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WFU in 20/21: University of Phoenix Meets Rikers Island

Ummm I’d argue that COVID is actually the greatest threat to returning to schools in person, not teachers unions.

It’s a lame argument to whine about the teachers unions for being concerned about their own safety. You talk about community spread but I have empathy for the teachers who will actually be at risk.
 
06deacon said:
Ummm I’d argue that COVID is actually the greatest threat to returning to schools in person, not teachers unions.

It’s a lame argument to whine about the teachers unions for being concerned about their own safety. You talk about community spread but I have empathy for the teachers who will actually be at risk.
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We've learned how to mitigate COVID, therefore it's not what is keeping schools out. It is just the excuse that is being used.

And where's your empathy for those essential workers who never shutdown? Are you going to argue that teachers are less essential than nurses, grocery store employees and truck drivers? Or is your argument that children's health and safety is less important?
 
Demonbeck said:
You know nothing about me, what I do or how I spend my time, yet you sit at your computer and make assumptions, but I am the one on a high horse?

It's a fact that depression is higher amongst children. It's a fact that suicide is higher amongst children. It's a fact that children with the greatest needs use school for necessary essential services to supplement what is not being provided at home. It's a fact that school systems who are meeting five days a week have not contributed to community spread. It's also a fact that teachers unions are the greatest threat to returning to school in-person.

When children don't return to school, they are depressed, they commit suicide, they don't get necessary essential services to supplement what is not being provided at home - and it has NOTHING to do with community spread.

We as a society have used access to schools to provide these services for these children. That is not on teachers' unions. What is on teachers' unions is the fact that they have worked to delay the return as much as possible, once we as a society figured out how to safely do so. Since that time, those tragedies that have occurred fit squarely upon their backs.
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I see that you dodged all my accusations. I agree that children need to be in school, but to blame teacher unions for asking for the same workplace protections, guarantees and compensation as other workforce employees is asinine.

So I'll ask you again: What do you do for a living? How much time do you spend in vulnerable communities? Around children? How much interaction have you had with the public in the past year without being provided proper PPE?

Because if you don't have that experience or risk in your daily life, it is probably wise of you to shut that mouth of yours.
 
Demonbeck said:
We've learned how to mitigate COVID, therefore it's not what is keeping schools out. It is just the excuse that is being used.

And where's your empathy for those essential workers who never shutdown? Are you going to argue that teachers are less essential than nurses, grocery store employees and truck drivers? Or is your argument that children's health and safety is less important?
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Lol what in the hell are you going on about. You’re probably right, it’s those greedy unions of lazy teachers who don’t want to work hard or something. They’re the real problem here!
 
It'd probably be better if nurses and grocery store employees and truck drivers had stronger unions that could have forced Congressional action sooner. We'd have licked the pandemic a lot more quickly if we could have gotten proper PPE to the people who needed to be in situ, forced broader shutdowns of less necessary workplaces, etc. Does your worldview have any sympathy to members of teachers' unions who also have children or childcare concerns?
 
Dad joke version demonbeck was unfunny but at least harmless. Trumper demonbeck is just cruel and tragic.
 
First lazy teachers get the summers off and now they just don’t want to work the rest of the year, after only working 8-3 already. Probably should pay them less so the ones that don’t want to really teach leave! I mean look at Mako, enough free time to work out.
 
If teachers weren't so lazy, they'd probably all be unionized instead of just the ones in the north where they were forced to join a union by the mob.
 
BillBrasky said:
I see that you dodged all my accusations. I agree that children need to be in school, but to blame teacher unions for asking for the same workplace protections, guarantees and compensation as other workforce employees is asinine.

So I'll ask you again: What do you do for a living? How much time do you spend in vulnerable communities? Around children? How much interaction have you had with the public in the past year without being provided proper PPE?

Because if you don't have that experience or risk in your daily life, it is probably wise of you to shut that mouth of yours.
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I am an essential worker who works in community affairs. I spend plenty of time with our area's most vulnerable communities and coach kids' sports in my spare time. I have been given a few PPEs and have purchased the rest that I have. Not that I have any need to qualify myself for you.

I realize that I am fortunate that I could work from home if necessary. What pisses me off is that there are a lot of people that I come in contact with who cannot. They must choose between keeping a roof over their children's heads and food on the table or providing safe and adequate childcare for kids who should not be home alone - meanwhile neighboring school systems have been in five days a week since August with no problems. All because our local teachers' union wants to play politics.
 
Do you have a sense of what the teachers' union is demanding? If so, what is it, and why is it unreasonable?
 
TownieDeac said:
It'd probably be better if nurses and grocery store employees and truck drivers had stronger unions that could have forced Congressional action sooner. We'd have licked the pandemic a lot more quickly if we could have gotten proper PPE to the people who needed to be in situ, forced broader shutdowns of less necessary workplaces, etc. Does your worldview have any sympathy to members of teachers' unions who also have children or childcare concerns?
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1. We still have $$$ ($1 trillion) from the first stimulus that has gone unspent.

