Teachers are in a no win situation

A quote not included in the OP.

Teachers say crucial questions about how schools will stay clean, keep students physically distanced and prevent further spread of the virus have not been answered. And they feel that their own lives, and those of the family members they come home to, are at stake.

“I want to serve the students, but it’s hard to say you’re going to sacrifice all of the teachers, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers and bus drivers,” said Hannah Wysong, a teacher at the Esperanza Community School in Tempe, Arizona, where virus cases are increasing.

It's not just themselves the teachers are worried about.

originally posted by: Hypntick
a reply to: JAGStorm

The wife and I were discussing this earlier, hopefully it does move online. This then leads to the argument that not all children have internet access, which could lead toward legislation making ISP's utility providers. Hopefully leading to better infrastructure and lower prices all around.

The online "education" my grandchildren got was AWFUL and pitiful. Is that what you want for the next generation?

My youngest grandchild received exactly 2 worksheets per day, one page of "reading" and one page of math. That was it and the public school system called that online education. My high school grandchild received NOTHING at all from her teachers until my daughter complained, then she received exactly ONE assignment, to "think about how coronavirus was affecting her life" That was it, and our school district is listed in the top 100 in the nation.

God help our country if what passed for online education in the spring becomes the norm for the entire nation.

It is a terrible idea to do in the fall what they did in the spring, basically nothing. 5 and 6 year olds were expected to teach themselves online. Surveys showed 40% of parents did not even make their children do a single online assignment, and those were parents with good internet connection. My daughter did what some people claimed was racist and over privileged bought books online and supplemented and forced her children to learn in the spring and has continued through summer. She refuses to allow her children to be ignorant but apparently nearly half of all parents don't care. If this continues in the fall we WLL have 2 groups of children, one group that liberals will deem over privileged whose parents gave them an unfair advantage over the parents who did nothing or only the pitiful and awful tiny bit of online work the public school sent.


I see this as the purposeful destruction of the education of an entire generation of children, to refuse to decently educate them while making taxpayers pay as if they were in school full time.

If we go to all online education then taxpayers should no longer pay for the administrators and the teachers who are not teaching. If we go to 2 day a week education then taxpayers should get back 3/5 of the tax money they paid.

a reply to: The2Billies

If we go to all online education then taxpayers should no longer pay for the administrators and the teachers who are not teaching. If we go to 2 day a week education then taxpayers should get back 3/5 of the tax money they paid.

That's not the way it works.
First, the money is already spent.
Second, you don't decide how the money is spent.

Now, if you want your government to negotiate with the various unions involved that's fine. But you ain't gonna get nothing back.

Welcome to America.

originally posted by: mtnshredder

originally posted by: tovenar

originally posted by: KKLOCO

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: KKLOCO
Good luck with that.

It's time to reassess this. I'm not going to get into detail on what I pay in taxes but it's absurd and close to 80% of it goes to the school budget. If they aren't doing their jobs they shouldn't get paid.

Totally agree.

If schooling goes online, they should sell the schools and give the taxpayers back their money.

But it will never happen, unfortunately.

“ if they aren’t doing their jobs they shouldn’t get paid. “

Which job is that? Making sure the kids learn the course subject, or babysitting your little darlings while you’re at work?

Working parents pay taxes that provide income for teachers. If they don’t go to work, how do we pay the teachers?

Are the teachers paid to educate the children, or entertain them at the school house?

I expect the teachers are paid to educate the children the best way they possibly can. In other words, focus on the outcome rather than the process. If the best way to teach kids in 2020, is to do so online, then so be it.

Teachers are paid with tax money, because it’s in the interest of society that teachers do their job. Just like soldiers or firefighters. It seems like you only value teachers for their babysitting role.

How is a teacher supposed to teach all of the course information, plus enforce the rules about wearing masks and social distancing, if the students refuse, and can’t be penalized for doing so?

School looks like with staggered start/end times, That teaching will be 9.5 hours each weekday, in most cases with teachers taking an across-the-board pay cut (due to the covid economy). Hours spent prepping and posting online, as well as sanitizing the classroom, will be on the individual teacher’s time off...

And when your precious child refuses to wear the mask, and refuses to social distance, thereby endangering the teachers physical health, what is the teacher supposed to do, other than go get tested every day after work?

originally posted by: tovenar
Which job is that? Making sure the kids learn the course subject, or babysitting your little darlings while you’re at work?

