AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18

[Red Six 131]

1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Don’t know how districts can be hard asses about it. They’ll lose a lot of talent that way, and face a shit ton of unnecessary liability. 

They can easily be hardasses.

The big reason is because of teacher contracts. Basically, you tell the school you're going to work next year. You have until (I think) 45 days before the start of the school year to rescind. If you want to leave after that 45 days, then the school board has to vote to let you out, or action can be taken on your license. My understanding is that the 45-day deadline has passed, so no one can leave without possibly losing their teaching license.

They also don't have an extremely in-demand skillset. If you quit, you are not qualified by education or experience to have any other particular job. Walking right now would be almost certain unemployment.

[irishtexan 11518]

39 minutes ago, Red Six said:

They can easily be hardasses.

The big reason is because of teacher contracts. Basically, you tell the school you're going to work next year. You have until (I think) 45 days before the start of the school year to rescind. If you want to leave after that 45 days, then the school board has to vote to let you out, or action can be taken on your license. My understanding is that the 45-day deadline has passed, so no one can leave without possibly losing their teaching license.

They also don't have an extremely in-demand skillset. If you quit, you are not qualified by education or experience to have any other particular job. Walking right now would be almost certain unemployment.

So your plan is to strong-arm teachers because you think they don't have other skillsets, and force them to break their contract and blackball them when things get back to normal. I'm sure there are a ton of people clamoring to work a $40k a year job that requires you to show up at 7am, work until 4:30pm, and then typically put two to three more hours of administrative work in at home every day. But hey, you get off about 5 and a half weeks a year, so it's all worth it. Sound fucking strategy. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by irishtexan

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

1 hour ago, Gardner Barnes said:

 

Where did you get this stat?

 

100% of my younger teachers wanted to return to campus when we surveyed them. BUT that was almost a month ago when numbers were expected to decline, not spike. We will survey again in a couple of weeks and see if there were any changes.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/coronavirus-staff/docs/FFCRA_Poster_WH1422_Non-Federal.pdf
 

This is for employees that might need to take leave. 

Edit: it’s more if you are directly impacted by Covid that precautionary. No guidance yet on what will happen with teachers that don’t feel safe to return. My guess is that the district will work with them as much as possible. We already have trouble filling certain positions because the pay doesn’t match the demands of the job. 

Edited July 7, 2020 by Larry T. Spider

[Doc Reeves 6434]

4 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Why don’t you, your big ole D and two swingin’ Bs take your briefcase and get the fuck out of the house during homeschooling?

sure man, didn’t think of that. 
 

where? 

[atomheartbevo 89657]

3 hours ago, babysdaddy said:

Kids don't drive the spread and they should be in school.  As a parent, mine will be.

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2020/05/22/peds.2020-004879.full.pdf

Are you saying kids can't spread it?

Daycares are getting hit with it, including kids.

 

[atomheartbevo 89657]

3 hours ago, Gardner Barnes said:

Where did you get this stat?

We happen to know a lot of teachers under the age of 45.  Those with kids in particular - they are ready to get the fuck out of the house, and not deal with watching their own kids, while simultaneously dealing with a bunch of other kids (and their parents) through Zoom and email.   We don't know any that had a positive experience this spring. 

Edit: There are some that are now hesitant because Texas is blowing up a bit, but that will shake out over the next few weeks.

Edited July 8, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[atomheartbevo 89657]

2 hours ago, irishtexan said:

So your plan is to strong-arm teachers because you think they don't have other skillsets, and force them to break their contract and blackball them when things get back to normal. I'm sure there are a ton of people clamoring to work a $40k a year job that requires you to show up at 7am, work until 4:30pm, and then typically put two to three more hours of administrative work in at home every day. But hey, you get off about 5 and a half weeks a year, so it's all worth it. Sound fucking strategy. 

Don't forget, teachers get to deal with the Karens of the world far more than most people do, and the Karens of the world want to talk to their kids' teachers and principals a lot.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

49 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Don't forget, teachers get to deal with the Karens of the world far more than most people do, and the Karens of the world want to talk to their kids' teachers and principals a lot.

