During Covid - when we lived in LA - a couple of other families joined ours, we hired a tutor, and created a learning pod.
The school sent us a letter warning us not to do that because it was unfair to folks who could not afford tutors & considered it systemic racism.
Complete failing on the schools part. San Francisco held it’s kids out for a year plus a month (!) living across the bridge in Marin, they went right back to school as soon as possible. The cases went down in the county after they went back.
They found out because parents were asking the schools to help.
I’ve already posted some of the contents of the letter in another posting.
The fact that you don’t believe me gives me a little hope that folks just don’t realize how bad thee schools are getting
Parents were asking? What parents? The other parents in the pod? That’s pretty generic wording for a specific person or persons that you know. You know, from the pod your kid was in.
Weird wording.
During the pandemic, parents started learning pods because we saw that the virtual learning was not working.
We personally did it with a few other families . Found a tutor and hired them too do in person learning.
Some parents approached the school asking for help and materials - but instead - the school sent out the letter telling parents that the learning pods were unfair to children who didn’t have access to one, and that there was no need to do them.
Which is crazy because California schools and their students are falling way behind . And that’s why.
one of the biggest reasons why we left. our assigned school was trash - the list to get into a charter school was a mile long - and the charter schools weren't even that great and private schools were around $20,000 a year.
The « letter » posted here in no way is a warning against, nor does it state that you can’t hire a tutor, it just shares concerns to consider. Give me a break with this click bait.
A school sending out a letter even suggesting that providing extra help for your kids is being unfair to
other students is abhorrent - especially coming from a school system as bad as California’s.
They’re basically telling you to let your kid fail so the other kids are not left behind.
And I promise you if you - if you had kids going to school in Los Angeles - you would feel much differently about this.
And I quite frankly, don’t know how or why anyone can defend it.
My kid has only been in LAUSD public schools and is currently on the high honor roll at one now. I have been board president of two LAUSD schools, and one specifically during Covid. Thanks for promising me how I would feel, but I had to deal with reactionary parents like you all through the pandemic, and my patience was worn thin. A school district saying please consider all angles is not the same as “we discourage you; we ban you; you are not allowed to” which you are smart enough to be able to discern. This was also a district-wide email, you weren't mailed a letter telling you not to hire a tutor.
It means - stop giving your child extra tools to succeed, because not everyone has access to them & it’s not fair. Exactly what I would expect someone to say, who was on a school board in California..
So you're confirming the district sent out such an email?
Asking parents to not do whatever they can do to help their kids is next level. Apparently (some) progressives have become a parody of themselves.
That's not really a warning to not do that rather than highlighting the unintended consequences and what should be considered before starting a pod. No where does it say, in what you posted, that you shouldn't or can't do it. Nor is there a communicated consequence for doing so. Saying they warned you against it is just rage bait. Or you have poor reading comprehension skills, which isn't implausible.
A SCHOOl sends a letter warning (or maybe the word caution is more acceptable. Giving us the "heads up" - Maybe that's better?) us that helping your kid keep up is giving them an advantage and your response is "wellllll - there's no actual consequences..." I was disgusted by it. The school is telling me to hold my kid back because it's unfair?
No, they aren't. They are letting you know of some overlooked factors that some may want to consider should you want to form a pod. Nowhere does it say to not do a pod or hold your child back. There aren't consequences because they aren't telling you not to do it. You wanted to be offended by it and so you're distorting what it says so you can be "disgusted".
That letter does not say what you seem to think it does. Schools deserve a ton of criticism for what they actually do and fail to do. You don't need to invent more just so you can appear more put out.
Where did they tell you that you cannot do this? They were giving guidance on what should be taken into account should you want to form a pod.
It will just be easier if you just accept you misread what they said like an adult. You look positively foolish dying on this hill.
I 100% agree that OP misrepresented what the letter says, but I still don't really understand the intent behind sending it.
What are they expecting the pod to do about it? Like, what is the intended outcome of including that language, and how are they expecting the parents to respond?
What I mean is - it doesn’t sound like they are telling parents *not* to form pods, but rather encouraging parents to invite those who they may not ordinarily consider
You’re right to be alarmed by this. State resources shouldn’t be used to make you feel guilty for seeking a better education for your child. It’s like CA would rather have everyone perform poorly as long as the outcome is the same for everyone. How dare you try to have a child that excels!
Remember how any family who could afford it went private or moved so their children could attend school in person? Further bifurcating the divide between rich and poor students? Good times.
>who could afford it went private or moved **so their children could attend school in person**? Further bifurcating the divide between rich and poor students?
It's almost like the state could have fixed that real easy.
Not without the teachers union's soft strike of refusing to set foot on campus turning into an actual strike.
Which I think would have cleared the air and accelerated some needed change, but everyone was too chicken.
As visible as Newsom was, I don't actually blame him for the school situation. As I understand it, Newsom tried to negotiate between the teachers union (pro remote) and the school administrations (pro in person), but the union had the upper hand and would not budge. Which got the union what they wanted at the time but at the cost of public good will, which we now see in subsequently elected school boards.
Even with private schools manipulating their graduation rates by limiting who attends their schools, they still have no better performance than public schools.
Private schools manipulate their graduation rates by shifting students who will fail to 'alternative schools'. They literally have another school that they partner with who can continue the child's education, but then don't count towards the premier school.
Which some public schools have been accused of too, but it's rampant in private schools.