Both.

originally posted by: mtnshredder
Working parents pay taxes that provide income for teachers. If they don’t go to work, how do we pay the teachers?

They're a public union, you don't get much say in the matter.

The teacher's union, like all public unions, should be eliminated. They have little to no oversight from the actual stakeholder; we the taxpayers.

a reply to: The2Billies

And that is public school, just think of shelling out thousands for the same treatment for private schools. In the corridor of shame, private schools are a must.

originally posted by: American-philosopher
I guess One of the things that I assumed were that teachers werre passionate about their jobs. I am passionate abou tmy job and work that I do, I am willing to put myself at risk to help others.

Schools are vital to our society.

This notion about remote learning being effective. If someone can show me data that remote learning for children is effective or more effective then in person learning. I am all ears.

But lets think how most kids are, they can be easily distracted. If a teacher is gving a critical part of the lesson they might be able to tell if a child didnt catch that how are they going to tell if all the children understood the lesson doing remote learning.

I was an IT director for eighteen years and worked with a lot of great teachers. I also worked with a lot of bad teachers. the bad ones usually had a God-complex and weren't fooling anyone. A long-time business teacher that taught and used computers daily, including teaching programming classes, was as inept as I've ever seen. One time I had to tell her how to use a program she had been "teaching" for two years. Another one was too inept to look for the power switch on the front of her PC and called to do it for her. During those years all but four were protected by the union. One had an affair with a student, one was accused of the same, two were just idiots that somehow passed college courses and didn't make it past the second year. Some are passionate about teaching, many are not. A lot of them know they aren't going to get paid well when they start, but they're looking down the road where not long after they are tenured it's common for a husband/wife teacher family to make over 100K in our area. And that's with full benefits. The longer they teach, the more money they make, the quicker they can retire. Michigan made it a problem to stay in teaching for more than 30 years (several years ago), I forget the details but they were somehow penalizing people if they didn't go 30 & out.

It's even worse for administrators, they keep climbing the ladder not necessarily in search of bettering their school, but to pile onto the retirement fund. This means upper administration is usually a musical chairs system where admins don't stay in one place for more than a few years. In the 18 years I was with the district there were five different superintendents, four HS principals, three MS principals and five elementary principals. There's no consistency in philosophy and it affects the kids more than anything. I will forgive one elementary principal, a grade school student fought with her and kicked her in the head so she had to leave because of the injuries. What happened to the kid? Nothing.

I've said this before, my wife is an elementary cook in a school and the things she tells me that kids are getting away with would make your hair stand up. If my kids were school age right now I would seriously consider home-schooling. And we're in a rural area with little crime! Many parents today don't give a # about anyone but themselves. This is a generalization, not all are like this so don't flame me for it. They don't pack lunches or make their kids breakfast, they might drop them off at school on time but often late, then they go back home and go to bed. They say "my kid wouldn't do that" when they're caught doing something wrong on camera, etc. Some come to school dirty, like they haven't had a bath in a week, smelling like cat piss, it's disgusting. When I was a kid we AND our parents would have been humiliated for doing that, but today it's excused and ignored. The sadness on the kids' faces that my wife sees every day would make the hardest of you (Phage, Auggie) weep.

So no, going back to school full-time this fall with all of the new guidelines isn't going to be successful. People think the second wave is happening right now, just wait until schools are back in session. Boom.

Having two elementary aged kids I just witnessed the debacle last year that was "online learning". What a joke. Teachers got paid for months for doing nothing. A zoom meeting once a week. Copy and paste waste of time learning assignments like read this article and write a paragraph about it. Do this math worksheet. My son finished the work assigned for the week in 2 hours. We'll home school both if they think they are doing online learning again.

a reply to: HalWesten

Where I live in Indiana they just started up summer school. Busses are running. Kids are back in school. Staying home all year is simply not a valid option and comes with more repercussions that going back to school ever could.

originally posted by: tovenar

I expect the teachers are paid to educate the children the best way they possibly can. In other words, focus on the outcome rather than the process. If the best way to teach kids in 2020, is to do so online, then so be it.

The problem as I see it; the way schools have chosen to teach online in 2020 was not at all "the best way to teach kids".