Schedule a zoom, Karen. Not hanging around outside my office 3 days a week anymore.

Looks like kids under 10 are not required to wear masks. Unclear if schools can mandate that though.

Right now TEA basically left employment issues up to each district. My guess is that they will clarify that when they give more info in two weeks. There is going to be a lot of media attention surrounding teachers with health conditions.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

I’m hearing through the grapevine that TEA has the majority of their employees working from home until 2021. Please let this be true. 

Edit: all TEA employees are currently working remotely until further notice according to their recorded message. Yes I called. Fuck these clowns.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Larry T. Spider

[swraith 346]

^^^ That should make for a solid news headline.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Your office?  Away from homeschooling?

sure, I take them to my office and warehouse to ride their scooters, but i was speaking more to interactions with their peers.

right now it’s cool, I can do the super dad routine and take them to parks, riding bikes, learning soccer etc, but if the schools shut down, undoubtedly the parks will too. That’s the bitch in this equation. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve planted a garden, made a bird feeder, etc for the back yard- hell I had a bounce house back there for 3 weeks- but they miss out on hanging out with their school friends. We’ve set up play dates, FaceTime visits and stuff but what I learned from that is people are ridiculously flakey and quite frankly don’t give a shit. With work being reduced, I have no problem being with them all day or loading up them up and taking them to a park/lake/whatever but this past lock down got pretty tough since there was literally no place to go. 

If they were 9 it would be a shitty inconvenience but right now the thought of this being the case for 1/3 of their early life so far has me a little concerned. 

[Anastasis 23469]

I guess that our school district is making you decide between 100% virtual and 100% F2F. They will let you change your decision to go virtual for F2F, but only at the 9 week mark.  OTOH, you can switch from in person to virtual at any time.  The teachers will be assigned either virtual or F2F, so if you switch between the two the deck will get shuffled. 

 

We are leaning towards going virtual to start.  Once the little 9 week experiment plays out, we'll be inclined to transition to F2F if it hasn't been a total shit show. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Anastasis

[austingirl 2191]

5 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

My wife was a school teacher before she retired at the age of 29. I know a little about this. The teacher union is not exactly a strong one, but districts do not want teacher deaths on their hands. They don’t want litigation risks. They will face them up the wazoo by being hard asses. This is not the year to be enforcing rescissions. 

Are you in Texas? I thought teacher unions weren't allowed here.

[gsoda3 3256]

1 hour ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Schedule a zoom, Karen. Not hanging around outside my office 3 days a week anymore.

Looks like kids under 10 are not required to wear masks. Unclear if schools can mandate that though.

Right now TEA basically left employment issues up to each district. My guess is that they will clarify that when they give more info in two weeks. There is going to be a lot of media attention surrounding teachers with health conditions.

my wife got an email from TEA an hour or two ago that all kids will be required to wear masks until the governor lifts that order.  also TEA is going to require schools have a 100% on campus option for those parents who choose. 

 

for my bit of anecdotal evidence, not a single teacher under 30 at my wife's school wants to go back in august.  they just did an informal campus wide survey.  the school is overwhelmingly low SE and majority minority, so maybe it's that "hardest hit by covid" demographic that worries them. 

[gsoda3 3256]

52 minutes ago, austingirl said:

Are you in Texas? I thought teacher unions weren't allowed here.

they're allowed with the distinctions that collective bargaining and striking are not allowed. 

[atomheartbevo 89657]

1 hour ago, austingirl said:

Are you in Texas? I thought teacher unions weren't allowed here.

1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Yes and they exist here. Not at all strong here. 

Years ago, somebody told me they exist to keep the teachers from getting sued by the Karens because their snowflakes got a B rather than an A.  And there's still plenty of lawsuits filed against districts all the time.

They are not nearly as powerful as they are in other states.

[DaysOff 7947]

they're allowed with the distinctions that collective bargaining and striking are not allowed. 