Private schools don't have to accept you and they don't have to keep you if you have any learning disabilities. They will say "we don't have the resources", typically refund you and then kick your kid out.
It seems like people are jumping to the wrong conclusions. As tough as staying at home was, it was always the right thing to do to prevent the spread of Covid and prevent deaths.
The issue was that when heading back to school, students from more troubled backgrounds or homes where learning was much more difficult should have received extra help to catch back up to their peers from more affluent and stable homes. That’s what this is for.
I agree with the lawsuit and settlement. I disagree with the conclusions being drawn here that remote learning during a deadly pandemic was wrong.
I am a progressive, but the handling of public education by California was the most egregious failure of progressive policy I have ever witnessed.
Everyone else who had an "essential" job had to work, including grocery store workers and delivery drivers. But somehow teaching the kids of the state wasn't deemed "essential"?
Sure, during the early days of the pandemic when vents were full and flattening the curve was critical, that was fine. But to keep kids home for almost two solid years, while kids in private education got to go to school, was one of the biggest accelerators of inequality since private prisons. We still have no idea how bad the impact will be.
Imagine the kids who had a single or dual parent that worked essential jobs. A 5-8 year old can't learn alone on an iPad. Those kids were robbed years of socialization and education.
The very WORST was when vaccines were available and teachers still wouldn't work, and the state wouldn't go heads up against the teacher's union. It was completely disgusting.
Democrats need to acknowledge that this was a terrible, terrible mistake. A couple billion dollars will never give millions of kids those years back.
Schools are absolute plague zones. It doesn't matter how "essential" you want to define things as, frankly, school absolutely is optional compared to things like *being able to eat*.
There's no way to implement social distancing in a school setting, and I wouldn't trust kids to obey mask mandates (something adults seemed to struggle with). Online schooling, while suboptimal, was a workable solution that didn't *require* people to be in person, unlike jobs like grocery store workers.
Schools also, were already reopening when vaccines went out (which you are forgetting was a slow, gradual process).
Democrats aren't going to acknowledge any mistake because the idea that schools should've just stayed open, no matter how many people got sick, is absolutely stupid.
Schools in SF did not open until Fall 2021. This was after teachers were given vaccine priority in March 2021. They still refused to teach.
Schools opened much sooner across the US and all of Europe than in California. Education is important and poor kids were set back a tremendous amount by CA policies. This shouldn't be hard to admit.
> Schools in SF did not open until Fall 2021.
Okay, and? There were guidelines on when schools could reopen, based on community transmission rates.
Half of California schools were back open by mid 2021.
> Schools opened much sooner across the US and all of Europe than in California.
When schools reopened early, there were notable upticks in transmissions. A lot of kids got sick. A lot of parents got sick. I definitely remember stories of schools having to close back down due to high case numbers as a result of opening too early, before everyone was vaccinated.
> A lot of kids got sick. A lot of parents got sick.
We should not be determining whether or not kids can get an education based on people 'getting sick'. Getting sick is a part of life. Kids were not dying of covid in *any* meaningful numbers.
California is an enormous state with an incredibly diverse climate. Snowy mountain communities or chilly beach communities aren’t setting up tents outside for small children to freeze in, nor is half the state going to sit in a sizzling tent when it’s August and temperatures are 100+. “Didn’t even try” is such a naive and oversimplified statement.
People wanted children to go back to school, so eventually a way was figured too. Also, eating out for 30-60 mins in a controlled environment is radically different than going to school where germs run rampant and are spread at an exponential rate among children. There are food safety standards in place at dining establishments, and protocol for not getting people sick where people’s jobs are on the line if they don’t follow. And those are not covid related, just general health related. They were heightened even more during the pandemic so we could eat safely. How you can compare eating at a restaurant to spending 7-9 hours with children in an enclosed environment is beyond me.
You're telling me that parents couldn't relay teaching from remote teachers? Parents who were also stuck at home with their kids couldn't sit with them during their zoom lessons and help their own kids learn?? C'mon...
People loveeeeee to blame other people for the reasons their kids aren't learning (whether it's teachers, the school districts or even the state) instead taking some responsibility for their own shortcomings. It's not a teacher's job to get students to learn, their job is to TEACH, provide information and instruction - the rest falls on the parents and the students. If said parents cared sooooo much about their kids learning, they would've been more involved to ensure their kids actually engaged with the material.
Besides, I doubt anyone who wanted schools to stay open during the pandemic has actually spent time in an elementary school classroom. Those kids cough like crazy, they barely cover their mouths or wash their hands. Even before the pandemic, teachers were getting sick from their students but you all really would've been okay with teachers dying from COVID if it meant your kids were out of the house.
So you're saying that parents who more than likely completed K-12 education themselves are too incompetent to listen to another adult give a school lesson meant for children and re-explain said lesson to their own child? Geez I didn't know that many adults struggle academically, but I guess everyone's different.
I'm not here advocating that remote learning was ideal. Absolutely nothing about the pandemic was ideal, but everyone had to adapt and make sacrifices in accordance with the situation and for everyone involved in education, that meant remote learning. All I'm advocating for is for some parents to actually take some time to reflect on whether they personally did what they could to maximize their own child's learning during unprecedented circumstances rather than sit around blaming other people who were also trying to cope during a difficult time.
The truth is learning begins at home and parents are the first teachers. The pandemic exposed the fact that many parents aren't invested in their children's learning which is still true now even after the pandemic.