Our experience last winter was that it might have actually been better had they simply closed the schools yearly for the year. I can honesty say I think the online learning did more to harm my children (through frustration in learning) than it helped them.



And to be clear my wife permanently works from home and because of COVID-19 I am too at the moment; we personally don't need the baby sitting services that schools also provide. It was actually quite nice to be able to spend so much time with my children over the last few months. I tell you this to make clear my frustration is born completely of the online learning process and not my individual needs.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I lost a lot of respect for the teachers around here when they wanted our property taxes increased by 40% so they could get an extra $7,000.00 raise along with their normal raise. Nobody wanted their property taxes (keep in mind that it included businesses as well) raised that high because the cost of higher property taxes would have trickled down on us as stores raised prices to make up for it.

75% of the Parish said no after a lot of the teachers banded together to give us stories about how they would finally be able to afford braces for their own child, or send them to driving school, etc. Then we saw their salaries as provided by the Bossier Parish skool bord via FOIA. I researched all who gave us their sad stories, and all but a very few were making $70K a year which is a great salary for the cost of living here. You look at their Facebook profiles and they have vacations on the beach, vacations overseas, big houses, new cars, and their spouses were either teachers making the same or more, or they owned their own business.

After they lost 75% - 25% in the highest turnout the Parish had ever seen, they all acted like children and were saying that they just wouldn't try as hard anymore since WE didn't want them to make more money, or that they would make school go for 3 days a week since their services weren't appreciated. When they thought the Parish citizens just didn't want them to have a raise, when in reality the citizens didn't want a 40% tax increase, it was then that I realized how unintelligent and incapable of common sense thoughts most of our educators had. Add to that, the lies they told about things they couldn't afford. They make twice as much as I do and I had no problem coming up with the money to pay for my son's driving school. The lady who said that made almost $80,000 a year and her husband did, too. The teachers were able to do this to the retards in the blue neighboring Parish of Caddo, but not to us. I would be happy if they closed down here permanently or until a fresh set of "old" teachers were brought out of retirement.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: The2Billies

If we go to all online education then taxpayers should no longer pay for the administrators and the teachers who are not teaching. If we go to 2 day a week education then taxpayers should get back 3/5 of the tax money they paid.

That's not the way it works.
First, the money is already spent.
Second, you don't decide how the money is spent.

Now, if you want your government to negotiate with the various unions involved that's fine. But you ain't gonna get nothing back.

Welcome to America.

That is not necessarily true in all cases.

Their where quite a few situations this last school winter that does not line up with your argument.

One issue that got a lot of sit in my local area was bus companies laying off hundreds of people because the schools stopped paying their bills to the bus company. The schools opinion was that since the bus companies where no longer providing a service than they don't need to be paid. Tax payers in the area where not happy to hear this news ofcourse, because noone was talking about a refund for them.

I was a bit upset with the idea that they caused so many to be laid off when they already had my money to pay them with.

My wife is an education coordinator for a charter school system that has 75 schools across the US. Between the parents and teachers, it’s a nightmare trying to figure out this coming school year. Right up until 2 weeks ago, there was no decision made on if they would reopen the schools, then it came down the line that they were indeed going to fully reopen.

The teachers have been tasked with setting up lesson plans for in-class and online. They hired some extra IT personnel to set up their online classes. My wife mentioned that the IT department is nervous about getting this all up and running by August as they had no direction until a week or two ago.

It’ll be interesting how it all plays out. Each year, my wife organizes what’s called Principle’s Institute, a week full of seminars and classes for principals to help prepare/coach them more. The school tried making obligatory that they all had to show up, which backfired when more than half refused to come to Florida. (It was last week, so can’t say I’m surprised, especially since it was directly between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami).

Parents are freaking out, calling the schools and saying “What are you going to do to protect my kid? I can’t take time off work so he has to go but I don’t want him in a class full of other kids.”. These parents all pay a tuition for the kids to go to these schools and there’s some pretty astounding entitlement that comes along with that, which was there long before Covid. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. The teachers are scared sh!tless, knowing their chances of getting infected are going to be that much higher.

Anyone interested in starting a bubble company with me? We’ll produce clear plastic bubbles that people can get inside of, it’ll have 2 arm ports where they can stick their hands into so they can still pick up dry erase markers/chalk or push buttons on a computer. I bet we could make a killing off ‘em.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
I have a lot of friends that are teachers.
I don't know a single one that wants to go back

www.yahoo.com...