Then that's not a real union recognized by any labor relations board. There are no real teachers unions here.

[RexWilson 1346]

I'll speak to this as a parent of two (6, 9), and as a teacher/coach.

As a parent, I hated the online learning. I put most of the blame on the district. I'll give them a pass early on because we were all trying to implement things on the fly. But as it became clear we would be finishing the school year virtually, things did not improve.

The content created for the Google classroom often did not work correctly or was to complex for most elementary students to be able to complete without lots of assistance.

Zoom/google meetings were simply social happy hours. It was frustrating when a teacher would attempt to create an organized activity and some kids would unmute and just speak over the teacher and other students. My kids hated it. It got to the point I just created our own lessons and experiments and the kids loved that.

As a teacher (PE), virtual learning was a joke as well. The district just provided us a slide deck of workouts to give the students. We couldn't create our own material nor teach a live lesson. Additionally, because of my content, the districts grading policy, and the frustrations I was experiencing from my own children, I put forth little effort. I simply posted the workouts, said contact me if you have questions, and held a weekly Zoom meeting (usually attended by less than 10 students).

I think things could have gone better had we been given more flexibility to create our own lessons and had live instruction. It was 5 weeks in before we were even allowed to have a zoom social with students.

Moving forward, this is going to be a shit show once again. It seems district officials are doing lots of surveys to get a ballpark idea on how many students will be in school vs online. The logistics of this all is a nightmare and the state has been pretty much hands off.

As a coach, I have no clue if we will have sports or not. Speed and strength camps this summer have been a huge headache. I believe I saw Mesquite ISD is saying students who do online learning will not be able to participate in extra curricular activities. That will have a huge impact.

My wife is a school administrator. As of right now we lean to not sending our kids back to campus to start. We have no idea how we will manage that and work (not a unique problem to us or our profession).

[RexWilson 1346]

2 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

31 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

they're allowed with the distinctions that collective bargaining and striking are not allowed. 

Then that's not a real union recognized by any labor relations board. There are no real teachers unions here.

Correct. They do not negotiate wages/benefits. They are just professional associations really. Your dues get you legal coverage and lobbyists for education issues with the state.

[StruggleBus 3922]

All I can say is that parents should be making plans for their kids to spend an extraordinary amount of time at home this school year. A few infected students has the potential to shut down a school for weeks or more. 

[gsoda3 3256]

9 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

39 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

they're allowed with the distinctions that collective bargaining and striking are not allowed. 

Then that's not a real union recognized by any labor relations board. There are no real teachers unions here.

well yes and no.  there are national unions who have texas branches.  i suppose the answer to "does texas have teachers unions" depends on to what purpose the question is asking. 

[Anastasis 23469]

10 minutes ago, StruggleBus said:

All I can say is that parents should be making plans for their kids to spend an extraordinary amount of time at home this school year. A few infected students has the potential to shut down a school for weeks or more. 

The TEA guidance my wife was reading indicated that you should basically operate with the expectation that there will be shutdowns of particular schools based on their unique situation as the year goes on.  

Edited July 8, 2020 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23469]

Here is the exact wording:

There will almost certainly be situations that necessitate temporary school closure due to positive COVID-19 cases in schools. Parents, educators, and school administrators should be prepared for this in the event that it occurs, while actively working to prevent it through prevention and mitigation practices.

[Your Mom 4805]

7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

What makes you think any but a few teachers would voluntarily go back to the classroom if remote teaching was an option?  They worry about their health, too.

Why would it be voluntary?  Is it voluntary at your place of work?  You're pretty lucky if it is.  Most of America has a boss telling them from where they will do their jobs, not the other way around. 

[atomheartbevo 89657]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Here is the exact wording:

There will almost certainly be situations that necessitate temporary school closure due to positive COVID-19 cases in schools. Parents, educators, and school administrators should be prepared for this in the event that it occurs, while actively working to prevent it through prevention and mitigation practices.

