Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[MacReady]

I say school is out forever.  Let the next generation finally put an end to it all though their uneducated stupidity.  No going to school, no online classes, just read a book and leave me alone.

[MookieMonstah]

4 minutes ago, Breesus mode said:

You mean you don't like having your competence questioned by some corporate hack more concerned with quotas than the education of our children?

Oh, its the absolute best. I love when we pull funds from public education so that kids can go to a rich private school on tax payers dimes. Its just so smart.

[theJ]

4 minutes ago, MookieMonstah said:

Its a difficult problem because many, many, many small schools only have one teacher in certain departments. Staggering administrators isn't possible, you can't have a Principal in the building 50% of the time. That school day would destroy after school activities, including sports, music, drama.

My school has one Art teacher. If you have 11-12 in school from 8-1 and 9-10 in school from 1-6, which group of kids isn't getting access to art classes? Or are we just going to make the art teacher work both shifts? Sports obviously impossible unless all practices are taking place after 6PM, which I'm sure you understand isn't plausible. I'm honestly confused that a former teacher is having a hard time figuring out why a 12 hour school day is ridiculous.

The art teacher thing is feasible given that you just stagger them across both shifts, but not the whole day. So have them there 10-4 or something. 

[MookieMonstah]

2 minutes ago, theJ said:

The art teacher thing is feasible given that you just stagger them across both shifts, but not the whole day. So have them there 10-4 or something. 

For sure, that would work. It still creates a myriad of other issues, the biggest of which is very few schools will have the budget to accommodate this.

[theJ]

5 minutes ago, MookieMonstah said:

For sure, that would work. It still creates a myriad of other issues, the biggest of which is very few schools will have the budget to accommodate this.

Yeah I know. Just solving one issue for you. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

1 hour ago, incognito_man said:

@ramssuperbowl99 WI setting a new daily case record today...

Nothing we can do about it with our stupid Supreme Court either.

[incognito_man]

7 minutes ago, MookieMonstah said:

Its a difficult problem because many, many, many small schools only have one teacher in certain departments. Staggering administrators isn't possible, you can't have a Principal in the building 50% of the time. That school day would destroy after school activities, including sports, music, drama.

My school has one Art teacher. If you have 11-12 in school from 8-1 and 9-10 in school from 1-6, which group of kids isn't getting access to art classes? Or are we just going to make the art teacher work both shifts? Sports obviously impossible unless all practices are taking place after 6PM, which I'm sure you understand isn't plausible. I'm honestly confused that a former teacher is having a hard time figuring out why a 12 hour school day is ridiculous.

I'm an engineer now. My job is to solve problems. That's how my mind works. It's completely plausible to develop a workable solution for a 12hr school day. Stop pretending it's some insurmountable challenge lol. It would take a room of experts less than a day to develop a workable solution to iterate on to achieve this.

Art teacher answer is easy...MWF they work 7-1, TH they work 1-7.

After school activities are less of a priority, but also easy to solve. District/conf/whatever agrees that track meets will be on Tues and Thurs. Cohort/group students accordingly. They can practice in the mornings on their 1-7 academic days and in the afternoons on their 7-1 academic days. This is ridiculously easily logistically to generate a base plan to iterate on. Duh it's going to require flexibilty, we're in the middle of a friggin pandemic. I've had to be super flexible and employers and parents understand that.

I'm confused why you think it would be logistically challenging to develop a workable solution. That's never been the challenge. The challenge is inertia, status quo, funding and desire of all parties to be flexible (linked w/ status quo).

[MookieMonstah]

Just now, theJ said:

Yeah I know. Just solving one issue for you. 

Yeah, I certainly won't be making any decisions on this but appreciate it. I get school will be different but that proposal ain't it.

[incognito_man]

15 minutes ago, theJ said:

The art teacher thing is feasible given that you just stagger them across both shifts, but not the whole day. So have them there 10-4 or something. 

Yep, that works too. Lots of potential solutions (and lots of scheduling software available to do the heavy lifting)0

[MookieMonstah]

3 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

I'm an engineer now. My job is to solve problems. That's how my mind works. It's completely plausible to develop a workable solution for a 12hr school day. Stop pretending it's some insurmountable challenge lol. It would take a room of experts less than a day to develop a workable solution to iterate on to achieve this.

Art teacher answer is easy...MWF they work 7-1, TH they work 1-7.

After school activities are less of a priority, but also easy to solve. District/conf/whatever agrees that track meets will be on Tues and Thurs. Cohort/group students accordingly. They can practice in the mornings on their 1-7 academic days and in the afternoons on their 7-1 academic days. This is ridiculously easily logistically to generate a base plan to iterate on. Duh it's going to require flexibilty, we're in the middle of a friggin pandemic. I've had to be super flexible and employers and parents understand that.

I'm confused why you think it would be logistically challenging to develop a workable solution. That's never been the challenge. The challenge is inertia, status quo, funding and desire of all parties to be flexible (linked w/ status quo).

And what about the teachers with children, what do they do with their kids that they now can't pick up because they're working 1-7?