'I Don't Want to Go Back': Many Teachers Are Fearful and Angry Over Pressure to Return

Some are going to retire, some don't know what they will do. One thing is for sure, if they don't go back
and things continue to go toward online classes, there is no need for as many teachers. Many could be shooting themselves
in the foot. You know that cliche, becareful what you wish for. I see many of these jobs being eliminated. I could even see things consolidating
on a state/county region. Take the best teachers, give them IT help, and maybe multiple grading assistants/helpers, boom.

I'm old enough to see this coming for years. One of the best ways to control people (the church has done this for centuries) is to control education.
If everything goes online some kids will just fall behind because parents are too lazy. I actually think that will be the case for a lot of kids.
The small percent of kids that have active parents will rise to the top. Some of these kids might gather in groups and get tutored etc. Maybe there will be private quarantined bording type of schools.

This is just one more way to push the divide between the rich and the poor. I didn't think it would happen so soon, but is is happening....

Not all parents are lazy, btw. I am not one of those parents who gave up because it was too hard. I pursued, and my daughter did all if her required work, unfortunately, she never turned it in, so how did they know we really did the work? I do know many who never tried and most gave up because, "it was too hard." Which seems to be the liberal way.

I am seriously thinking of homeschooling my daughter because of all the crap they are going to try and do with these kids. Keeping them 6 feet apart, no recess, no.cafeteria, hell really no socializing with her peers. If that's going to happen what's the point. I don't think it's a bad thing like you do. My whole college is online and I prefer it that way. I still have teachers and can interact with them as need be. I have a brother in law who has a master's in English that teaches kids who training to be in the Olympics, online. So, either teachers need to learn how to teach online or be like everyone else and give up. It's their choice.

a reply to: tovenar

originally posted by: mtnshredder

Working parents pay taxes that provide income for teachers. If they don’t go to work, how do we pay the teachers?

Are the teachers paid to educate the children, or entertain them at the school house?

Key word "teachers"

The cost of 10 teachers is not the same as 150

a reply to: LSU2018

Our school budget this year is $165,576,586 for a town of 50,000.

Read that again.

If our teachers only made $70K I'd be thrilled. Instead we have a bloated and mediocre system. One that typically places around 150-160 out of New Jersey's 360 school systems. That's what $165,576,586 gets in public union performance.

This discussion begs the question - how were schools handled during the Spanish Flu in 1918?

This is a good article to see how different entities handled it.

“Better Off in School”: School Medical Inspection as a Public Health Strategy During the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic in the United States

During the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in the United States, most cities responded by implementing community mitigation strategies, such as school closure. However, three cities—New York City, Chicago, and New Haven, Connecticut—diverged from the dominant pattern by keeping their public schools open while the pandemic raged. This article situates the experiences of these three cities in the broader context of the Progressive era, when officials and experts put great faith in expanding public programs in health and education. It adds an important dimension to the historical understanding of the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic and offers lessons for public health practitioners and policymakers today who might face difficult decisions about how to respond to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.

a reply to: LSU2018

I lost a lot of respect for the teachers around here when they wanted our property taxes increased by 40% so they could get an extra $7,000.00 raise along with their normal raise. Nobody wanted their property taxes (keep in mind that it included businesses as well) raised that high because the cost of higher property taxes would have trickled down on us as stores raised prices to make up for it.

Haha, they took a cue from Illinois.
Referendums every year!

Both my wife and I are in education - my wife is a teacher with 20 years experience, I work in school administration.

Online learning is not a replacement for in-person, no way no how. It's a good supplemental learning tool, blended learning environments can work for older kids, but you MUST have that in-person interaction. And for elementary age kids, forget about it. In-person is an absolute must.

What I think should happen is that the government ought to roll back education regulations to allow ad hoc small group neighborhood home schooling. My wife and I thought it would be really cool to open our own home schooling program of maybe 10-15 kids. Our neighbors or friends would pay us to teach them every day rather than paying property taxes to support the public schools. They would be in a much safer environment, they would get much more personal attention, and would likely result in much better grades and test scores.

But of course that would require the government to release its monopoly on education which we all know will never happen...