In thinking about it, had they done the "blended" or "mixed" or whatever they were calling it, where kids would only be in school 2-3 days a week, they'd be dumped into some kind of daycare, at least some of them, the other 2-3 days a week.  Meaning their exposure would go way up due to being at two separate locations with a shitload of kids,, and the chances of them bringing it back to school then go up.  And there's no way to know what those daycare/nanny/whatever situations would be like.

If they relax the class sizes (larger than the 6-8 they were talking about), and have those face-to-face kids in school for the full week, they are rolling the dice that those kids won't be too exposed elsewhere.

[CleverNickname 1308]

I'm pretty close to an AISD principal. The higher ups HAVE NOT requested from that single campus (and presumably other campuses): 

(1) a list of teachers with pre-existing conditions who simply cannot work face to face next semester. Of course these teachers should be on top of the list for teaching on-line classes. (They are also often the oldest teachers least familiar and adaptive to technology. Oh well. At least the spring helped them adjust a little. Oh, and btw: AISD is forcing an entirely different technology ecosystem from what was used in the spring that was designed for college students. I'm sure it won't be a hot mess for third graders...)

(2) made a survey of classrooms assuming spacing restrictions to figure out how many classes and # of kids they can actually safely accommodate (assuming every possible art room etc is converted to a classroom). 

AISD is the most segregated district in the state. It is likely west side schools will open with fewer than 25% in physical attendance, and many east side schools will open with >75% attendance. There are scenarios where kids (and teachers) will need to be bused to campuses that have the physical space. Hi west side liberal parents who think they aren't racist: here are 80 east side students from a coronavirus hotspot, bused to your school. But nobody, as far as I can tell, have talked or discussed this. 

[Anastasis 23469]

47 minutes ago, CleverNickname said:

There are scenarios where kids (and teachers) will need to be bused to campuses that have the physical space. Hi west side liberal parents who think they aren't racist: here are 80 east side students from a coronavirus hotspot, bused to your school. But nobody, as far as I can tell, have talked or discussed this. 

They gonna bus brown kids from demographics with lowest ses and highest covid rates into casis and bryker woods? Popcorn. 

[Samson's Wig 3192]

The closer we get to the start of school, the closer we're moving to pulling our kids out of AISD and just homeschooling for this year.  If we're going to have to teach them at home, it may as well be in a way that they actually get something out it.  180 minutes of zoom calls a day for third graders is the biggest fucking joke of an idea I've ever heard.  Has anyone at TEA met and/or taught kids before?  That combined with Morath the moron insisting that STAAR testing will happen (because, you know, money) - sticking with AISD for the year is starting to look like nothing but a completely wasted year of learning.

I know we're not alone in this sentiment, and I do worry about the financial impact to AISD should even 5-10% of students disenroll.  But at this stage all I'm seeing is complete failure to lead from the state and the school district.  No functional plan is in place, and it sounds more and more like a typical day of distance learning is going to look exactly like it did in the spring.  And my kids, at least, got absolutely nothing out of that shit show. 

[Texas Jeff 1945]

1 hour ago, CleverNickname said:

IAISD is the most segregated district in the state. It is likely west side schools will open with fewer than 25% in physical attendance, and many east side schools will open with >75% attendance. There are scenarios where kids (and teachers) will need to be bused to campuses that have the physical space. Hi west side liberal parents who think they aren't racist: here are 80 east side students from a coronavirus hotspot, bused to your school. But nobody, as far as I can tell, have talked or discussed this. 

I think (going off memory) there are a number of east side schools that are around half full, even with 100% attendance ... although I do believe there are probably east side campuses that need more space because of COVID.  Some campuses are closed because they are being rebuilt as new schools.  Maybe they need to keep the old schools open for a year to use the space.  Schools like O'Henry and Austin High already have sizable transfer populations from east side attendance zones, they are not just west Austin kids.

[Anastasis 23469]

24 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

The closer we get to the start of school, the closer we're moving to pulling our kids out of AISD and just homeschooling for this year.  If we're going to have to teach them at home, it may as well be in a way that they actually get something out it.

