Here in Seminole County FL the teachers still worked - it was just 100% virtual.

The mistake I observed was that they gave the HS students a choice of if they wanted scheduled classes or just posting Lectures/notes/homework - they choose the latter and therefore made their own schedules for getting the work done. Our daughter had no problem interacting with her teachers and getting responses.

I can understand the complexity for the teachers of continuing to hold classes at the normal times virtually - the signing in & out of classes via GoToMeeting/Zoom/etc alone could probably eat up 15 minutes. This school year the HS is in negotiations with the Teachers Union to switch to a Block Schedule which is normally done during exams - to minimize the switching of classes and potential for exposure.

My neighbor helps provide HP computers to the counties in South Florida and he's telling me Miami-Dade is setting up two monitors/lecterns and Plexi shields in each class and the monitors will accommodate the virtual students who are signed in and those attending class will be spread out in the rest of the classroom. They are expecting about 10% of the students will go to the virtual model. (I've not independently confirmed any of this so if it's inaccurate - I apologize)

Next week Seminole County has a working session and then a School Board meeting to discuss the structure/requirements for opening up in August.

Our county was also great. Our kids worked at least 6-8 hours a day. Like going to school normally some days it was even longer. They had zoom classes daily and the teachers taught. I have no issue with them getting paid. They worked hard.

That said other schools did not do as well. The school system our friends are in basically blew the year off. I think it’s very important kids go back to school this year, even if there is a shorter day or fewer in school days a week and there is still some online learning. While I think the education was good last semester it’s just nothing like being there. Plus my son missed out on some really cool electives like TV production and robotics.

My wife is a teacher and wants to go back to work. She was sent home in March and taught from home, as best she is able, the rest of the year. Here is some of the dumb shit she has observed:

1) The school board told teachers that students would have a "no one fails" second semester. If they passed the first semester, they automatically passed the second semester even if they did no work.

2) She could not demand that students turn in, much less perform, assignments.

3) Many students simply stopped participating. Some disappeared and there was no communication throughout the second semester.

4) Parents stopped cooperating.

5) Many houses had multiple children and one PC so one one child at a time could attend on-line schooling.

Teacher who care want to go back to work. They recognize that there is no substitute for a controlled, in-person, learning setting. And there is no substitute for required work, deadlines, and accountability.

My wife is not part of a teachers union.

quote:

Originally posted by BigWhup:
the teachers and counselors are earning their money.

. I will second that above . The nuances of starting this fall are complex. I have a feeling it is going to be a dumpster fire .

School board and administrators are where most of the waste originates in my area. Tax money doesn't go for teachers as much as building projects and assistants for the assistant administrators.

My wife is a teacher, and after the pandemic started, she taught online. After school ended, she did a week of tutoring online before summer break. She was just about to go back in a couple of weeks with online only teaching for the first three weeks With a mix of present and online students after that.

The mix of present and online students will be very difficult for her. Just teaching 5th graders online is herding cats, and now add the present students with all of the restrictions and changes - it will be a huge stress. To add to that, the students will be given pool noodles to use as distance markers and teachers won’t have their own classrooms since they will rotate classrooms instead of the children.

My wife has always earned her pay, especially doing hours of school related work at home up to and sometimes past midnight On a regular basis without compensation. Now she will be exposed to numerous super spreaders everyday so she will have to greatly limit her contact with elderly parents for fear of contaminating them.

I keep telling her it’s time to retire, but she can’t since we need the income and health insurance. We will just have to see how it goes.

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:

quote:

Parents aren’t cooperating getting kids to do online classes

I'll bet the little shits passed, can't leave anyone behind

Yep. My daughter said this was a blessing for a lot of students who just got passed through because of the situation. She said a half dozen of the students she counsels would have most likely not made graduation otherwise.

Kids have not stayed back a grade save 1979. About the time everyone got a trophy for participation.

quote:

Originally posted by kramden:
I see that the teachers unions are fighting against schools re-opening. Why are we paying teachers to not do their jobs? Any job I've ever had equated to no work, no pay.

Can you post the teachers unions that are asking this? All the teachers I work with want to go back to school rather than teach from home. My wife had to purchase a new computer to be able to teach online. $800 out of our pocket for that. Almost double the hours to produce lessons online that can be interactive. We have a contract that we go by, even with the extra hours.

My kids did pretty well with the online learning. We had them do school work first thing in the morning, and they didn't get to play or screw around until they were done. Usually they were done with school by 10:00 or 11:00. My oldest was getting up at 6:00am and usually finishing everything before the rest of us were even out of bed.

