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


atomheartbevo

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Maybe some of those parents unimpressed with their kids online experience this spring can share what they expect out of online learning.  Seriously, what do you expect the teachers to do and provide?  

 

We too got tired of the YouTube videos and shit, but we also knew the kids didn't have any of their books, supplies, or manipulatives they normally had.  Their teachers were even hesitant to send handouts knowing not everyone had a printer.  

 

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I'm not sure how social distancing on a bus really works.  Kids get on, kids get off.  They all walk through the same door and a fair amount of them walk past the others going up and down the aisle.  Exposure time might be limited, but it's not zero.

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So, wife wants to homeschool this fall. My girls will be 3 by then so it’s not like it not something that we cant handle academically, but the involvement and planning while dealing with a very restricted outdoor environment is keeping me up a little. Part of learning at this time is social interaction with peers and it seems like they might just miss out on that to a large degree. 
I’m feeling somewhat unprepared to say the least.

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1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm not sure how social distancing on a bus really works.  Kids get on, kids get off.  They all walk through the same door and a fair amount of them walk past the others going up and down the aisle.  Exposure time might be limited, but it's not zero.

Yes, it's also a transmission point that will include kids from every grade and many different classes.  I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how this could all work and not be a total shit show.  The only answer I have been able to come up with relies on children being largely asymptomatic and low risk for infecting others, but I am not sure I am convinced of the latter yet. 

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29 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

So, wife wants to homeschool this fall. My girls will be 3 by then so it’s not like it not something that we cant handle academically, but the involvement and planning while dealing with a very restricted outdoor environment is keeping me up a little. Part of learning at this time is social interaction with peers and it seems like they might just miss out on that to a large degree. 
I’m feeling somewhat unprepared to say the least.

Maybe I’m old fashioned but in what world do 3 year olds go to “school”?  What does that look like?  Serious question, not ragging on you.

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3 hours ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

Maybe some of those parents unimpressed with their kids online experience this spring can share what they expect out of online learning.  Seriously, what do you expect the teachers to do and provide?  

I've got a rising high school junior, so I'm focused on the high school experience.  I give teachers a pass on the past spring because they were thrown into it.  However now that we've had some time to prep I expect more this fall.

Specifically, I would like them to provide direct instruction via zoom for at least part of each classroom period, meaning some kind of lecture, class discussion or some direct interaction and guidance.  A lot of teachers in the spring just provided video links and offered office hours.  Some videos are OK, like links to math videos to back up what a teacher presented in class.  But videos need to supplement learning and not be the primary source of learning.  The kids need to have an assigned time to show up for "class" and have some interaction with a teacher and fellow students.

After direct instruction, I would like teachers to provide some kind of assignment or activity for the kids to do.  Some reading or a problem set or something that can be graded.  Give the kids something to accomplish ... at least one thing to do per class per week.

And I would like the teachers to grade at least some of the work and provide the kids with feedback.  Lots of work today is graded for completion without much feedback, which means some kids turn in poor work and just get a checkmark if something was submitted, even if that something is completely wrong.  The kids need to know if they are on track or not on track to master the material.

Many high school kids have four classes per day, two before lunch and two after in a long-format "block".  I am not asking teachers to keep the kids in a zoom session all morning and all afternoon, but maybe two hours in the morning (one per class), and two more in the afternoon would be enough.  That is a four-hour school day.  The rest of the time could be used for assignments.  Many of these kids have had their extracurriculars put on hold, which sucks socially, but they have more time now for the core subjects than they ever have.

I recognize that these are tough times to teach, but school in the spring was not much.  It needs to be more rigorous.  Some class-time instruction, some homework, and some feedback would be good for now, but it needs to be more than it was.

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33 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Maybe I’m old fashioned but in what world do 3 year olds go to “school”?  What does that look like?  Serious question, not ragging on you.

No worries, I literally said the same thing when the wife wanted to enroll them last year at 2yrs.

It’s called “pre-preK” (PPK) and basically its fundamentals (abc/123) with music, body awareness (stretching type stuff) and, in our case, church stuff (growing kindness, awareness of Jesus, chapel, etc.)