We're leaning toward 100% virtual with supplementary home schooling.  At least for the initial 9 week period until the first phase of this little epidemiological experiment plays out. 

Something interesting i heard wrt home schooling.  In LTISD they have implemented a rule that transfers into the district who were previously home schooled or in private school are ONLY eligible for the 100% face to face option, and are not eligible for virtual education.  Basically they are trying to prevent an influx of people taking advantage of the virtual option to supplement their prior decision to home school, or pulling back from private school and bouncing off the virtual public system until this is clear. I get the reasoning, and don't necessarily disagree with the restriction.  Probably sucks for a few parents who were going to make that move regardless of COVID, but it is what it is. 

[Samson's Wig 3192]

10 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

We're leaning toward 100% virtual with supplementary home schooling.  At least for the initial 9 week period until the first phase of this little epidemiological experiment plays out. 

Something interesting i heard wrt home schooling.  In LTISD they have implemented a rule that transfers into the district who were previously home schooled or in private school are ONLY eligible for the 100% face to face option, and are not eligible for virtual education.  Basically they are trying to prevent an influx of people taking advantage of the virtual option to supplement their prior decision to home school, or pulling back from private school and bouncing off the virtual public system until this is clear. I get the reasoning, and don't necessarily disagree with the restriction.  Probably sucks for a few parents who were going to make that move regardless of COVID, but it is what it is. 

Good info, thanks.    If we pull the trigger to disenroll and homeschool it would be for the entirety of their third grade year.  I don't think it would be a good idea to bounce back and forth, mostly because there would be no way to ensure you're not doubling up on some curriculum while missing out on other curriculum.  If we had to decide today it would be the exact same plan you've got, distance learning through AISD for the first 9 weeks, then reassess. 

If the district is truly going to become more hardass about online attendance and assignments, I don't see my kids having much gas left in the tank for additional schooling (not to mention I will have to miss work as it is to monitor their attendance and assignments).  So the larger concern is that they waste another nine weeks of school.  Then you factor in that this may be a yo-yo situation all school year as viral waves come and go, and kids/staff test positive forcing quarantines, etc., and homeschooling all year starts to look more attractive.  I do want them in public school when it's working.

[Caver60 395]

We have two kids. Our daughter just graduated high school (no pics, assholes) and our son will be a sophomore. One of our son's friends killed himself the other night.

Through this whole thing, we have been pretty good about distancing and things. Not too long ago, the boy's club baseball team started up again. We let him do it, and I've been feeling guilty about it ever since. Then this kid killed himself, and sent out a picture of himself with a gun to his head right before he did it. 

I don't feel guilty about club baseball anymore. We are all social animals and if teachers are willing to teach, I welcome it. Kids need adults to keep an eye on them. Teachers and coaches notice things that we as parents don't. It's hard to tell with teenagers what is normal angst and what is a brewing problem that needs dealt with. There have been plenty of posters on here who have talked about the mental health aspects of this ordeal all along. I want our kids in school this fall. Looks like I won't be seeing my parents for at least a year, and that sucks.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8817]

Sheesh...

[Anastasis 23469]

4 minutes ago, Caver60 said:

We have two kids. Our daughter just graduated high school (no pics, assholes) and our son will be a sophomore. One of our son's friends killed himself the other night.

Through this whole thing, we have been pretty good about distancing and things. Not too long ago, the boy's club baseball team started up again. We let him do it, and I've been feeling guilty about it ever since. Then this kid killed himself, and sent out a picture of himself with a gun to his head right before he did it. 

I don't feel guilty about club baseball anymore. We are all social animals and if teachers are willing to teach, I welcome it. Kids need adults to keep an eye on them. Teachers and coaches notice things that we as parents don't. It's hard to tell with teenagers what is normal angst and what is a brewing problem that needs dealt with. There have been plenty of posters on here who have talked about the mental health aspects of this ordeal all along. I want our kids in school this fall. Looks like I won't be seeing my parents for at least a year, and that sucks.

Heart breaking.  

