Big C said:
sycasey said:
dajo9 said:
sycasey said:
LMK5 said:
sycasey said:
Now I'm hearing from our principal that Special Ed classes aren't starting until April 19th, which is . . . a lot later. This is after kids in regular elementary classes will go back. Apparently this is district wide.
This doesn't make sense. How are Special Ed kids not prioritized?
You'd think, as they are much more in need of in-person instruction, that they would be brought in first. What's the rationale behind the decision?
All I've heard is that the specialists apparently need more time to prepare for the SPED kids to come in.
Not like they've had a whole year to prepare or anything.
I feel for you sycasey. Your school district sounds like a real mess. My son in New Jersey uses special ed services in middle school and while the other students attend school every other day, my son attends every day. During the winter there was an increase in Covid cases linked to the school and they went 100% remote for a few weeks (I'm glad idiots like Walker Bragman didn't politicize our districts honest and sincere efforts to deal with this crisis while still educating our kids) Those few weeks (and Spring 2020 which was also remote) were very tough for my son. Our governor has announced schools will be back to normal in the fall.
This is not a left-right issue. This is a messed up California issue. You guys need to vote out that school board and get tough with that teachers union that is failing your kids.
In Oakland, MOST of the school board has been supportive of reopening, but they have been reticent to cross the teachers' union, which has argued most vociferously against. Even now that a deal has been reached (one that's very favorable to the teachers, compared to other neighboring districts) a lot of the teachers are clearly dragging their feet on coming back. I hate to say it, but it's mostly their fault that this is taking so long. The Board could be more forceful, but the only reason they aren't is because the union just seems to not want to come back to work in person.
This will have lingering impacts. Next time the teachers want to go on strike they won't be able to count on parents' support. I'm also going to look a lot more closely at the next school board elections and try to look for someone who isn't beholden to the union. My current rep on the board isn't terrible on this, but he could be more forceful about pushing back on some of the nonsense. At this point parents are worried that five days a week won't be a thing in the Fall either and we'll have to continue with lawsuits against the district.
I'm still not sure that the teachers union in Oakland is the main driver in schools not starting up.
I will admit that it's hard to be sure, since negotiations are done in secret and neither the district nor the union are very forthcoming with details.
My line of thinking is such: the charitable interpretation of the teachers' position is that while they WANT to come back in person (knowing that Zoom school cannot possibly deliver the same quality education as in-person), they don't trust that the district has done enough to make school sites safe and want to see more to be sure they're in line with federal and county health recommendations. If that were the core issue, then I would expect their public position to be: we will come back, but only once we can confirm that every school has air filters, PPE, regular testing, etc. If the metrics said those things weren't there, then they would be actively working with the district and parents to procure what is needed.
That's not the argument I'm hearing from them. The arguments I hear are:
1. Only privileged white parents want to come back, so reopening schools is racist (now belied by district surveys in which more than half of Black parents wanted to to return, but okay).
2. You just want a babysitter because you hate your kids.
3. Opening schools would be deadly. Why do you want to kill teachers and kids? (This argument still continues even after teachers have been prioritized for vaccines.)
4. What's the rush? Why not wait until the Fall?
Then the deal they reached with the district allowed teachers to choose whether or not they wanted to come back for the first three weeks of in-person instruction. It even provided a monetary incentive for teachers to come back in this earlier time period. Initially, elementary students would only be back in school two days a week, so they could space out the cohorts. So few teachers took this option that many schools could not reopen on the earliest date and must wait until mid-April.
These do not seem to me like the actions of a group that actually wants to come back to school. They seem like the actions of a group that wants to drag it out as long as possible.