There are different schools with different philosophies, some prefer more “patrician” (British) styles where is about following in lines, hearing lessons and basically learning the organizational expectations one experiences in life and others, like Zoo school here in SA, that focus on nature and stimulation thru nature. 

we ended up taking our girls to 2 different places from each school of thought, since they all offer scheduling like college (MWF/TTH...WTF?) One is more church based, the other is connected with Trinity University’s church and more chill. One is a bit like a British boarding school and very proper, the other is like Palo Alto where the teachers say “today we painted our feelings with finger paint and sprigs of rosemary”. IDK, the girls love it so they go. Or went, that is.

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4 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm not sure how social distancing on a bus really works.  Kids get on, kids get off.  They all walk through the same door and a fair amount of them walk past the others going up and down the aisle.  Exposure time might be limited, but it's not zero.

They explained that in their tentative plan. Buses will load from back to front, one kid every other row,  window seats only.  First kid on sits in the back row, next kid on sits two rows up, etc. Last kid on sits in the front row. Unloads in reverse order.  It’s not perfect but I’m not sure what else they could do and still offer the service.  

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5 hours ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

Maybe some of those parents unimpressed with their kids online experience this spring can share what they expect out of online learning.  Seriously, what do you expect the teachers to do and provide?  

My high school student had pretty much zero interaction with teachers at all. They were available on zoom for office hours but there were no other scheduled meetings on zoom. It was just reading assignments, maybe watch some videos published by someone else, and then do some worksheets or write a response.  These were AP classes.  He spent maybe 15 minutes a day working on school stuff and brought home the same credits everyone else’s kid in the district did.  

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My high school student had pretty much zero interaction with teachers at all. They were available on zoom for office hours but there were no other scheduled meetings on zoom. It was just reading assignments, maybe watch some videos published by someone else, and then do some worksheets or write a response.  These were AP classes.  He spent maybe 15 minutes a day working on school stuff and brought home the same credits everyone else’s kid in the district did.  

Yep. My daughter got her weekly assignments by Sunday night and was typically done by noon Monday.

 

Hybrid of face to face and synchronous/asynchronous instruction would give your best balance of safety and quality. Rotate through the school every week or two. Why so many districts are requiring parents to decide a single path now seems premature.

 

I get it. A lot of families need the daycare aspect of school when they go back to work. Transportation drives what districts do, so if the busing doesn't work expect kids at home a lot more.

 

Shitshow inbound either way.

 

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On 6/26/2020 at 5:14 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I'm the son of a college professor and a HS teacher.  I feel guilty for saying this, but I don't see the point.  Our last AISD kid will be a junior in the fall and I don't think missing a few months of in-class instruction is going to intellectually ruin him.  The last couple of months in the spring certainly didn't.

To complete my hypocrisy, I was totally underwhelmed by the "efforts" teachers put in when on-campus classes shut down.  I know it's a paradigm shift, but you're a professional teacher.  Act like it.  The vast majority of my son and daughter's teachers completely phoned it in.  I was shocked.

I have tried to engage my kids more in discussion as well as in-home assignments ("here, read this, it's about an old dude in a boat", "do some research on this pandemnic, the 1918 flu, and the black plague, and write it up for me").  It's not a perfect substitute, but they are getting used to having their brains challenged 365 days a year.  It's something.

If remote classwork is going to be a thing, teachers need to get a lot better at it.  I don't see another option this fall.  My kid is not going back, barring a miracle.

A lot of teachers haven't used technology or taught online before and it showed. You've gotta use the technology to your advantage. Have them write responses, pose questions for them to respond to and discuss. Lecture at the beginning of the week on zoom and give them assignments that actually are meaningful and somewhat rigorous for them. I had them keep quarantine journals and then write about what their experience was like and to not hold back and it was nice to hear their actual feelings during this unfiltered. I even had them do relevant group projects. They know how to communicate with each other. Allow them to. Pretty sure teachers would be already drinking and shit when they're supposed to be actually teaching. Whatever. I'm all about evolving and getting better as a teacher no matter the circumstances. Many are stuck in their ways. I don't care if we are in person or virtual next year I will figure out ways to keep students engaged and learning. 

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1 hour ago, Wally Pryor said:

Can't see any way that this semester is anything but 100% remote. 

Why do you say that?  Things are going just fine in the childcare we have going on right now, thanks to heat, right?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/texas-coronavirus-cases-child-care-facilities/index.html

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As parents nationwide wonder if it's safe to send kids back to day care, Texas is grappling with a surge of Covid-19 cases from child care centers.

