Scary Thought: Education

[ScottRS]

According to our Superintendent, what he's being told is that across the state 10-20% of families have said they will not send their kids to a brick and mortar building this fall. The biggest problem with that from the district's viewpoint is that we get money from the state based on asses in seats. If 20% don't come, that puts us in a serious financial bind.

Our district hasn't said conclusively yet what they're doing come fall, but the maybe's they're floating are dumb:
One-way hallways
Alternating days among the various grades (6th and 9th grades together, 7th and 8th grades together) and the other days are "remote learning"
One classroom, no communal lunch or playground time, you go there, you stay there till 3
No PE
Masks all day

Any of that being the "new normal" and our probability of being in that 20% who says "f that" is pretty high.

Is this how we end up with education funding vouchers finally, by witholding our kids from school until the districts scream?

 

[gt1guy]

My daughter started out teaching at a public school in New Orleans. Said the kids were literally wild uncontrollable animals. Not one single time when she tried to call a parent did they ever answer the phone. She quit when a student tried to shove her down a flight of stairs when she was 7 months pregnant. She now teaches at a private school. Says all the parents are very involved in the progress of their kids. Probably because they have a large monetary investment in getting their kids sent to the private school.

She's a good person who honestly cares about the kids and loves teaching them. The public school kids were unteachable and dangerous.

 

[Slander]

Aaaahhh, the benefits of the liberal utopia. If only everyone had the opportunity to enjoy that experience.

It's a Democrat dictatorship, different than a west coast liberal utopia.

 

[Tin Roof]

Current Use?

The land is all timber, non-agricultural. 14 acres is in the timber reserve.

 

[woods]

The land is all timber, non-agricultural. 14 acres is in the timber reserve.

Ah. Not bad. Was going to say, 30 acres totally open was pretty low.

 

[Provience]

I support public education, in no small part because i already pay a fuckton for it.

I am also 100% against the masks and rotating school days and all this other covid bullshit they have pushed out. our school was happy to report that they had nearly 90% of students 'check in' during the half a semester of remote bullshit. flat fucking out 10% didn't even do that.

on show and tell day (grade school) it was a big success if nearly 50% of the kids could show up at all during it. 50 fucking percent is not good engagement.

100% online may work for some situations and may be good for some situations, but removing the public school and in person option is a non-starter.

 

[Provience]

My daughter started out teaching at a public school in New Orleans. Said the kids were literally wild uncontrollable animals. Not one single time when she tried to call a parent did they ever answer the phone. She quit when a student tried to shove her down a flight of stairs when she was 7 months pregnant. She now teaches at a private school. Says all the parents are very involved in the progress of their kids. Probably because they have a large monetary investment in getting their kids sent to the private school.

She's a good person who honestly cares about the kids and loves teaching them. The public school kids were unteachable and dangerous.

and this is where i would rather work within the system and allow/encourage private options alongside public options. public school shouldn't be a zoo, but i can't get on board with removing it entirely because it has some structural failures

 

[clodhopper]

One of the causes of the low participation was schools not making it mandatory and enforceable. My son's school froze grades at the start of the covid remote learning such that they could go up but not down. If you were already rocking an A, there was no incentive to attend, since you would get the A at the end anyway. While I am not an expert on all schools everywhere, I will assume many other schools did the same thing, then were surprised youths didn't attend simply out of the joy of education.

 

[Provience]

Generally, it's a great idea for schools to go digital.
I think the school system is a dinosaur. Scary forward thinking: Kids can even just take online classes and either take online tests, or go the "school" for the tests once a month. On "testing day" other things could happen face to face.

If we shift the socializing away from School, toward extra curr activities or activities completely outside of schools, that would suffice (or even be better, because school kids are way to preoccupied with emotions and the other sex and well, sex...)

I full support your theory.


Covid IS the motor behind these thoughts though. And it is going to go away. I will say at the current level of stupidity: 1.5 years.

here is why you are a fucking idiot.

My kid attends the largest school district in our state, i.e. huge funding. We are also very near the initial epicenter of COVID (king county WA) our entire county, which has a huge amount of commuters into King, has had 20 cumulative cases of covid over the past 6 months in the 'under 20 year old' bracket.

this is NOT a disease that even fucking vectors around children.

so we have a disease that doesn't even make an impact to kids all the way up to highschool, but you are proposing as a 'good' solution something we know will completely neglect 10% of children, based on what has already happened, and will have minimal reach to 50% of childre, based on obverserved interactions, and just might be an acceptable solution for maybe 20% of children. MAYBE 20% can do as well or better than in person.

that is fucking insane.

 

[Provience]

One of the causes of the low participation was schools not making it mandatory and enforceable. My son's school froze grades at the start of the covid remote learning such that they could go up but not down. If you were already rocking an A, there was no incentive to attend, since you would get the A at the end anyway. While I am not an expert on all schools everywhere, I will assume many other schools did the same thing, then were surprised youths didn't attend simply out of the joy of education.

yup, there is no way to enforce it even going forward if they "make it mandatory".

attendance is a huge deal for in person because hell, they can actually keep track of it.

