Just need to vent. Our school district announced that the fall will be fully remote. Starting from June the district kept promising that schools will reopen for in person classes. The district conducted a survey, which showed that almost 90% of parents voted for in-person or hybrid (more for in-person actually). Then another survey that gave similar results. Then the teachers voted. Surprise, surprise-90% for remote. Continued in comments.

Glad to hear the teachers union stood up and won remote learning! They shouldn’t have to risk their lives for something that can be done fully remote.

As the husband of a 3rd grade teacher, I'd ask you to consider why a teacher would vote for full remote instead of hybrid. I live in Loudoun County outside of DC. 83,000 students in the school district. Do you know how ass backwards and shitty a hybrid arrangement is for the students? I can tell you what it was going to look like in LCPS before they switched to 100% remote.

Each class was capped at 10x students. The teachers would concurrently run two curriculums, one for the kids in class that day and another for those at home. Lunch is eaten at the desk. No recess. No assemblies. No interaction or socialization with other students or staff within 6 feet. All students including special ed from K-6 wearing masks all day. All instruction is in lecture format from the front of the room. There is no one-on-one instruction anymore. Staggered bus arrivals and dismissals. Staggered kiss-and-ride in the AM and PM to eliminate volume of students arrivals. One hour plus of handwashing per class throughout the day but not every class has a sink.

What about when someone tests positive? Do they shut down that class or the school? What about sibilings in other classes or schools or staff with kids in other schools or classes? Do they shut down too?

While hybrid alleviates the childcare burden a few days a week, it provides your child shit education. A massive majority of teachers in this county voted for 100% in-person or 100% remote. Hybrid is a joke.

So while I dont know that you are thinking that teachers just want to chill at the house and eat cinnamon roles instead of work, most dont want to be exposed to 20x dirty kids every day teaching a watered down curriculum in a sub-par environment when they can provide better quality from home with the right resources until things go back to normal.

Finally the district announced entirely remote program. But what pisses me off is that our park district, which is the same village and which manages afterschool and enrichment programs for schools, opened the pool, the library, afterschool enrichment programs. And today I got email saying that they will open the facilities for working parents to send kids there from 8:30 to 3:30 so that they will be supervised. For a monthly fee, of course. I’m so frustrated and mad. So all the bars, restaurants, pools, community center classes, basically everything where they are getting paid is open. But schools are closed. Hypocrites.

I don’t understand why teachers aren’t considered essential workers. They signed up to be teachers and have exposed themselves to the flu and other germs kids carry for years. Coincidentally kids have not been shown to carry and transmit COVID, yet we need to shut down schools? Go to work or find a new job! I do not see school as “free daycare”. This summer I enjoyed spending extra time with my kids during WFH, what I did not enjoy is juggling 3 kids trying to learn virtually in April and May. It was a complete cluster and my kids learned nothing!!! My twin first graders are behind due to finishing kindergarten virtually. They are going to suffer life long consequences due to lost academia. Walmart cashiers aren’t whining near as much as big baby teachers. I hope parents decide to home school instead and public schools will lose their funding. That will teach the teachers to “be careful what you wish for”.

I hear your frustration. It makes sense. I feel lucky that I don’t have to deal with similar situations right now, as I don’t have kids.

I’m genuinely curious on one thing, because I’ve seen a number of people online post similar frustrations. I think the recent opening of various areas have shown that covid will spread. There are many examples in Chicago of restaurants that opened that have had to to close again because their staff have gotten sick. We’ve seen what happens with MLB teams and college sports teams and how it spreads when these things happen.

Given this, what do you say to teachers? Meaning, if even one teacher dies as a result of getting covid because schools opened and it’s very difficult for kids and teenagers to follow strict guidelines (which is difficult for even adults), what would you say to that teacher? Kids may not be likely to die (though it could happen) but they will be around teachers in person and they will bring it back to their families who likely have older and/or immunocompromised members. It will spread to others who are more likely to suffer significant consequences. I think we’ve seen that it will spread, there’s evidence to support that.

If my office tried to force me back in, I think I’d be furious. I’ve been give the choice and I continue to decline. Most offices are not asking people to come back at this point. That’s the primary thing I see in conflict with your post. The difference between school for teachers and the places you listed (restaurants, bars, etc) is that you can choose whether or not you go to those places. It’s a choice. A teacher working at a school is not.

Again, I ask because I’m genuinely curious. I say it with no animosity and not to challenge you or call you out, but because I’m grappling with how to respond myself. I genuinely cannot imagine having to deal with this situation from a parents perspective, so I do truly understand your frustration. I guess I’m just not sure how to expect teachers to go back and put themselves at risk when I’m not willing to put myself at risk.

As the daughter of a teacher, I understand your frustration but the absolute lack of concern for teachers’ safety and health is infuriating. My mom goes back to teaching in person in public school next week and I am terrified for her.

It seems to make sense to me because daycare isn’t free. I think sometimes people confuse teachers as babysitters but since they aren’t the school district chose to offer you daycare at a cost..

Walk the walk OP. We’ll see you in person in court! Or at an in person deposition with 10 attorneys on each side, stenographer, video technician, and catering, in a cramped conference room for several days in a row.