At least 1,335 people have tested positive from child care facilities in Texas, the state's Department of Health and Human Services reported Monday, citing figures from Friday.

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Of those infected, 894 were staff members and 441 were children. The cases came from 883 child care facilities that are open in the state, DHHS said. 

The new cases mark a significant increase from June 15, when there were 210 reported cases from 177 facilities -- including 141 staff members and 69 children.

Oh.

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https://www.kxan.com/news/education/aisd-classes-are-planned-to-be-100-online-or-100-in-person-superintendent-says/

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In a Facebook Live with Mayor Steve Adler on Monday night, outgoing Austin Independent School District Superintendent Paul Cruz said that students will have two options for learning in the fall.

“We will have 100% options for virtual learning for students if they choose,” said Cruz. “Or a 100% in-school, if that is what they choose.”

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Cruz said that as of now, AISD still plans to start the 2020-21 school year on August 18, and that parents will be able to choose between learning from home and going to classes in-person.

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The district previously considered a ‘blended model’, where students would attend classes in-person and online at home. Additionally, back in May, AISD said its COVID-19 task force was considering capping each school day’s student attendance at 25%.

Cruz said the hyprid option is still possible, if and as COVID-19 conditions change.

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The superintendent said that the district is facing challenges due to implementing safety protocols that still need to be tested. AISD says its task force is working to review these protocols and give feedback.

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In Williamson County, Leander ISD says families will also be offering in-person learning or in-person classes — no hybrid models are being offered, however. The district says it will implement safety measures like face coverings, social distancing and minimizing large gatherings.

 

 

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My wife's an elementary school counselor. Teachers are VERY concerned about being forced to go back in the classrooms. She thinks a lot of them are going to quit. I'd love to see how they propose a diminished and already over-leveraged workforce will create and execute two different curriculum simultaneously for in-class students and in-home students. And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 

 

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32 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

My wife's an elementary school counselor. Teachers are VERY concerned about being forced to go back in the classrooms. She thinks a lot of them are going to quit. I'd love to see how they propose a diminished and already over-leveraged workforce will create and execute two different curriculum simultaneously for in-class students and in-home students. And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 

 

I get the feeling they aren't going to quit because districts are going to bend over backwards to accommodate teachers that "can't" go into school.  I'm not sure districts can fire a teacher for legit medical reasons, so you'll see them take leave of absence or use FMLA.  Smart ones will get (or have) external disability insurance.   Or district already hinted at staffing a classroom with a sub while the teacher video conferences from home.

But yea, the there are going to be a ton of teachers stretched very thin. 

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37 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

My wife's an elementary school counselor. Teachers are VERY concerned about being forced to go back in the classrooms. She thinks a lot of them are going to quit. I'd love to see how they propose a diminished and already over-leveraged workforce will create and execute two different curriculum simultaneously for in-class students and in-home students. And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 

 

Yeah, it is.   The at-home option gives them a known playing field that they can plan around.  In-class is just loaded with land mines that necessitate many backup plans, and that's for things that are being considered and doesn't even factor in unknowns that no one has thought through. 

I'm not advocating the at-home option.  I want our kids in school.  I certainly can see the inherent issues with parents' jobs, them being at home, etc. when contemplating the at-home  plan.  At the end of the day, though, just feels like this is just another semester at home, if not at the very beginning then at some point during it. 

Yes, a shit show. 

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18 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

I want to see what's the plan for when a kid gets a positive test result. Does the entire class quarantine at home for 2 weeks? Does the entire school?  

Why would the entire class need to?  Why not only those in close contact?  

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5 minutes ago, dingleberryswitzer said:

I get the feeling they aren't going to quit because districts are going to bend over backwards to accommodate teachers that "can't" go into school.  I'm not sure districts can fire a teacher for legit medical reasons, so you'll see them take leave of absence or use FMLA.  Smart ones will get (or have) external disability insurance.   Or district already hinted at staffing a classroom with a sub while the teacher video conferences from home.

But yea, the there are going to be a ton of teachers stretched very thin. 

Being afraid of the virus -- or even being more vulnerable to it -- likely is not a valid FMLA leave basis. And even if it is, you only get so much FMLA time, and it's unpaid unless you have PTO or sick days.