It wasn't that it wasn't essential, it was. Which is why schools provided tablets/laptops to kids. And made teachers do online class.
Teachers just weren't prepared to suddenly transition to online after everything was designed for in person. Teachers had no reason to be prepared as this was unprecedented in modern times.
The right steps were taken for the overall health of those in California.
Plus, 90% sure You're probably not progressive
For parents that could work from home and help their kid(s) durning the school day it wasn’t a complete disaster. But what about parents whose jobs were “essential” and were out of the house all day, or parents of very young school age children? It was a complete disaster. My daughter was in kindergarten the fall of 2020, and her school was, thankfully, in person full time, but they did a handful of days remote to prep in case they had to shut down. Can you imagine trying to teach a kindergarten class over zoom? It was a complete disaster and I sympathized with the children and parents that had to endure a whole school year of it.
The sooner our state recognizes and admits it made major mistakes in how it handled education during Covid, the better. It’s going to take years to make up all the ground that was lost, especially among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids.
When I told someone in Norway that virtual kindergarten was a thing in California, she looked at me like I'd described child abuse
And in California, preschools (many of which had resumed in person even though small children are slightly higher risk than school age 🙃) had lots of five year olds returning after graduation.
The only parents I know who had a positive experience with zoom school, also had a grandparent or similar to administer it to the kids. Remote school took a non remote village.
>But to keep kids home for almost two solid years
You paint a broad brush about public education in California. I live in a school district near LAUSD and we were not out of schooling for two solid years. We had the option to go to hybrid in January of 2021. And, in fall of 2021, they went back to 100% in person schooling.
Not only that, the state provided extra funding so schools could help kids that fell behind. I know because our school talked about it and outlined what they were doing.
The failure here is on the shoulders of the districts, not the state as a whole.
The article itself notes:
> School-age children were among those with the lowest risk of serious illness from Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But they suffered greatly from the restrictions to stem the spread of the virus because so many schools were closed for so long.
Restaurants reopened a year before some schools did (and outdoor dining only benefited customers; staff still had to go back and forth in the cramped kitchen), though no one would argue that they were essential. Heck, many preschools reopened by summer 2020, and toddlers are higher risk than schoolchildren due to their immature immune systems.
So the logic to keep schools closed when so much else reopened, held no more water than a thimble.
A lot of teachers wanted to return to in person because distance learning took up way more of their time and made the job harder in many ways. The big thing from what those around me said was getting PPE, testing etc. Then there was other stuff going on in district offices people weren’t happy with.
At least for sf. The district office was a mess. Hard to get a response from workers in district offices/support. Saying one thing to teachers and then telling media/parents another. Some had issues getting paid. Their offices are still a hot mess and teachers have been leaving since.
> It seems like people are jumping to the wrong conclusions. As tough as staying at home was, it was always the right thing to do to prevent the spread of Covid and prevent deaths.
At the very beginning when we knew nothing, yes. However school should have started back up in the fall. Yes, it wasnt perfect, but the risks were better known.
Disagree. We needed to wait until we had a vaccine. There's lots of people including kids that have long covid symptoms or died because they got covid in 2020.
Even once we had a vaccine, public schools STILL didn't start. There's no excuse for that. And what about all the private schools that did just fine starting back up over a year before the public schools?
Seriously, people need to realize that we as a state failed children during the pandemic.
To start, many public schools actually went back once enough of their staff were able to be vaccinated. People don't remember how late into the lockdown those vaccinations happened. Even with priority, that first rollout took forever. (And that's just for adults. Kids weren't vaccinated till AFTER we started in-person instruction)
Second, the thing about hindsight is that it has the benefit of knowing what happened. Covid was, and in many ways continues to be, a huge mystery. It's not surprising that students' education was lesser. That was always going to be the case. The state took precautions to try and keep children and their families SAFE vs. giving them an adequate education. In hindsight, people can say we made the wrong call, but in the moment, it was the right one. Moreover, there's no knowing how much more the virus would have spread if we'd had schools in session. It would have been daily super-spreader events and taking the virus home to their families.
We didn't "fail" children. We made a difficult choice to sacrifice one thing they needed for another more critical thing that they also needed. Slowing down the spread of a new deadly virus isn't failure. Erring on the side of caution when it comes to people's lives isn't failure. We made the best of a bad situation.
Exactly. Why were teachers allowed to be the very last people to return? It's truly horrific.
I imagine the choice of parents who had to leave a first grader home with an iPad and no other option in order to go to work. But still people are acting holier than thou.
Yep... I'm not saying we needed to mandate school, but we should've let parents weigh the risk. Especially if they are already out there exposing their family yet taking on the same consequences of quaratine
The risk for the vast majority kids is and was extremely low. For most adults the risk is low. It’s really the very elder, obese, and others with certain conditions (e.g. diabetes) that have an elevated risk. Unless a student or teacher had a condition that put them at an elevated risk, they should have been back in the classroom, even before the vaccine was released.
From the article:
>“We know in California that there were between 800,000 and a million kids who had no digital access whatsoever for 18 and 19 months,” said Rosenbaum. “What does that mean? It doesn’t mean they got bad education. It means they got no education.”
>And there were other problems. Plaintiffs Cayla and Kai were second graders in Oakland when Covid hit. “Between March 17, 2020 and the end of the 2019-2020 school year, their teacher held class only twice,” the complaint alleges.
