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School Talk

I'll be TAing tomorrow in person for the first time since the pandemic started. It's a Physical Therapy Interventions class, so I won't be able to distance and will be in a mask and face shield all day.

Should be fun.
 
Fort Worth ISD just delayed in person school for at least 4 weeks after start date (Sept. 7)
Hoping other N. Texas districts follow. Will make my decisions easier.
 
CMS decided they didn't have enough staff to do the staged in-person four-day orientation for its 150,000 students before going online, so they're just going online for the forseeable future, flushing the plan they approved two weeks ago. IMO, board and staff are using staffing issues as a copout for not starting with the in-person orientation. They say they're 70 teachers short (there are 177 schools in the system), but they're always short on teachers to start the school year and they always have stacks of resumes. They also say they're short custodians and bus drivers, but unemployment is 10%; however, low wage workers are absolutely choosing to stay at home. The level of incompetence from the school board and staff is just mind numbing.

Private schools are all going back.
 
BiffTannen said:
CMS decided they didn't have enough staff to do the staged in-person four-day orientation for its 150,000 students before going online, so they're just going online for the forseeable future, flushing the plan they approved two weeks ago. IMO, board and staff are using staffing issues as a copout for not starting with the in-person orientation. They say they're 70 teachers short (there are 177 schools in the system), but they're always short on teachers to start the school year and they always have stacks of resumes. They also say they're short custodians and bus drivers, but unemployment is 10%; however, low wage workers are absolutely choosing to stay at home. The level of incompetence from the school board and staff is just mind numbing.

Private schools are all going back.
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I can't speak to CMS (although I did a quick look and they currently have 151 open instructional positions on their website but those figures are never truly UTD) but every school district I have worked in has had teacher shortages. WS/FCS had hundreds of positions they couldn't fill last year so the new superintendent reshuffled the district and moved most instructional coaches into those open teaching positions with only a few days notice. Which meant most ICs (who are generally veteran teachers) were sent to a different school that they didn't agree to work at. That in turn led to many older teachers retiring, and that was before COVID struck and dozens more decided to opt out of this year due to health concerns.

Becoming a teacher has never been more expensive/harder (especially in NC) and the compensation has never been worse. Almost every area in the country that is experiencing high population growth is having a problem hiring new teachers.

As to bus drivers, that's been even worse. I know WSFC and Guilford schools both really struggled to find bus drivers. It is a pretty fucking stressful job if we're being honest, and the pay is crap. The drivers that came to my school were having to run double and triple routes because they were so short last year.

https://myfox8.com/news/parents-concerned-about-late-buses-in-forsyth-county/
 
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Yeah, CMS starts every school year with a bus driver shortage. No doubt the job sucks. I've had multiple business owners tell me they can't hire anyone or get former employees to come back to work because it's easier to get the check from the government. Driving a bus for $15/hour is not an appealing alternative.

Meanwhile, bordering York County SC is opening with a full in-person option as mandated by McMaster.

I'm not advocating for opening schools one way or the other, just pointing out that CMS is once again showing a startling level of some combination of incompetence and disingenuousness. Nothing has changed in the Covid numbers in the past month here and it was obvious two weeks ago they weren't going to change before yesterday.
 
BiffTannen said:
CMS decided they didn't have enough staff to do the staged in-person four-day orientation for its 150,000 students before going online, so they're just going online for the forseeable future, flushing the plan they approved two weeks ago. IMO, board and staff are using staffing issues as a copout for not starting with the in-person orientation. They say they're 70 teachers short (there are 177 schools in the system), but they're always short on teachers to start the school year and they always have stacks of resumes. They also say they're short custodians and bus drivers, but unemployment is 10%; however, low wage workers are absolutely choosing to stay at home. The level of incompetence from the school board and staff is just mind numbing.

Private schools are all going back.
Click to expand...

Are you really that upset about losing the 4 day orientation or is that a cop out for being pissed about the private schools going back while your kids are online.
 
There’s a private school near me that I’m sure will be full in person if you’re interested. Now you have to sign a pledge saying that marriage is one man and one woman and homosexuality is satan and such, but it could get the kids out of the house.
 
I have a kids in both public and private. I saw how much effort the public school teachers, administrators, and students put into online learning last semester and hope that all involved will do better this fall.

I always thought the four-day orientation was a stupid ploy to appease some while ignoring the realities of the situation. The school board and staff are dealing with the same information now as they were two weeks ago. And it's the same information that caused other large urban school systems announcing their intention to go online weeks ago. These schools are for the most part operating at 150% occupancy, so the earliest plan was to split the kids into three different groups and have them go to school for one week and have two weeks online on a rotating basis. Then they decided that wa a bad idea and went with the four-day orientation, then I think they got nervous and realized they couldn't even pull that off a couple of weeks from now and just pulled the plug.
 
I'd also like to give a shoutout to our woefully incompetent NC Department of Public instruction. Who's budget has been slashed so much over the last decade by the GOP maggots who run our state that it takes 4-5 months for any new teaching applicant to get their license approved. Which makes hiring new and out-of-state teachers even more difficult.
 
we put our kid back in daycare this week which I don't feel great about but at the same time it's probably good for his development and I think we would've lost his spot. got a call today he's off the waiting list at our top choice daycare, and can start 8/24. not sure if we should continue sending him to his other one or just pull him out until he starts at the new spot.
 
BiffTannen said:
I have a kids in both public and private. I saw how much effort the public school teachers, administrators, and students put into online learning last semester and hope that all involved will do better this fall.

I always thought the four-day orientation was a stupid ploy to appease some while ignoring the realities of the situation. The school board and staff are dealing with the same information now as they were two weeks ago. And it's the same information that caused other large urban school systems announcing their intention to go online weeks ago. These schools are for the most part operating at 150% occupancy, so the earliest plan was to split the kids into three different groups and have them go to school for one week and have two weeks online on a rotating basis. Then they decided that wa a bad idea and went with the four-day orientation, then I think they got nervous and realized they couldn't even pull that off a couple of weeks from now and just pulled the plug.
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So they got to the right decision, in your opinion, even though they got there clumsily? I’d much rather have that clumsy situation shake out before school starts at least.

But if that’s the complaint why even bring up the private schools and SC schools going back in person?
 
BillBrasky said:
I'd also like to give a shoutout to our woefully incompetent NC Department of Public instruction. Who's budget has been slashed so much over the last decade by the GOP maggots who run our state that it takes 4-5 months for any new teaching applicant to get their license approved. Which makes hiring new and out-of-state teachers even more difficult.
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classic GOP technique

defund and strip of power then point to underperformance as justification for further cuts

and so on
 
Am I not allowed to complain about funding an incompetent organization ?
 
I emphathize with Biff a little of this one, the School Board should have seen from the start that any in-school orientation period was going to be impossible to pull off at already overcrowded schools. However I'm sure the board was trying to appease everyone so they just picked the compromise plan, even though it never had much of a chance of succeeding. This is what happens when your school board is made up of local busy bodies who have no experience working in schools.
 
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Wasn’t some amount of in person instruction the first week required by the legislature? I thought I remembered seeing that
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
I love this
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Things change when you have kids.

Those people, whom I have no faith in to begin with, have been jerking us around for months about their plans for our kids, while we are left to roll our eyes.

And my school board member went to Wake.
 
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