2. Broader shutdowns to grocery stores? nurses? truck drivers? You do realize how much harm that would have done, right?

3. If only those teachers had a place their children could go to during school hours...
 
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DistrictDeacon said:
Fixed it for Brasky
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Nah dude we start morning duty at 7:45, gotta be in the building by 7:30. I then start class at 8, teach straight through 1:35 (no lunch break these days as we have to supervise everything) then 1:35-3:05 is my planning time. After that I have afternoon duty until 3:30. However as you pointed out I sometimes check out (mentally, we can’t leave) around 2pm if we don’t have meetings, but that just means that my night time planning time (usually starts around 8pm when the wife goes to bed) extends from an hour to two hours.

So I normally “work” 8-9.5 hours/day, and I only get paid for 7.5 hours of it. Just in case you were wondering where you text dollars we’re going.

And that doesn’t include Sunday night planning, weekly tutoring after school, club leadership, special events (we had a Seniors committee meeting today - graduation/awards/homecoming/etc, all after school for no pay) or the $2-3/hr you make coaching anything.

Anyone arguing, especially from their keyboards during 8-5 M-F, that teachers are over compensated are massively uninformed assholes.
 
In retrospect District’s reply was probably in jest, but I’m GD hot after having to sit through a pointless PLT this afternoon, and know I’ll have to spend 90 mins tonight working.
 
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While Demonbeck phrases it a bit more extremely than I would, I do think there are some instances of grandstanding going on with teachers unions and covid right now. Chatham County might be one of those places, but I haven't paid close attention to what they are asking.

The big problem, though, is not that the teachers are holding out for better conditions and determining whether the current science supports those demands. Instead, it's that COVID put a spotlight on how fragile our social safety nets are for so many essential workers.

Schools serve two primary roles: education and watching kids for parents. COVID showed how many workers depend on reliable child care (via schools) for their kids. Just because everyone now realizes this doesn't mean that the job of a teacher changed. It just means that parents are finally acutely aware of how big a pain it is if THEIR kids aren't in school.

If we could rewind to a year ago, the very first thing that should have opened back up once the science was clear-ish that younger people aren't as impacted by COVID was schools. It is insane to me that so many non-essential businesses were allowed to open before schools. My former home of Norway basically took this approach and has done a much better job of limiting the impacts of COVID.
 
BillBrasky said:
Nah dude we start morning duty at 7:45, gotta be in the building by 7:30. I then start class at 8, teach straight through 1:35 (no lunch break these days as we have to supervise everything) then 1:35-3:05 is my planning time. After that I have afternoon duty until 3:30. However as you pointed out I sometimes check out (mentally, we can’t leave) around 2pm if we don’t have meetings, but that just means that my night time planning time (usually starts around 8pm when the wife goes to bed) extends from an hour to two hours.

So I normally “work” 8-9.5 hours/day, and I only get paid for 7.5 hours of it. Just in case you were wondering where you text dollars we’re going.

And that doesn’t include Sunday night planning, weekly tutoring after school, club leadership, special events (we had a Seniors committee meeting today - graduation/awards/homecoming/etc, all after school for no pay) or the $2-3/hr you make coaching anything.

Anyone arguing, especially from their keyboards during 8-5 M-F, that teachers are over compensated are massively uninformed assholes.
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Please note, that I never said that teachers are overpaid.
 
Demonbeck said:
1. We still have $$$ ($1 trillion) from the first stimulus that has gone unspent.

2. Broader shutdowns to grocery stores? nurses? truck drivers? You do realize how much harm that would have done, right?

3. If only those teachers had a place their children could go to during school hours...
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Is #1 the fault of teachers or their unions?

2, yes, and it’s not greedy unions vs good govt, it’s the other way around. Stingy or inert govt has a money lever to pull whenever they want, but pull it only with extreme pressure exerted or extreme political will. Since the latter wasn’t going to happen under a Trump/McConnell admin, direct labor action could have certainly helped. In many times in American history it’s the only thing that ever has.

3, sure, though that argument self defeats. If the school were a safe place to go there would be no strike or work stoppage or pressure exerted keeping kids out of school either. Again, you’re blaming teachers for a global pandemic, a system that has no imagination around a real safety net over individual actors trying to think of the best plans they can.
 
WFU03 said:
While Demonbeck phrases it a bit more extremely than I would, I do think there are some instances of grandstanding going on with teachers unions and covid right now. Chatham County might be one of those places, but I haven't paid close attention to what they are asking.

The big problem, though, is not that the teachers are holding out for better conditions and determining whether the current science supports those demands. Instead, it's that COVID put a spotlight on how fragile our social safety nets are for so many essential workers.

Schools serve two primary roles: education and watching kids for parents. COVID showed how many workers depend on reliable child care (via schools) for their kids. Just because everyone now realizes this doesn't mean that the job of a teacher changed. It just means that parents are finally acutely aware of how big a pain it is if THEIR kids aren't in school.

If we could rewind to a year ago, the very first thing that should have opened back up once the science was clear-ish that younger people aren't as impacted by COVID was schools. It is insane to me that so many non-essential businesses were allowed to open before schools. My former home of Norway basically took this approach and has done a much better job of limiting the impacts of COVID.
Click to expand...

You gotta go extreme to get the reaction though. This is the internet.

Well said.
 
Imagine what a shit community there is if this guy is in charge of its affairs.
 
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