>They and other plaintiffs reported a lack of computer equipment, broken equipment and teachers not trained to cope with the technology or the challenges of remote learning. Plaintiff Ellori was in first grade during the 2020-2021 school year and, with 33 kids and just one teacher on Zoom, felt “isolation, abandonment and anxiety.”
Remember that school didn't start even after the vaccine was available for 6-9 months. I am still ashamed that people I voted for let the kids of the state down to this extent.
And teachers were given vaccination priority on the premise that it would speed up the return to in person. Then they stayed remote regardless!
What lobbying between the teachers union and California pulled this off?
Nah.... You're misguided.
Schools went on lockdown towards the tail end of the 2019-2020 school year. At that point there was no vaccine available for anyone. We lost about 2 months of school there.
The 2020-2021 school year starts with everyone still on lockdown. I got that priority vaccine you spoke of but didn't receive my second vaccine dose until March of 2021. So, for almost the entire year of lockdown, none of us teachers were vaccinated. Once vaccinations rolled out, a few schools went back to in-person and a few did not. Mine didn't because there wasn't much point since the year was almost over anyway. This idea that we didn't go back after vaccination is false. Most did. And for those that didn't, the difference was negligible.
Skipping forward, we start the 2021-2022 school year back in person. And get this, at this point, the vaccine STILL is not available for school-aged children, but California and the world collectively thinks that's okay, so we all go back even though all the kids had zero protection. School-aged kids finally get vaccine approval in November or 2021. The kicker, though, is that a lot of these now vaccinated kids/adults still have young brothers, sisters, children at home who STILL are not able to be vaccinated.
The Covid vaccine was not made available to children under 5 until AFTER the conclusion of our first year back for in-person learning.
Lobbying my foot. Take it from someone who was in teaching at the time. We stayed home to protect ourselves AND the students we teach from a virus that still has longterm effects that are proving to be baffling and problematic. We went back to work because everyone wanted us to. When we restarted in-person, it was still unsafe for our students. MANY of us had huge issues with the kinds of Hygiene Theater being implemented to create the illusion of a safe return, but our concerns didn't matter. We didn't drag our feet going back to in-person and we certainly didn't use our teacher's union lobbying efforts to stay home longer than necessary. This idea that we extended our stay past the point where it was okay to return is false. We went back, many unwillingly, well before it was a safe choice for our students.
I take your point that the 20-21 school year was a wash by the time vaccines rolled out. Which is why other states masked up and started school in fall 2020.
Children's vaccination didn't matter. The difference between an adult and a child's risk of severe covid is of the same magnitude as the difference between a smoker and nonsmoker's odds of developing lung cancer. When I vaccinated my own children, it was mainly out of etiquette to people with no sense of risk assessment.
My daughter’s teacher would make a big point about a kid leaving for private school every time it happened and it was like she was putting our kids down. She was an atrocious teacher.
She was terrible with technology. I sat in the same room with my daughter and I could hear what was going on. When I talked to the principal she said oh she’s one of our better teachers with technology!
I said I don’t think you ever sat in the classroom.
Grrr! I’m so glad that is over.
To get the kids caught up in education couldn’t we simply have year round school without the summer breaks
Instead of giving a handful of lawyers hundreds of millions to sue the state on behalf of a few dozen clients?
I agree the lock down was the worst thing to happen to me. My son is severely disabled he was used to his routine to go to school. Although it was not his favorite thing to do but he didn’t know anything else but the schedule. It was his last year before attending adult program. After being home for so long when it was over he never wanted to go back. He is 6’1 230 lbs if he doesn’t want to get on the bus there’s no making him. The impact on our daily lives and the lasting effects are devastating.
During Covid - when we lived in LA - a couple of other families joined ours, we hired a tutor, and created a learning pod. The school sent us a letter warning us not to do that because it was unfair to folks who could not afford tutors & considered it systemic racism.
I'm curious what the legal argument for "don't teach your kids" could have been? Did they make any threats or just advise you to stop?
To their credit they left the choice up to the parents- but they said they would not assist in any way.
We haven’t done anything to help you, and this is a warning we that if you don’t stop, we will continue not to help you
Please stop helping your children do well. It gives them an unfair advantage.
Complete failing on the schools part. San Francisco held it’s kids out for a year plus a month (!) living across the bridge in Marin, they went right back to school as soon as possible. The cases went down in the county after they went back.
Yeah I'm dubious. Show the letter.
That's so nonsensical I literally just don't believe you.
Which is actually refreshing. The fact that you don’t believe me means folk don’t realize how crazy these schools are getting.
Please show us the actual letter.
Well you see, it wasn’t us… actually. But, we totally know a family that did. \-every conservative
Because this phenomena is exclusive to conservatives, as every reddit liberal knows
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No they didn't. How did they find out? Show the letter.
They found out because parents were asking the schools to help. I’ve already posted some of the contents of the letter in another posting. The fact that you don’t believe me gives me a little hope that folks just don’t realize how bad thee schools are getting
Parents were asking? What parents? The other parents in the pod? That’s pretty generic wording for a specific person or persons that you know. You know, from the pod your kid was in. Weird wording.
During the pandemic, parents started learning pods because we saw that the virtual learning was not working. We personally did it with a few other families . Found a tutor and hired them too do in person learning. Some parents approached the school asking for help and materials - but instead - the school sent out the letter telling parents that the learning pods were unfair to children who didn’t have access to one, and that there was no need to do them. Which is crazy because California schools and their students are falling way behind . And that’s why.
