Angry Parents on Social Media

[tinkerhon]

Agree with some of the PPs- so many ppl are starting to go berserk ! Not to threadjack, but I have a question that maybe a teacher can answer -

Since homeschooling/remote learning started - have you come across a situation where your students had to take a test, and one of your students had to retake it (or perhaps a similar test) because they did too well ? In other words, the sentiment was that someone took the test for them ?

If so, how did you handle it? Or , maybe as a parent, how do you think it should be handled ?

I had to do a survey for both my kids the other day- from the DOE
The subject of tests during this time of remote school was mentioned a number of times -
There was a study done last month that showed that the majority of the students were actually doing better at home ( academically, of course - socially, not so much )

 

[Turn the Page]

As a teacher, I’m not shocked even though I could see why most folks of sound mind and attitude would be shocked. We had a parent complain on Facebook that the schools have not been teaching her kids discipline and manners because he’s being rude and defiant at home to his mother. Many people thought it was satire, but it wasn’t. And many other parents commented about the failing of their schools in teaching their children the same.
I thought it was bad when our school was threatened with a lawsuit by a mother who said we were not feeding her child enough during the day (he got free breakfast, snack, and lunch) because he keeps asking for dinner every night, and we don’t send him home with anything on the weekends. This is a mother who gets a full mani, pedi, and massage every other week at my friends salon to the tune of $150. This is not someone struggling for money.
It’s just in general there has been a shift from parents parenting to relying/forcing these things on teachers and schools. It’s really a shame.

That's insane. I don't doubt you're telling the truth. I know there are parents like that out there but knowing it and hearing specific examples of it is sometimes quite different.

 

[Dole_whip_doll]

I’ve posted allllll over these boards how terrible it’s been for me as a teacher during this closure/distance learning time. While I encounter the occasional upset parent here or there, I’ve never been made to feel so downright worthless as I do now. I’d always wanted to be a teacher; even back to grade school, and have been for over 10 years. Now I’m just wondering what, if anything, else I could do.

 

[Dole_whip_doll]

Agree with some of the PPs- so many ppl are starting to go berserk ! Not to threadjack, but I have a question that maybe a teacher can answer -

Since homeschooling/remote learning started - have you come across a situation where your students had to take a test, and one of your students had to retake it (or perhaps a similar test) because they did too well ? In other words, the sentiment was that someone took the test for them ?

If so, how did you handle it? Or , maybe as a parent, how do you think it should be handled ?

I had to do a survey for both my kids the other day- from the DOE
The subject of tests during this time of remote school was mentioned a number of times -
There was a study done last month that showed that the majority of the students were actually doing better at home ( academically, of course - socially, not so much )

Our schools adopted grading policy for the closure included a part about no grading penalties. One of them being if a kid is caught cheating, oh well, grade it and go on. I had a student turn in an identical assignment to another student, but no grading penalty so just pretended it was the first time I was seeing that info/layout/sentence structure/misspelling.

 

[Turn the Page]

I’ve posted allllll over these boards how terrible it’s been for me as a teacher during this closure/distance learning time. While I encounter the occasional upset parent here or there, I’ve never been made to feel so downright worthless as I do now. I’d always wanted to be a teacher; even back to grade school, and have been for over 10 years. Now I’m just wondering what, if anything, else I could do.

Speaking for myself, all of our teachers have been great through all this. My frustration is specifically with our school board and administration not having the infrastructure in place already in case of school closures.

 

[kirstenb1]

I've seen very little bashing of our school system on social media. Thank God, because my nerves don't need that! We live in a small rural central Va county. Every public school child from second grade up receives a school Ipad. Not everyone has internet. So the schools have posted public parking lots, including their own, where families can access the internet. If they can't get to the public internet, no problem, the schools have listed ways to work offline. I'm sure someone could find ways to critique if they wanted, but most of us think the schools are doing the best they can in these crazy times. They did make paper packets available for kids who prefer paper learning.