Word around the campfire is that my wife's district is going to be a hardass about everyone physically coming into work. She fortunately is in a position to walk if need be. I give in-person school four weeks before schools are shut down again.

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1 minute ago, irishtexan said:

I think being in an indoor classroom for 6+hours with an infected person, even if wearing masks, is considered close contact. 

Plus, if they're in one of the portables, many of those are two classrooms sharing an HVAC system. Probably both of those classes would have to be considered as affected.

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48 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

My wife's an elementary school counselor. Teachers are VERY concerned about being forced to go back in the classrooms. She thinks a lot of them are going to quit. I'd love to see how they propose a diminished and already over-leveraged workforce will create and execute two different curriculum simultaneously for in-class students and in-home students. And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 

 

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.  There will be others that are willing to come in and can teach live.  I work at a large company.  I have about 10,000 coworkers who do the same job as me.  I'm hearing close to 100 of my co-workers have tested positive and probably many more than that are assumed to have had it but never tested.  At least one has died from it that I know of.  Work goes on.  We've been given options to not come in but it's clear we aren't going to be fully paid if we don't.  No doubt it sucks to have to make that choice but it's not a choice that's unique to teachers.  

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4 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

I think being in an indoor classroom for 6+hours with an infected person, even if wearing masks, is considered close contact. 

There's a definition for close contact and I think simply being in the same room isn't it.  

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My wife's an elementary school counselor. Teachers are VERY concerned about being forced to go back in the classrooms. She thinks a lot of them are going to quit. I'd love to see how they propose a diminished and already over-leveraged workforce will create and execute two different curriculum simultaneously for in-class students and in-home students. And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 
 



Eanes is going to lose about 15-20% based on informal discussions with my wife. Several are going to wait until 8/31 trs credit date which will put the districts in an even bigger bind.

This is going to be real bad.
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7 minutes ago, Red Six said:

Being afraid of the virus -- or even being more vulnerable to it -- likely is not a valid FMLA leave basis. And even if it is, you only get so much FMLA time, and it's unpaid unless you have PTO or sick

I guess the question is, if a person gets all the shit signed by a Dr (for whatever reason, hell, high blood pressure) how much is a district going to fight it?  An otherwise healthy teacher 20 years in could have a shit ton of leave saved up to.  After that it's not about being paid, but being able to come back to your old job next year or whenever they want.  Teachers may quit, but then when they want to come back to work they have to get rehired, and might get stuck some place they don't want to be.  

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I get the feeling they aren't going to quit because districts are going to bend over backwards to accommodate teachers that "can't" go into school.  I'm not sure districts can fire a teacher for legit medical reasons, so you'll see them take leave of absence or use FMLA.  Smart ones will get (or have) external disability insurance.   Or district already hinted at staffing a classroom with a sub while the teacher video conferences from home.
But yea, the there are going to be a ton of teachers stretched very thin. 

You would think this would be the case. But it’s not.
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1 minute ago, Your Mom said:

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.  There will be others that are willing to come in and can teach live.  I work at a large company.  I have about 10,000 coworkers who do the same job as me.  I'm hearing close to 100 of my co-workers have tested positive and probably many more than that are assumed to have had it but never tested.  At least one has died from it that I know of.  Work goes on.  We've been given options to not come in but it's clear we aren't going to be fully paid if we don't.  No doubt it sucks to have to make that choice but it's not a choice that's unique to teachers.  

And many teachers will say "you pay me shit, you overwork the fuck out of me, and now you want me to come in and expose myself to a virus that's killing millions of people just so parents aren't inconvenienced and have to supervise their children's learning at home. No thanks." So now there's a massive teacher shortage, meaning that there are more kids in the live classrooms, and there are more kids one teacher has to proctor remotely. It's a shitty plan destined to fail. 

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2 minutes ago, Gardner Barnes said:


You would think this would be the case. But it’s not.

There's probably going to be some controversy internally over which teachers get to stay home and teach online, vs the ones told they have to go to campus.  Hurt feelings at best, lawsuits at worst. 

Certain districts (and even schools within good districts) already have problems being fully staffed, they are going to be begging some teachers to stay on in any capacity.  