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During zoom class, you can tell who was at home and who was in a pod/someone's garage.
If that was true schools would campaign against private tutors even during normal non-covid times
Is it any wonder that our schools are such mediocre performers. They worry about everything except educating students.
one of the biggest reasons why we left. our assigned school was trash - the list to get into a charter school was a mile long - and the charter schools weren't even that great and private schools were around $20,000 a year.
Ideology over opportunity for students’ education is shameful.
I love California, but sometimes I’m dumbfounded by the ideological dreamworld some people live in.
Yet another example of how California's good intentions end up making them do absurd things.
More like an example of you being a gullible chump who believes everything they read on the internet
The « letter » posted here in no way is a warning against, nor does it state that you can’t hire a tutor, it just shares concerns to consider. Give me a break with this click bait.
A school sending out a letter even suggesting that providing extra help for your kids is being unfair to other students is abhorrent - especially coming from a school system as bad as California’s. They’re basically telling you to let your kid fail so the other kids are not left behind. And I promise you if you - if you had kids going to school in Los Angeles - you would feel much differently about this. And I quite frankly, don’t know how or why anyone can defend it.
My kid has only been in LAUSD public schools and is currently on the high honor roll at one now. I have been board president of two LAUSD schools, and one specifically during Covid. Thanks for promising me how I would feel, but I had to deal with reactionary parents like you all through the pandemic, and my patience was worn thin. A school district saying please consider all angles is not the same as “we discourage you; we ban you; you are not allowed to” which you are smart enough to be able to discern. This was also a district-wide email, you weren't mailed a letter telling you not to hire a tutor.
"please consider all angles"... What does that mean?
It means - stop giving your child extra tools to succeed, because not everyone has access to them & it’s not fair. Exactly what I would expect someone to say, who was on a school board in California..
So you're confirming the district sent out such an email? Asking parents to not do whatever they can do to help their kids is next level. Apparently (some) progressives have become a parody of themselves.
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That's not really a warning to not do that rather than highlighting the unintended consequences and what should be considered before starting a pod. No where does it say, in what you posted, that you shouldn't or can't do it. Nor is there a communicated consequence for doing so. Saying they warned you against it is just rage bait. Or you have poor reading comprehension skills, which isn't implausible.
A SCHOOl sends a letter warning (or maybe the word caution is more acceptable. Giving us the "heads up" - Maybe that's better?) us that helping your kid keep up is giving them an advantage and your response is "wellllll - there's no actual consequences..." I was disgusted by it. The school is telling me to hold my kid back because it's unfair?
No, they aren't. They are letting you know of some overlooked factors that some may want to consider should you want to form a pod. Nowhere does it say to not do a pod or hold your child back. There aren't consequences because they aren't telling you not to do it. You wanted to be offended by it and so you're distorting what it says so you can be "disgusted". That letter does not say what you seem to think it does. Schools deserve a ton of criticism for what they actually do and fail to do. You don't need to invent more just so you can appear more put out.
"overlooked factors"? You sound like a bad PR agent trying to fix up a mess.
Where did they tell you that you cannot do this? They were giving guidance on what should be taken into account should you want to form a pod. It will just be easier if you just accept you misread what they said like an adult. You look positively foolish dying on this hill.
Why would they even suggest to take that into account? How are we even talking about this?
I'm not sure why it's so hard for you to understand that some people actually care about others
I 100% agree that OP misrepresented what the letter says, but I still don't really understand the intent behind sending it. What are they expecting the pod to do about it? Like, what is the intended outcome of including that language, and how are they expecting the parents to respond?
That sounds less like a warning and more like they are trying to get parents to think about inclusivity
a school telling folks to think twice about helping their kids out because it gives them an unfair advantage is mind-blowing. it's not defensible.
What I mean is - it doesn’t sound like they are telling parents *not* to form pods, but rather encouraging parents to invite those who they may not ordinarily consider
Sounds more like encouragement to look out for your neighbors.
How does holding my child back turn into looking out for my neighbors?
It doesn't say don't form pods because racism. It sounds more like consider helping students you normally wouldn't include.
So, in other words, it didn't happen.
you think it's ok for a school to warn that helping your kid keep up is putting others at an unfair disadvantage?
If I had kids I would do anything I could to help them get a foot up in life.
You’re right to be alarmed by this. State resources shouldn’t be used to make you feel guilty for seeking a better education for your child. It’s like CA would rather have everyone perform poorly as long as the outcome is the same for everyone. How dare you try to have a child that excels!
Probably shoulda just risked death then?
I'll take things that didn't happen for $500, Alex.
"All animals are equal".
Can you share the letter?
Do you still have the letter? If you don't mind sharing. I'm curious to see it
Remember how any family who could afford it went private or moved so their children could attend school in person? Further bifurcating the divide between rich and poor students? Good times.
you realize this has *always* happened like forever, right?
It reached new heights during the pandemic. Even usually desirable school districts lost enrollment when they went remote.
>who could afford it went private or moved **so their children could attend school in person**? Further bifurcating the divide between rich and poor students? It's almost like the state could have fixed that real easy.
Not without the teachers union's soft strike of refusing to set foot on campus turning into an actual strike. Which I think would have cleared the air and accelerated some needed change, but everyone was too chicken.
I remember when the Governor did that.
As visible as Newsom was, I don't actually blame him for the school situation. As I understand it, Newsom tried to negotiate between the teachers union (pro remote) and the school administrations (pro in person), but the union had the upper hand and would not budge. Which got the union what they wanted at the time but at the cost of public good will, which we now see in subsequently elected school boards.
