether in a face-to-face or remote environment, is crucial to a student's success.
    • The BLEND (Canvas) system will be used in grades pre-K-12 with the use of Seesaw as a supplemental tool in grades pre-K-2. 
    • Through BLEND, students and parents will receive all communication about course assignments, be able to watch videos, access lesson content, submit assignments, receive feedback on assignments and communicate with their teachers. 
    • Students in grades pre-K through second grade will also be able to use Seesaw, which can be accessed through BLEND, as a supplemental, developmentally-appropriate tool for younger learners.

     

    Most of this sounds great.  I was hoping they would come up with an alternative to Blend, as it is a complete piece of shit and failed to work about half the time this spring, but c'est la vie.

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