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11 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

And many teachers will say "you pay me shit, you overwork the fuck out of me, and now you want me to come in and expose myself to a virus that's killing millions of people just so parents aren't inconvenienced and have to supervise their children's learning at home. No thanks."

Maybe the ones married to someone making $150k will walk, but others will be happy as hell to still have a job and will "yes sir, no sir" their way to their much needed $50k a year.

 

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8 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

And many teachers will say "you pay me shit, you overwork the fuck out of me, and now you want me to come in and expose myself to a virus that's killing millions of people just so parents aren't inconvenienced and have to supervise their children's learning at home. No thanks." So now there's a massive teacher shortage, meaning that there are more kids in the live classrooms, and there are more kids one teacher has to proctor remotely. It's a shitty plan destined to fail. 

That's a pretty generalized statement.  Many of us have kids old enough to not need babysitters or to supervise the learning.  My kids are middle school and high school.  Their mom and I both work and have no problems trusting them to stay home and get the work done.  That's not the issue for us.  The issue for me is that my kids did everything expected of them this spring in about 15 minutes a day, brought home all A's 
(for the middle schooler anyway, the HS only did pass/fail grades) and they didn't learn shit.  The spring was all unexpected, so I get it.  I don't expect a perfect situation.  But it was definitely a waste of time. 

We all have different tolerances for risk.  To me the risks are worth it when you're talking about an entire wasted year and a half or longer for millions of kids.  It's not a case of risking lives so my kid won't need a babysitter.  It's a case of risking some lives for an entire generation to get an education that is actually worth something.  We don't know when or even if there will be an end to this virus.  We aren't talking about just the fall or even one entire school year.  It's possible this is the new normal.  We gonna homeschool forever now?  

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6 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

That's a pretty generalized statement.  Many of us have kids old enough to not need babysitters or to supervise the learning.  My kids are middle school and high school.  Their mom and I both work and have no problems trusting them to stay home and get the work done.  That's not the issue for us.  The issue for me is that my kids did everything expected of them this spring in about 15 minutes a day, brought home all A's 
(for the middle schooler anyway, the HS only did pass/fail grades) and they didn't learn shit.  The spring was all unexpected, so I get it.  I don't expect a perfect situation.  But it was definitely a waste of time. 

We all have different tolerances for risk.  To me the risks are worth it when you're talking about an entire wasted year and a half or longer for millions of kids.  It's not a case of risking lives so my kid won't need a babysitter.  It's a case of risking some lives for an entire generation to get an education that is actually worth something.  We don't know when or even if there will be an end to this virus.  We aren't talking about just the fall or even one entire school year.  It's possible this is the new normal.  We gonna homeschool forever now?  

Completely agree that curriculum will need to be more structured, with more accountability, and more interactive instruction. That's going to have to be part of the plan. Zoom instruction. More graded homework and subject specific testing. It's already been outlined in the discussion above.

The point I was trying to make is that if you try to over-leverage a person who is already in a tough job that doesn't pay a lot by forcing them to come back or quit, there's a higher likelihood of that teacher just quitting,. They'll be able to get their old job back when this is over, or find a job at a different school. Now you've got a situation where teachers, who are already about 20% over-leveraged on the number of students they're assigned per classroom, are down 20%, and also being told to create two different curricula for two different groups of students. Your kid is going to get a sub-optimal education regardless if its in-person or at-home in that scenario. That we can comfortably predict that opening classrooms will result in transmissions and hot-spot outbreaks, it just doesn't make sense to reopen. Let the teachers teach from home. Retain as many as possible. Try to stay afloat through this shit show. 

This virus is impacting everything and everyone. I'm not sure why parents think that their children's education should somehow be insulated from similar impacts. 

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3 hours ago, irishtexan said:

And then I wonder what they're gonna do the first time a 70+ year old teacher dies from COVID-19 she contracted from one of her students. This an an absolute unmitigated shit show. 

UT just had a prof die, albeit probably not from in-class exposure.

A lot of younger teachers are wanting back in their classrooms and don't want to do online, at least at the start, so if enough people filled out the surveys, the older/at-risk teachers can teach online while the younger ones can risk in-class.

But a shitload of parents probably did not fill out the surveys.

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2 hours ago, Your Mom said:

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.  There will be others that are willing to come in and can teach live. 

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.

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18

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