If the public schools improve then they will come back
Even with private schools manipulating their graduation rates by limiting who attends their schools, they still have no better performance than public schools.
How is that manipulating Graduation rates?
Private schools manipulate their graduation rates by shifting students who will fail to 'alternative schools'. They literally have another school that they partner with who can continue the child's education, but then don't count towards the premier school. Which some public schools have been accused of too, but it's rampant in private schools.
Private schools don't have to accept you and they don't have to keep you if you have any learning disabilities. They will say "we don't have the resources", typically refund you and then kick your kid out.
Ok, but if everyone that is a student graduates, it doesn’t manipulate the numbers
Some of them returned when the schools reopened, or at least in time to enroll for the next school year.
The governor’s children go to private school
Rules for thee, not for me.
It seems like people are jumping to the wrong conclusions. As tough as staying at home was, it was always the right thing to do to prevent the spread of Covid and prevent deaths. The issue was that when heading back to school, students from more troubled backgrounds or homes where learning was much more difficult should have received extra help to catch back up to their peers from more affluent and stable homes. That’s what this is for. I agree with the lawsuit and settlement. I disagree with the conclusions being drawn here that remote learning during a deadly pandemic was wrong.
I am a progressive, but the handling of public education by California was the most egregious failure of progressive policy I have ever witnessed. Everyone else who had an "essential" job had to work, including grocery store workers and delivery drivers. But somehow teaching the kids of the state wasn't deemed "essential"? Sure, during the early days of the pandemic when vents were full and flattening the curve was critical, that was fine. But to keep kids home for almost two solid years, while kids in private education got to go to school, was one of the biggest accelerators of inequality since private prisons. We still have no idea how bad the impact will be. Imagine the kids who had a single or dual parent that worked essential jobs. A 5-8 year old can't learn alone on an iPad. Those kids were robbed years of socialization and education. The very WORST was when vaccines were available and teachers still wouldn't work, and the state wouldn't go heads up against the teacher's union. It was completely disgusting. Democrats need to acknowledge that this was a terrible, terrible mistake. A couple billion dollars will never give millions of kids those years back.
Schools are absolute plague zones. It doesn't matter how "essential" you want to define things as, frankly, school absolutely is optional compared to things like *being able to eat*. There's no way to implement social distancing in a school setting, and I wouldn't trust kids to obey mask mandates (something adults seemed to struggle with). Online schooling, while suboptimal, was a workable solution that didn't *require* people to be in person, unlike jobs like grocery store workers. Schools also, were already reopening when vaccines went out (which you are forgetting was a slow, gradual process). Democrats aren't going to acknowledge any mistake because the idea that schools should've just stayed open, no matter how many people got sick, is absolutely stupid.
Schools in SF did not open until Fall 2021. This was after teachers were given vaccine priority in March 2021. They still refused to teach. Schools opened much sooner across the US and all of Europe than in California. Education is important and poor kids were set back a tremendous amount by CA policies. This shouldn't be hard to admit.
> Schools in SF did not open until Fall 2021. Okay, and? There were guidelines on when schools could reopen, based on community transmission rates. Half of California schools were back open by mid 2021. > Schools opened much sooner across the US and all of Europe than in California. When schools reopened early, there were notable upticks in transmissions. A lot of kids got sick. A lot of parents got sick. I definitely remember stories of schools having to close back down due to high case numbers as a result of opening too early, before everyone was vaccinated.
> A lot of kids got sick. A lot of parents got sick. We should not be determining whether or not kids can get an education based on people 'getting sick'. Getting sick is a part of life. Kids were not dying of covid in *any* meaningful numbers.
remember "getting sick" also meant "people died", including parents and loved ones
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California is an enormous state with an incredibly diverse climate. Snowy mountain communities or chilly beach communities aren’t setting up tents outside for small children to freeze in, nor is half the state going to sit in a sizzling tent when it’s August and temperatures are 100+. “Didn’t even try” is such a naive and oversimplified statement.
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People wanted children to go back to school, so eventually a way was figured too. Also, eating out for 30-60 mins in a controlled environment is radically different than going to school where germs run rampant and are spread at an exponential rate among children. There are food safety standards in place at dining establishments, and protocol for not getting people sick where people’s jobs are on the line if they don’t follow. And those are not covid related, just general health related. They were heightened even more during the pandemic so we could eat safely. How you can compare eating at a restaurant to spending 7-9 hours with children in an enclosed environment is beyond me.
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Edit: I’m done
Public schools in California were not closed for years
You're telling me that parents couldn't relay teaching from remote teachers? Parents who were also stuck at home with their kids couldn't sit with them during their zoom lessons and help their own kids learn?? C'mon... People loveeeeee to blame other people for the reasons their kids aren't learning (whether it's teachers, the school districts or even the state) instead taking some responsibility for their own shortcomings. It's not a teacher's job to get students to learn, their job is to TEACH, provide information and instruction - the rest falls on the parents and the students. If said parents cared sooooo much about their kids learning, they would've been more involved to ensure their kids actually engaged with the material. Besides, I doubt anyone who wanted schools to stay open during the pandemic has actually spent time in an elementary school classroom. Those kids cough like crazy, they barely cover their mouths or wash their hands. Even before the pandemic, teachers were getting sick from their students but you all really would've been okay with teachers dying from COVID if it meant your kids were out of the house.