For k-5, how are parents supposed to adapt to this schedule? I can guarantee you a huge chunk of parents can't just change their entire work schedule because the school system decides to run with some stupid 12 hour schedule.

After school activities shouldn't be less of a priority, its a big reason a lot of students enjoy school. One of the main points is "we dont want kids to miss out on the socialization", so we remove the major socialization activities? So now, as the Track coach I have to be here before 7 AM and after 7PM since I'll obviously have athletes on different academic schedules.

The funding is impossible. You'd have to double your bus runs, that alone is not going to happen financially. It's a bad proposal. Students having a mixed schedule, perhaps MWF in school, T TH remote and then switch seems like a way easier move. I understand fully we need to problem solve, but that is making a difficult decision even more difficult. Way easier solutions than creating a 12 hour school day lmao.

[incognito_man]

2 minutes ago, MookieMonstah said:

And what about the teachers with children, what do they do with their kids that they now can't pick up because they're working 1-7?

For k-5, how are parents supposed to adapt to this schedule? I can guarantee you a huge chunk of parents can't just change their entire work schedule because the school system decides to run with some stupid 12 hour schedule.

After school activities shouldn't be less of a priority, its a big reason a lot of students enjoy school. One of the main points is "we dont want kids to miss out on the socialization", so we remove the major socialization activities? So now, as the Track coach I have to be here before 7 AM and after 7PM since I'll obviously have athletes on different academic schedules.

The funding is impossible. You'd have to double your bus runs, that alone is not going to happen financially. It's a bad proposal. Students having a mixed schedule, perhaps MWF in school, T TH remote and then switch seems like a way easier move. I understand fully we need to problem solve, but that is making a difficult decision even more difficult. Way easier solutions than creating a 12 hour school day lmao.

I feel like you're intentionally misunderstanding at this point. I just indicated that the practice COULD be in the afternoons the day the trackletes have morning academics and in the mornings the days they have afternoon academics. No clue how you pull the "before 7am and after 7pm" from that when it's literally the exact opposite of what I suggested.

Busing is about 4% of the budget. We have to be flexible. Cut the number of routes, will increase some ride lengths, but whatever. Encourage parents to organize their own carpooling. People are adaptable. Right now, literally EVERY industry is being flexible with their employees schedules. Obviously these employees are going to be accommodating of something as enormous as statewide K-12 education scheduling.

There are pros and cons to every proposed solution. I agree that a mixed schedule has appeal as well (just as a longer day w/ smaller class sizes schedule does, too).

[MookieMonstah]

Just now, incognito_man said:

I feel like you're intentionally misunderstanding at this point. I just indicated that the practice COULD be in the afternoons the day the trackletes have morning academics and in the mornings the days they have afternoon academics. No clue how you pull the "before 7am and after 7pm" from that when it's literally the exact opposite of what I suggested.

Busing is about 4% of the budget. We have to be flexible. Cut the number of routes, will increase some ride lengths, but whatever. Encourage parents to organize their own carpooling. People are adaptable. Right now, literally EVERY industry is being flexible with their employees schedules. Obviously these employees are going to be accommodating of something as enormous as statewide K-12 education scheduling.

There are pros and cons to every proposed solution. I agree that a mixed schedule has appeal as well (just as a longer day w/ smaller class sizes schedule does, too).

How do you think the days would be split? Grade level, right? You do know track athletes will range from all grades, right? How can I have a practice in the morning if half my athletes are in class? Or are you saying that I should hold a practice for all track athletes at 5AM, because thats even more insane tbh.

You can't just pack buses dude. Or are you just saying we say eff social distancing and just pack full buses? I mean, the 12 hour teaching day is way more difficult than any of the other possible fixes I've heard. It makes very little sense and overly complicates basically everything. It doesn't even dive into the fact that teachers unions will absolutely never agree to it. We should move on though, it's not a realistic scenario and has about a 0.1% chance of taking place in the United States regardless.

[SwAg]

Hardly worth responding to, but just to reiterate, as a matter of professional objectivity, it is nearly impossible to re-open schools safely and comply with the requirements allotted under the Civil Rights Act, IDEA, and ADA.

No amount of rhetoric or anecdotes will change that.  It’s not that I am resistant to a workable solution.  It’s literally been my job since May to attempt to find the legal solutions, and it’s been nothing more than an exercise in futility.

[SwAg]

So, you can attempt to figure out the logistics of bare minimum school functionality until the opening day, but a substantial portion of children will be denied their student rights and expose the school to massive liability — which is a bill ultimately covered by the taxpayers.

Legislative / administrative action, or pointless self-inflicted wound are the options at present.  Write your congressman if you want children back in school so badly.  If they suspend or amend some of the legal requirements, then it just becomes bad policy rather than legally perilous policy.

Edited July 10, 2020 by SwAg

[theJ]

One thing is for sure though - ain't now way in hell you're going to be able to teach a kindergartener at 6 o'clock at night. That's just not possible. Speaking as a parent who has a 3 and 6 year old, lol.