[gsoda3 3256]

7 minutes ago, Caver60 said:

We have two kids. Our daughter just graduated high school (no pics, assholes) and our son will be a sophomore. One of our son's friends killed himself the other night.

Through this whole thing, we have been pretty good about distancing and things. Not too long ago, the boy's club baseball team started up again. We let him do it, and I've been feeling guilty about it ever since. Then this kid killed himself, and sent out a picture of himself with a gun to his head right before he did it. 

I don't feel guilty about club baseball anymore. We are all social animals and if teachers are willing to teach, I welcome it. Kids need adults to keep an eye on them. Teachers and coaches notice things that we as parents don't. It's hard to tell with teenagers what is normal angst and what is a brewing problem that needs dealt with. There have been plenty of posters on here who have talked about the mental health aspects of this ordeal all along. I want our kids in school this fall. Looks like I won't be seeing my parents for at least a year, and that sucks.

yikes.  what club does your son play for?

[Caver60 395]

2 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

yikes.  what club does your son play for?

We live in New Braunfels. He plays for a 16U team called the Barracudas. They are partnered up with the Bombers, a really fine softball club.

[jimmyjazz 45911]

10 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Why would it be voluntary?  Is it voluntary at your place of work?  You're pretty lucky if it is.  Most of America has a boss telling them from where they will do their jobs, not the other way around. 

Well, maybe I was responding to your statement (that I quoted):

Quote

I think there will be plenty of teachers who don't want to come in to classes and they can be the ones that make the zoom lessons and teach remotely.

So, in your hypothetical world, teachers who don't want to teach on campus would be allowed to teach their classes online.  What if that's 80% of the staff?  Connect the dots.

[Red Six 131]

18 hours ago, Dr. Beeper said:

My wife was a school teacher before she retired at the age of 29. I know a little about this. The teacher union is not exactly a strong one, but districts do not want teacher deaths on their hands. They don’t want litigation risks. They will face them up the wazoo by being hard asses. This is not the year to be enforcing rescissions. 

I totally get what you're saying, and that's the way I see it, too -- force their hand and make them blackball teachers for not wanting to work in unsafe conditions.

But, at least in my vicarious educator bubble, teachers are generally risk-averse. Rocking the boat is just not what they do. Some of the older ones who have hit their Rule of 80 or whatever are retiring. Others who have spouses with good jobs are seriously considering bailing too. But the late-30s/early-40s ones with kids feel like they are stuck. A lot of them have put years into their career, are halfway or more to retirement with a decent pension, and don't want to risk never being able to work again.

It may take the death of a pretty and well-liked 28-year-old English teacher with a newborn dying before anyone in charge makes a decision that is remotely in the best interest of the teachers.

[TexasGrunt 72]

How does the top 10% in high school get addressed with virtual school?  I saw the emails last year for my 2 in high school and the mentions of so many A's.  You know the parents are helping with that since there is no accountability on tests and they didn't even take finals.  They go to school in Katy and I know a lot of parents will do anything it takes to ensure there little rug rat gets that A on the test for the GPA.

[Your Mom 4805]

44 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, maybe I was responding to your statement (that I quoted):

So, in your hypothetical world, teachers who don't want to teach on campus would be allowed to teach their classes online.  What if that's 80% of the staff?  Connect the dots.

Hypothetical is exactly right.  I don't know exactly how it will pan out or how each individual teacher will feel about it.  But in the end, I have to go do my job and risk being exposed to the virus and so do lots of other people.  I'm sure 80% of my co-workers would rather not be there too, but we are anyway.  

[Gene Parmesan 4006]

34 minutes ago, TexasGrunt said:

How does the top 10% in high school get addressed with virtual school?  I saw the emails last year for my 2 in high school and the mentions of so many A's.  You know the parents are helping with that since there is no accountability on tests and they didn't even take finals.  They go to school in Katy and I know a lot of parents will do anything it takes to ensure there little rug rat gets that A on the test for the GPA.