I was impressed with how the teachers were able to shift their teaching to accommodate the changing requirements. While most of the actual lessons were self-guided, my son's teacher (6th grade) had regular zoom meetings with the kids to talk about school work and check up on how they were doing. The younger grade teachers got on zoom and read books and talked to the kids every day. All of them were available via phone or e-mail if we ran into any snags in the lesson plans, and were very responsive the few times we had to contact them. They definitely earned their pay during the "shutdown."

quote:

Almost double the hours to produce lessons online that can be interactive.

In fairness, if she's like my two sisters, she'd been recycling the same lessons/plan for years anyway so think of this as make-up work....

In Oklahoma, the State Dept of Ed made the spring quarter optional for students.

The noisy teachers are protesting going back in person. Others, like me, are ready to quit if we’re just going to half-ass it again. Either what I do is important or it’s not.

Look at the $50K per semester Ivy League students. Doubt they will get any rebates.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
AZ teachers still hate our governor because he immediately agreed to their raise demands prior to his reelection, taking an election issue off the table for the teachers. They then actually went on strike anyway because the governor and legislature found a way to pay for the raise without a tax hike. That drove the teachers union over the edge with rage. They didn't care about the raise or the kids. They wanted to governor to commit political suicide and went on strike when he refused. You can imagine how they react now - anything he says or does, they are against it. Absolutely anything.

This is why state workers should not be allowed to unionize, they take tax payer money for mediocre work and then pay and lobby for their partner in this the Democrat party resulting in more raises, job security in trade for their votes.

Sickening!

Our school system is planning a vote next month to allow the kids to choose online or in school.
School is happening one way or another.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Almost double the hours to produce lessons online that can be interactive.

In fairness, if she's like my two sisters, she'd been recycling the same lessons/plan for years anyway so think of this as make-up work....

Then she is not like your sister.

It’s amazing how eager some people are to go after other people’s jobs....reminds me of another group of people.

I drive a school bus, when we went to NTI (Non Traditional Learning) , I was still driving. I was delivering work packs and other learning materials to students that don't have a computer for one reason or the other, mostly because there is no cell phone service/cable-internet service and satellite internet service is to costly. I also delivered school lunches and the Blessings in a Backpack (mostly canned goods and other food products of the nature) to low income.

I did this until June 1st when school officially ended. In that time I got paid my Guaranteed contracted hours at my guaranteed contracted pay rate. Which is about 25% of what I normally make.

From March to June, I have lost $14,000.00 in income. Not counting the $3,000.00 minimum extra income from the summer programs that I would have had, I say minimum, because that's based off an average of 5 hours a day for 3 days a week. Which I usually get more hours and more trips, because I usually fill in for other drivers at other summer programs.

Teachers had to change how they presented their lesson plans, their contracted hours/pay didn't change.

The teachers that did extra things like coaching and stuff lost pay. But my income depended on all the extra stuff, field trips, and midday preschool and such.

So with this pockylips, I'm hurting pretty badly financially.

I'm not eligible for unemployment, paycheck protection program or apparently any programs to help, so I'm really worried about the future.

I have already signed my contract for this coming school year of 2020/2021. That is projected to start August 12th a week earlier than normal so even if we don't go back to face to face learning, the school district will have to find something for me to do for my contracted hours/pay. Which is about 25% of what I actually make/work. So the future looks bleak.

I know one thing. I'm ready to go back. I'm ready to see my kids (though I'm a sub bus driver and don't have my own route, they are all my kids! I miss my team's, though I'm not really a sports person, but I miss my guys and girls!).

ARman

quote:

Originally posted by midwest guy:
The nuances of starting this fall are complex. I have a feeling it is going to be a dumpster fire .

Complex? Not really. There are some challenges to address, but well within the means of intelligent people to resolve. Therein lies the problem(s). Intelligent people are not going to be the ones driving this process this fall. Politicians and school administrators, both some of the most illiterate, agenda driven individuals on the planet, will be at the forefront of this process which means your last statement is all but guaranteed.

Personally, I'm sick of all this shit. Designate teachers/schools as essential workers/organizations, and tell teachers now they will be back in the classroom with 'all' their students this fall. Then empower a group of intelligent people (preferably outside of the public school structure) to go forth and address the issues necessary to make that happen. Its amazing what can be accomplished when an actual leader establishes what 'will' happen, and then pushes that process to a conclusion. Kids get a piss poor education overall, the last thing we need to be doing is further handicapping them with even less education. The politicians that fight this effort should be run out of town on a rail, and any teachers who refuse to comply should be replaced. My intuition tells me the teachers on the whole are not the issue. Their union is. And we're right back to politics and agendas again.

Or just start laying them off.

President Trump released in April Guidelines for opening up America again. Explicit guidelines that are clear .