Our daughter has an extensive IEP, and honestly, I don't really see how her situation is worse than other kids. No she doesn't have her collaborative classes with her special ed teachers. But it isn't the schools fault, and I don't really see any purpose in making a stink about it. All her teachers, and her case manager have made themselves available for questions. Whenever we go back, most kids are going to need a lot of catching up.

 

[tinkerhon]

Our schools adopted grading policy for the closure included a part about no grading penalties. One of them being if a kid is caught cheating, oh well, grade it and go on. I had a student turn in an identical assignment to another student, but no grading penalty so just pretended it was the first time I was seeing that info/layout/sentence structure/misspelling.

Thanks for the reply ! Yea, my son's grade school basically said same - no grading - grades are basically attendance

 

[buzznina]

As a teacher, I’m not shocked even though I could see why most folks of sound mind and attitude would be shocked. We had a parent complain on Facebook that the schools have not been teaching her kids discipline and manners because he’s being rude and defiant at home to his mother. Many people thought it was satire, but it wasn’t. And many other parents commented about the failing of their schools in teaching their children the same.
I thought it was bad when our school was threatened with a lawsuit by a mother who said we were not feeding her child enough during the day (he got free breakfast, snack, and lunch) because he keeps asking for dinner every night, and we don’t send him home with anything on the weekends. This is a mother who gets a full mani, pedi, and massage every other week at my friends salon to the tune of $150. This is not someone struggling for money.
It’s just in general there has been a shift from parents parenting to relying/forcing these things on teachers and schools. It’s really a shame.

Totally agree!
We have a 4th and a 9th grader currently doing online schooling. Our county did a great job getting online curriculum's ready for the 4th Qtr. The teachers have overall been great at replying to emails quickly and the 4th Qtr grades will count, as they should be. There has been many times me or my DW had to do some research at night so we could understand before we could help or DD with her school assignment.
We "had" a friend that was complaining that it was the schools responsibility that her child is doing badly and not getting their work done (their daughter was already 3 weeks behind) and that the grade should not count. I told her about how our 9th grader had a tough assignment in her BioMed class and we (DW, DD and myself) sat down for a couple of hours at night and worked through it. They started complaining again how they should not have to do that and on and on... I finally had enough and told them that they need to get off their lazy (butts) and work with their children and not just blame it on the school.
Click....... dial tone

 

[Dole_whip_doll]

Thanks for the reply ! Yea, my son's grade school basically said same - no grading - grades are basically attendance

We actually still have grades and I’m really grading assignments. For a writing exercise we had (high school age), they had instructions and examples of how many sentences and what each sentence should be about, I ended up with random fragments because some just put periods here and there thinking I’d just count dots and give a 100. I returned them with a “are you sure? Maybe reread instruction” note. Many just resubmitted as is.

 

[buzznina]

Speaking for myself, all of our teachers have been great through all this. My frustration is specifically with our school board and administration not having the infrastructure in place already in case of school closures.

I do not think there are many, if any, school boards that had something 'already' in place for "all" schools being closed for this long of a period. Our school system had preparations for being closed for a week or two but most of the plans that were setup for long periods (fire, hurricanes etc.) involved having students go to other schools in the area, but not with every school being closed like now. But like I said in another post that our school board did a great job, they met and within a couple of weeks worked up a 4th Qtr curriculum and implemented it and this included giving out thousands of chrome books etc.

 

[rjb123]

They aren’t excuses. The school district my husband teaches at was threatened by several parents who have kids with IEPs. If the school moved to required online learning, they were planning to file lawsuits on not meeting equitable education standards. Thus, the school bore, after talking to state officials, decided to effectively cancel any required learning for the remainder of the year.

I just don't understand this. So even if 10% have IEP's, 90% get no education? Nothing? Why can't the 10% just get different remote school and let the 90% do the regular school?

 

[Turn the Page]

I do not think there are many, if any, school boards that had something 'already' in place for "all" schools being closed for this long of a period. Our school system had preparations for being closed for a week or two but most of the plans that were setup for long periods (fire, hurricanes etc.) involved having students go to other schools in the area, but not with every school being closed like now. But like I said in another post that our school board did a great job, they met and within a couple of weeks worked up a 4th Qtr curriculum and implemented it and this included giving out thousands of chrome books etc.