The students/parents who care enough about getting good grades will continue to get good grades, and the students/parents that don't will continue to just do enough to get by.  It's no different than f2f schooling.

[jimmyjazz 45911]

13 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Hypothetical is exactly right.  I don't know exactly how it will pan out or how each individual teacher will feel about it.  But in the end, I have to go do my job and risk being exposed to the virus and so do lots of other people.  I'm sure 80% of my co-workers would rather not be there too, but we are anyway.  

So y'all would be cool with 20% of your peers staying home "because they wanted to" but you wouldn't be allowed to do so?

You proposed it.  I'm just trying to understand what the hell you were saying.

[drt 638]

https://www.kxan.com/news/education/aisd-teachers-union-to-call-for-100-online-learning-this-fall-at-11-a-m-press-conference/

Cliff's notes, they want 2 more months before F2F classes resume.

[Samson's Wig 3192]

I don't blame them for their take, and it may well be the right thing to do, but Education Austin doesn't really have any influence at all, do they?

[drt 638]

No idea.  All of this is a shitshow.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8817]

https://www.kxan.com/news/education/aisd-teachers-union-to-call-for-100-online-learning-this-fall-at-11-a-m-press-conference/
Cliff's notes, they want 2 more months before F2F classes resume.

1, maybe 2 hot ones

[hayden_horn 11362]

we will be doing middle school 8th and 7th grade from home. i don't know what it looks like, but the spring was a shitshow. whatever, i get it. i also heard something something about most teachers had completed most of their curriculum and were ready to pivot to staar prep. then they canceled the test, and teachers were caught flatfooted for content. that i can understand, so i would hope that the fall semester will contain more learning concepts and curriculum. 

it also highlights that the stupid fucking test dominates the spring semester, meaning our kids are learning more about how to game a test than they are actual content, which is somewhat dispiriting. 

the shocking thing is how unprepared we are from district on up. has no one sat down and figured out how remote learning should work? seems basic enough to me. in the spring my kids had two 15 minute to 30 minute zoom sessions with teachers. it really should be four hours a day on zoom. four classes per day, 50 minute zooms. or two, with actual one on one zooms once a week per class. or something - put something together so parents can make decisions with actual tools, rather than the vague bullshit that's being floated out right now. it's clear we are on the wrong side of this virus with just six weeks to go. assume the worst, and move forward the best you can. 

[Guest Lobo]

I'm just glad that all public school teachers, administrators, staff, custodians, maintenance crew, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, et. al. are all under 50 and in great health with no co-morbidities.  Glad they won't be passing anything to children, parents, or to one another.  Nor vice-versa.  I totally spaced out in a selfish mode and forgot that there's dozens, if not hundreds, of at-risk group members at every single public school campus in Texas.  

[Gene Parmesan 4006]

7 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

we will be doing middle school 8th and 7th grade from home. i don't know what it looks like, but the spring was a shitshow. whatever, i get it. i also heard something something about most teachers had completed most of their curriculum and were ready to pivot to staar prep. then they canceled the test, and teachers were caught flatfooted for content. that i can understand, so i would hope that the fall semester will contain more learning concepts and curriculum. 

it also highlights that the stupid fucking test dominates the spring semester, meaning our kids are learning more about how to game a test than they are actual content, which is somewhat dispiriting. 

the shocking thing is how unprepared we are from district on up. has no one sat down and figured out how remote learning should work? seems basic enough to me. in the spring my kids had two 15 minute to 30 minute zoom sessions with teachers. it really should be four hours a day on zoom. four classes per day, 50 minute zooms. or two, with actual one on one zooms once a week per class. or something - put something together so parents can make decisions with actual tools, rather than the vague bullshit that's being floated out right now. it's clear we are on the wrong side of this virus with just six weeks to go. assume the worst, and move forward the best you can. 

The zoom sessions were nothing more than show and tell for my kids.  Any actual concepts being taught were done through youtube or some other online video.  My kids would watch and me or the wife would have to explain it to them.  Why weren't the teachers just doing that via zoom?