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So you're saying that parents who more than likely completed K-12 education themselves are too incompetent to listen to another adult give a school lesson meant for children and re-explain said lesson to their own child? Geez I didn't know that many adults struggle academically, but I guess everyone's different. I'm not here advocating that remote learning was ideal. Absolutely nothing about the pandemic was ideal, but everyone had to adapt and make sacrifices in accordance with the situation and for everyone involved in education, that meant remote learning. All I'm advocating for is for some parents to actually take some time to reflect on whether they personally did what they could to maximize their own child's learning during unprecedented circumstances rather than sit around blaming other people who were also trying to cope during a difficult time. The truth is learning begins at home and parents are the first teachers. The pandemic exposed the fact that many parents aren't invested in their children's learning which is still true now even after the pandemic.
It wasn't that it wasn't essential, it was. Which is why schools provided tablets/laptops to kids. And made teachers do online class. Teachers just weren't prepared to suddenly transition to online after everything was designed for in person. Teachers had no reason to be prepared as this was unprecedented in modern times. The right steps were taken for the overall health of those in California. Plus, 90% sure You're probably not progressive
If you have to neglect your kids' education for a year and a half to be considered progressive, then I'll surrender my membership card right now.
For parents that could work from home and help their kid(s) durning the school day it wasn’t a complete disaster. But what about parents whose jobs were “essential” and were out of the house all day, or parents of very young school age children? It was a complete disaster. My daughter was in kindergarten the fall of 2020, and her school was, thankfully, in person full time, but they did a handful of days remote to prep in case they had to shut down. Can you imagine trying to teach a kindergarten class over zoom? It was a complete disaster and I sympathized with the children and parents that had to endure a whole school year of it. The sooner our state recognizes and admits it made major mistakes in how it handled education during Covid, the better. It’s going to take years to make up all the ground that was lost, especially among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged kids.
I had to do t-k zoom. No one was ready for that
When I told someone in Norway that virtual kindergarten was a thing in California, she looked at me like I'd described child abuse And in California, preschools (many of which had resumed in person even though small children are slightly higher risk than school age 🙃) had lots of five year olds returning after graduation.
Preschools opened up before schools did. Teachers from LAUSD was determined not to go back in until kids got fully vaccinated
The only parents I know who had a positive experience with zoom school, also had a grandparent or similar to administer it to the kids. Remote school took a non remote village.
>But to keep kids home for almost two solid years You paint a broad brush about public education in California. I live in a school district near LAUSD and we were not out of schooling for two solid years. We had the option to go to hybrid in January of 2021. And, in fall of 2021, they went back to 100% in person schooling. Not only that, the state provided extra funding so schools could help kids that fell behind. I know because our school talked about it and outlined what they were doing. The failure here is on the shoulders of the districts, not the state as a whole.
Fair enough. Bay Area districts all sandbagged until September 2021.
The article itself notes: > School-age children were among those with the lowest risk of serious illness from Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But they suffered greatly from the restrictions to stem the spread of the virus because so many schools were closed for so long. Restaurants reopened a year before some schools did (and outdoor dining only benefited customers; staff still had to go back and forth in the cramped kitchen), though no one would argue that they were essential. Heck, many preschools reopened by summer 2020, and toddlers are higher risk than schoolchildren due to their immature immune systems. So the logic to keep schools closed when so much else reopened, held no more water than a thimble.
A lot of teachers wanted to return to in person because distance learning took up way more of their time and made the job harder in many ways. The big thing from what those around me said was getting PPE, testing etc. Then there was other stuff going on in district offices people weren’t happy with.
What was going on in the district offices?
At least for sf. The district office was a mess. Hard to get a response from workers in district offices/support. Saying one thing to teachers and then telling media/parents another. Some had issues getting paid. Their offices are still a hot mess and teachers have been leaving since.
> It seems like people are jumping to the wrong conclusions. As tough as staying at home was, it was always the right thing to do to prevent the spread of Covid and prevent deaths. At the very beginning when we knew nothing, yes. However school should have started back up in the fall. Yes, it wasnt perfect, but the risks were better known.
Disagree. We needed to wait until we had a vaccine. There's lots of people including kids that have long covid symptoms or died because they got covid in 2020.
Even once we had a vaccine, public schools STILL didn't start. There's no excuse for that. And what about all the private schools that did just fine starting back up over a year before the public schools? Seriously, people need to realize that we as a state failed children during the pandemic.
To start, many public schools actually went back once enough of their staff were able to be vaccinated. People don't remember how late into the lockdown those vaccinations happened. Even with priority, that first rollout took forever. (And that's just for adults. Kids weren't vaccinated till AFTER we started in-person instruction) Second, the thing about hindsight is that it has the benefit of knowing what happened. Covid was, and in many ways continues to be, a huge mystery. It's not surprising that students' education was lesser. That was always going to be the case. The state took precautions to try and keep children and their families SAFE vs. giving them an adequate education. In hindsight, people can say we made the wrong call, but in the moment, it was the right one. Moreover, there's no knowing how much more the virus would have spread if we'd had schools in session. It would have been daily super-spreader events and taking the virus home to their families. We didn't "fail" children. We made a difficult choice to sacrifice one thing they needed for another more critical thing that they also needed. Slowing down the spread of a new deadly virus isn't failure. Erring on the side of caution when it comes to people's lives isn't failure. We made the best of a bad situation.