My point is our school had nothing in place. Nothing. They had to bulk it all from scratch. And we have so many snow days each year more often than not there is discussion about whether or not kids will have to make up the days in the summer.

The programs and technology is there. The outlines of some basic system should have been in place years ago.

 

[buzznina]

My point is our school had nothing in place. Nothing. They had to bulk it all from scratch. And we have so many snow days each year more often than not there is discussion about whether or not kids will have to make up the days in the summer.

The programs and technology is there. The outlines of some basic system should have been in place years ago.

Yeah that is bad. Heck, they do not even have to re-invent the wheel, I'm sure they could have got basic guidelines from any number of other school boards to start with.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Write letters to the superintendent. And if the superintendent won’t react, then write to the school board. If they won’t react, then vote the school board members out in your next local election (at least where I am in CA, they are voted in).

The process is much easier and quicker with private schools since everyone is being paid by the parents. We had to go up the tree and do some back and forth, but every request by the parents for our kids’ current distance learning plan was listened to and quickly.

It’s amazing how almost all private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers, yet private school teachers are held to a higher standard of education than public teachers. And I live in an area where we have public elementary to high schools that are ranked at the tops in the state (CA). And many of the private school teachers do not even have teaching degrees.
I won’t provide opinion or get into a debate as to why since I have no evidence to confidently say one way or other.

**Disclaimer: I do not know whether this is the case across the nation, but it is true of schools in my greater area. And I am talking just about private vs public. From what I hear, all charter schools around here are about equal to public schools. Don’t have any experience with charters personally, though.

Wasn't going to say it, but yes. My Kindergartner goes to Private school, High school kids are at public school. I will say though, my JR went to private school Freshman year but was bored and wasn't getting as good of an education. We moved him to Public school because it was better...until now. I understand they were tossed in the deep end but Private school didn't miss a beat. Like you said though, YMMV...

 

[HannaBelle]

The worst I’ve seen are on college parent Facebook pages, endless, wanting tuition reduce to in state tuition for out if state students, live classes at the same time they used to be... My college students are fine with it all, albeit disappointed. One mom just posted all of these expensive professors should be fired and replaced with cheaper ones.

How is replacing professors at this point going to help? That is absurd! LOL

My daughter did get a housing and meal plan refund. I was pleasantly surprised. She is hating working from home, but she is pushing through. They have no choice.

 

[tvguy]

To be brutally honest, not really any different that posts by some parents with strong opinions regarding their children here on the DIS. That did shock me a bit 17+ years ago when I first got on these boards. Not anymore. Anything to do with "structure" of things their children are involved in seems to be a hot button topic. Okay, maybe structure isn't the best word, "rules" maybe a better word.

 

[Colleen27]

I've seen a fair bit, but not with that level of detail. The big frustration around me is that the district is doing almost nothing for these months that are being missed, and with conversations already starting about next year being more of the same, there's a feeling that the kids are never going to catch up. But we're a rural district where some homes cannot get broadband at any price (except satellite which is expensive, data-capped and unreliable), so there's little the district can really do about that. Most of the complaints come from parents who have the attitude that the district should be doing more for the kids who do have internet and the parents of those who don't can figure out how to get their kids caught up... which isn't how public schooling works, of course.

It’s amazing how almost all private school teachers are paid less than public school teachers, yet private school teachers are held to a higher standard of education than public teachers. And I live in an area where we have public elementary to high schools that are ranked at the tops in the state (CA). And many of the private school teachers do not even have teaching degrees.
I won’t provide opinion or get into a debate as to why since I have no evidence to confidently say one way or other.

It is easier to hold to that higher standard when you have more resources, though. Our private school doesn't have to worry about limiting our online education to the access of the least-connected child (and we don't have any families that can't work out an internet connection anyway). Our kids already had Chromebooks, nothing fancy but enough to connect for Zoom classes and daily assignments. And our class sizes are so much smaller that meeting this way actually works okay. Public schools that have to worry about everyone's access, IEPs, device availability, etc. don't have the same degree of flexibility.