Then you can tell us how the poorly paid teachers are wimps

I am a parent of two kids and am sick of all the surveys. I am not an infectious disease specialist, so why would my 'vote matter. How about we take into account science and see what the people with expertise say. There is NO way to open schools safely now. Few other points:
-children can spread covid
-teachers <> retail workers, stuck in a tiny room with kids all day
-hybrid models are worse because then children come into contact with more people

Stop being mad at the teachers. Be mad at the people who refuse to wear a mask, the people still going on vacation, the people who demanded we open up too early, your government...its not teachers job to clean up this mess.

Totally cool to vent, but are you going back to the office? If not, why would you expect teachers to want to put themselves at risk. I think we just realize that teachers also act like professional babysitters.
Im with ya, would be nice for them to get out of the house and for some normalcy to begin. Would you be open to doubling the teachers pay if they do go to in-person?

I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have children right now.. it’s impossible to work while they’re home, they’re not learning as much as they would be in person, and they’re not getting the very necessary socialization.

As someone that makes decent money doing financial consulting, I’m not willing to go back to working in person anytime soon. Especially with taking public transportation...and that would only force me to interact with primarily adults, that can usually properly wear a mask and stick to social distancing guidelines.

There’s absolutely no way I’d be willing to go back to work with 30+ germ factory kids each that are either too young to really understand the masks or are at the perfect age to not wear one to defy the rules. Especially while making a teacher’s salary, which is way less than anyone’s here.

I truly understand it sucks, but the teachers shouldn’t be blamed, or treated like “they won” simply because they’re trying to stay safe.

Yeah, I’m high risk and my mom is a high risk teacher. If she does back into the classroom I cannot see her. There are two sides to the coin - everyone is frustrated.

You’re actually mad that people want to choose to work in a safe environment? Kids aren’t gonna die if they are taught remotely.

Having public schools online is going to be one of the biggest contributors to income inequality in recent history.
- Private schools are going to be open in person at full speed. Private schools are very wealthy.
- Public schools that are online will offer very subpar experiences. Wealthy people will supplement. We got my six year old a tutor when this started and will continue. We buy extra curriculum for my 10 year old. Our high school aged nanny is getting a tutor so she can continue to take AP classes. How do people with less money do this?
- My wife and I are professionals and can work from home. What about a single parent who is not a professional? Who helps the kid with school? How does the parent decide between helping with school or support themselves and their kid(s)?
- Public schools sports are getting canceled. My kids are in very expensive club sports. They learn social skills, leadership, and the value of hard work in sports. Poor kids won’t have sports.

There is already a big divide between the haves and have nots, it is about to get a whole lot bigger.

It’s going to be nearly impossible to social distance the students, let alone the teachers.
When a student brings a weapon to school, (gun, knife or whatever) the student will be reprimanded, because of how dangerous and inappropriate it is. Are we cool with Little Sally and Johnny getting reprimanded when they start spitting on each other and coughing in the teachers face because it’s a “funny joke”?

I hear you. I'm really conflicted on this too. I think it's completely fair to worry about whether teachers and kids can be in school safely. That said, it's so infuriatingly dismissive to suggest that parents who are concerned about the impact of having kids remain at home for remote learning are simply being callous or lazy or something. Even for privileged people like a lot of us, it completely understates the difficulty (and often impossibility) of remaining productive and meeting employer expectations while also having round the clock parenting/educating/tech support duties. To those making flippant comments about how we aren't going to hearings, so why should teachers show up, I would remind you that school isn't just for the kids of parents who work can't work remotely. What exactly are people who do still have to show up to work supposed to do? Who supervises and helps those kids with remote learning? The other part of this discussion that I find troubling is that we're all concerned about teachers being put at risk when we just accept those risks for blue collar retail employees. Why is that so much more acceptable for people without master's degrees? I don't know what the solution is. Opening schools *does* seem like a higher level of risk than is advisable. But I don't think we can have this discussion without talking about how we're going to support parents. I don't know what the answer is but as a parent I'm beyond frustrated that the sacrifices I made to keep my kid home all spring have gotten us nowhere, if not worse, because our state and federal governments haven't made the hard choices to lockdown thoroughly for long enough to really get this thing under control.

lol - 90% of the workforce don’t feel safe coming back to EY (ie 90% of employees want to stay remote), but 90% of parents want schools to reopen (so they have a place to send kids, where teachers are the employees that “might not feel save to return to the office”) so that they don’t have distractions (kids) while they WFH. I’m not minimizing the struggle, the district is taking the opportunity to monetize it, especially taking advantage of working parents that will feel pressure to pay $ even though you may be struggling enough as-is (pay cuts/reduced salaries/it’s a material cost if you do it 5x a week as if your child was in school) while simultaneously working a full time job & now being forced to be an in class aid in your child’s classroom (virtual learning) if you don’t pay. It’s an unfortunate situation bc you don’t want to force ask-risk teachers to go into work (young kids are germy little things) but then it sucks having to pay those who do then voluntarily go in to watch children.

Just to state the obvious, this is a fluid situation. Shit changes. At the beginning of June, everyone was optimistic. We had just come out of lockdown and the number of cases was decreasing. We were hovering around 500 new cases daily for a couple of weeks. Fast forward two months and the number of cases is rising. We've been hovering around 2,000 new cases daily since the middle of July and it's just going to get worse. The mayor had to restrict restaurants and bars again and prohibited any services where you couldn't wear a mask. Decisions are being made with everyone's health and safety in mind and not necessarily your convenience. Teachers shouldn't have to put their lives on the line to teach your kids in person because you're sick of them being at home. To quote my least favorite line "These are challenging times". Adapt and don't be so selfish.

I have a special needs child so it just adds to the mix of feelings.