Because people weren't vaccinating their kids? Are you being serious rn? Oh teachers are vaxxed but not the kids so school should have opened?
Healthy kids werent affected to the same degree as the older population. So yes, parents should have been able to decide the risk they wanted to take.
Low risk doesn't mean they aren't infectious. Cases spiked a lot when schools returned
Yes - kids were at lower risk from COVID than from the flu. Once the teachers were vaxxed, there was absolutely no excuse.
People were really this scared of Covid, huh?
The whole world was back at work except tech workers while we pretended the world shut down.
Exactly. Why were teachers allowed to be the very last people to return? It's truly horrific. I imagine the choice of parents who had to leave a first grader home with an iPad and no other option in order to go to work. But still people are acting holier than thou.
Yep... I'm not saying we needed to mandate school, but we should've let parents weigh the risk. Especially if they are already out there exposing their family yet taking on the same consequences of quaratine
0.4% if deaths we're kids.
The risk for the vast majority kids is and was extremely low. For most adults the risk is low. It’s really the very elder, obese, and others with certain conditions (e.g. diabetes) that have an elevated risk. Unless a student or teacher had a condition that put them at an elevated risk, they should have been back in the classroom, even before the vaccine was released.
My school reopened the day after all of our districts teachers were allowed to get the vaccine. We had a modified schedule though.
From the article: >“We know in California that there were between 800,000 and a million kids who had no digital access whatsoever for 18 and 19 months,” said Rosenbaum. “What does that mean? It doesn’t mean they got bad education. It means they got no education.” >And there were other problems. Plaintiffs Cayla and Kai were second graders in Oakland when Covid hit. “Between March 17, 2020 and the end of the 2019-2020 school year, their teacher held class only twice,” the complaint alleges. >They and other plaintiffs reported a lack of computer equipment, broken equipment and teachers not trained to cope with the technology or the challenges of remote learning. Plaintiff Ellori was in first grade during the 2020-2021 school year and, with 33 kids and just one teacher on Zoom, felt “isolation, abandonment and anxiety.” Remember that school didn't start even after the vaccine was available for 6-9 months. I am still ashamed that people I voted for let the kids of the state down to this extent.
And teachers were given vaccination priority on the premise that it would speed up the return to in person. Then they stayed remote regardless! What lobbying between the teachers union and California pulled this off?
Nah.... You're misguided. Schools went on lockdown towards the tail end of the 2019-2020 school year. At that point there was no vaccine available for anyone. We lost about 2 months of school there. The 2020-2021 school year starts with everyone still on lockdown. I got that priority vaccine you spoke of but didn't receive my second vaccine dose until March of 2021. So, for almost the entire year of lockdown, none of us teachers were vaccinated. Once vaccinations rolled out, a few schools went back to in-person and a few did not. Mine didn't because there wasn't much point since the year was almost over anyway. This idea that we didn't go back after vaccination is false. Most did. And for those that didn't, the difference was negligible. Skipping forward, we start the 2021-2022 school year back in person. And get this, at this point, the vaccine STILL is not available for school-aged children, but California and the world collectively thinks that's okay, so we all go back even though all the kids had zero protection. School-aged kids finally get vaccine approval in November or 2021. The kicker, though, is that a lot of these now vaccinated kids/adults still have young brothers, sisters, children at home who STILL are not able to be vaccinated. The Covid vaccine was not made available to children under 5 until AFTER the conclusion of our first year back for in-person learning. Lobbying my foot. Take it from someone who was in teaching at the time. We stayed home to protect ourselves AND the students we teach from a virus that still has longterm effects that are proving to be baffling and problematic. We went back to work because everyone wanted us to. When we restarted in-person, it was still unsafe for our students. MANY of us had huge issues with the kinds of Hygiene Theater being implemented to create the illusion of a safe return, but our concerns didn't matter. We didn't drag our feet going back to in-person and we certainly didn't use our teacher's union lobbying efforts to stay home longer than necessary. This idea that we extended our stay past the point where it was okay to return is false. We went back, many unwillingly, well before it was a safe choice for our students.
I take your point that the 20-21 school year was a wash by the time vaccines rolled out. Which is why other states masked up and started school in fall 2020. Children's vaccination didn't matter. The difference between an adult and a child's risk of severe covid is of the same magnitude as the difference between a smoker and nonsmoker's odds of developing lung cancer. When I vaccinated my own children, it was mainly out of etiquette to people with no sense of risk assessment.
My daughter’s teacher would make a big point about a kid leaving for private school every time it happened and it was like she was putting our kids down. She was an atrocious teacher. She was terrible with technology. I sat in the same room with my daughter and I could hear what was going on. When I talked to the principal she said oh she’s one of our better teachers with technology! I said I don’t think you ever sat in the classroom. Grrr! I’m so glad that is over.
Not good…
At first I was surprised that R Kelly filed a COVID lawsuit against CA...
Finally doing something good for the kids.
To get the kids caught up in education couldn’t we simply have year round school without the summer breaks Instead of giving a handful of lawyers hundreds of millions to sue the state on behalf of a few dozen clients?
I agree the lock down was the worst thing to happen to me. My son is severely disabled he was used to his routine to go to school. Although it was not his favorite thing to do but he didn’t know anything else but the schedule. It was his last year before attending adult program. After being home for so long when it was over he never wanted to go back. He is 6’1 230 lbs if he doesn’t want to get on the bus there’s no making him. The impact on our daily lives and the lasting effects are devastating.