 

[ScottRS]

One of the causes of the low participation was schools not making it mandatory and enforceable. My son's school froze grades at the start of the covid remote learning such that they could go up but not down. If you were already rocking an A, there was no incentive to attend, since you would get the A at the end anyway. While I am not an expert on all schools everywhere, I will assume many other schools did the same thing, then were surprised youths didn't attend simply out of the joy of education.

Ours did that with grades too. My kids "attended" sometimes because they wanted to, sometimes because "Mom made me", more than a little bit was for the social interaction of seeing their classmates on the tablet screen and getting to talk about what they've been doing. But the motivation to actually do school work was somewhat less than during the regular school year.

 

[clodhopper]

yup, there is no way to enforce it even going forward if they "make it mandatory".

attendance is a huge deal for in person because hell, they can actually keep track of it.

Sure they can. Actually hold virtual classes, take attendance, and then have the grade reflect if attendance minimums are not met. Daily quizzes can help measure absorption of material. Give the teachers the authority and responsibility to make it happen. It may seem like more work for teachers, but only for awhile until they find the tools to automate or adjust their teaching habits. Besides, there are way too many "teacher work days-no school days" as it is, they have the time. School administrators need to either handle the administrative tasks themselves or push back on the board of Ed to minimize the non-teaching crap that has flooded the schools to free up the teachers to do what they are supposed to be doing.... teaching.

 

[Provience]

Sure they can. Actually hold virtual classes, take attendance, and then have the grade reflect if attendance minimums are not met. Daily quizzes can help measure absorption of material. Give the teachers the authority and responsibility to make it happen. It may seem like more work for teachers, but only for awhile until they find the tools to automate or adjust their teaching habits. Besides, there are way too many "teacher work days-no school days" as it is, they have the time. School administrators need to either handle the administrative tasks themselves or push back on the board of Ed to minimize the non-teaching crap that has flooded the schools to free up the teachers to do what they are supposed to be doing.... teaching.

i guess, it is going to result in a shit ton of home visits to follow up on accountability. i'm curious how that would pan out with the recent push to remove police ties to the schools.

i do honestly think it will result in violence against people who follow up and that rate will be much higher than the current 'make the kids walk to the bus' option.

the CA UC system has decided recently that they won't consider ACT/SAT results during admissions, that move could honestly do more to impact the way things are taught in school. SAT get's way too much pull as the schools need to 'teach the test' and the SAT board is very aware of that and actively manipulates their test to influence education

 

[dntsdad]

You guys are bitching like the principal or superintendent of these school makes these choices.

These are edicts handed down by the state or feds.

 

[Dethmachinefab]

I get analy raped for $7500 here on a 215k single family home that's nothing special, and thats "cheap". Goddamn I need to GTFO. Fingers crossed they offically make my wifes job remote, if so we are OUT.

We are at 10k for school only here. They had a budget vote a few weeks back. Mail in only. Never got a ballot in the mail, never was able to contact a person about not getting a ballot. It passed and up it goes another 2.58%.

On a normal year they put out signs and all sorts of media and everyone goes to vote. If it fails they put out a tiny newspaper ad and vote again a few weeks later, and keep doing it until it passes.

 

[Tin Roof]

You guys are bitching like the principal or superintendent of these school makes these choices.

These are edicts handed down by the state or feds.

A lot of this is actually up to the individual district. We have the authority to decide if we want to require masks, how many kids per classroom, if they get to have recess, etc.

 

[Slander]

We are at 10k for school only here. They had a budget vote a few weeks back. Mail in only. Never got a ballot in the mail, never was able to contact a person about not getting a ballot. It passed and up it goes another 2.58%.

On a normal year they put out signs and all sorts of media and everyone goes to vote. If it fails they put out a tiny newspaper ad and vote again a few weeks later, and keep doing it until it passes.

Sounds about right.

 

[Ted_Kaczynski]

Public schools, and the unions that they are adjoined with are far more of a criminal element than any organized crime syndication ever was. When you get in and wade around behind the curtains and purse strings it's sickening.

They are far too powerful to just disappear. I do wish digital learning transformations would continue and deal a meaningful blow to these sick criminal organizations, but I doubt it'll stick.


Homework for you guys. Go look up your district's annual budget and do the rough math what it takes to run it on a daily basis.

Assignment 2, research admin pay including superintendent and principal positions. You will most likely be shocked what they make. In alot of cases the superintendent of a medium sized district will be making more than the state governor.

 

[woods]

You guys are bitching like the principal or superintendent of these school makes these choices.

These are edicts handed down by the state or feds.

Yawp. We called them educrats.

I was doing a lesson on simple machines in front of a 4th grade class. Stumbled onto the topic of gravity. Taught the kids that any two objects will hit the ground at the same time. They were blown away. State rep was watching in on my lesson plan, and pulled me aside. You did great with the children, but the topic of gravity is not on the state exam and you wasted thirteen minutes of class time. I'll be noting this in your portfolio.

That's when I walked.