And in a broader sense, not having to accept and retain all students is a huge advantage too. Our private school teachers are highly qualified and could make significantly more in public schools, but we have little turnover because the working conditions are so much better in our school - small classes, with the largest in the mid-teens, strict and consistent discipline, supportive parents, and no students with more than mild special needs (because we're not equipped to handle them and don't have to be).

 

[DisneyOma]

Our kids aren't getting grades. I don't even think participation is required, just strongly encouraged. But again, friends in 4 different states have had online programs in place for years. One of those is in the metro Atlanta area. One of the largest school districts in the country and they have had online stuff for school closures for years without the school issuing devices for every student. It can be done.

How do they give the poorer kids (Atlanta has a 24% poverty rate from what I've seen online) who don't have internet or computers at home the same access? Do they even do that?

Agree with some of the PPs- so many ppl are starting to go berserk ! Not to threadjack, but I have a question that maybe a teacher can answer -

Since homeschooling/remote learning started - have you come across a situation where your students had to take a test, and one of your students had to retake it (or perhaps a similar test) because they did too well ? In other words, the sentiment was that someone took the test for them ?

If so, how did you handle it? Or , maybe as a parent, how do you think it should be handled ?

I had to do a survey for both my kids the other day- from the DOE
The subject of tests during this time of remote school was mentioned a number of times -
There was a study done last month that showed that the majority of the students were actually doing better at home ( academically, of course - socially, not so much )

Our students are not being given tests - we have online Google Meets that follow a modified school day, assignments to complete on Google Classroom, etc. But no grades, no tests. Our goal is to give kids as much access to curriculum as possible so that when (if?) we go back to school in the fall they will have been exposed to most of this year's curriculum, we review, and move forward.

Our schools adopted grading policy for the closure included a part about no grading penalties. One of them being if a kid is caught cheating, oh well, grade it and go on. I had a student turn in an identical assignment to another student, but no grading penalty so just pretended it was the first time I was seeing that info/layout/sentence structure/misspelling.

We aren't allowed to grade - that's how our superintendent interpreted the info from the state DOE. We want contact, access, participation.

My point is our school had nothing in place. Nothing. They had to bulk it all from scratch. And we have so many snow days each year more often than not there is discussion about whether or not kids will have to make up the days in the summer.

The programs and technology is there. The outlines of some basic system should have been in place years ago.

What does your state mandate for snow days?

And in a broader sense, not having to accept and retain all students is a huge advantage too. Our private school teachers are highly qualified and could make significantly more in public schools, but we have little turnover because the working conditions are so much better in our school - small classes, with the largest in the mid-teens, strict and consistent discipline, supportive parents, and no students with more than mild special needs (because we're not equipped to handle them and don't have to be).

So, this private school accepts no money from the government, of any kind?

 

[HeatherC]

My point is our school had nothing in place. Nothing. They had to bulk it all from scratch. And we have so many snow days each year more often than not there is discussion about whether or not kids will have to make up the days in the summer.

The programs and technology is there. The outlines of some basic system should have been in place years ago.

I think a lot of districts had nothing in place because there was simply not enough money for it. Everyone wants their schools to meet every possible need, but no one wants their property taxes to go up to cover any shortfalls the districts are constantly facing.

With the economy such a disaster, next year could be even worse for funding since we will most likely be seeing cuts everywhere. I don’t see things getting much better at this point. I do, however, believe teachers are doing the best with what they have had thrown at them with very little help or resources.

 

[Colleen27]

And in a broader sense, not having to accept and retain all students is a huge advantage too. Our private school teachers are highly qualified and could make significantly more in public schools, but we have little turnover because the working conditions are so much better in our school - small classes, with the largest in the mid-teens, strict and consistent discipline, supportive parents, and no students with more than mild special needs (because we're not equipped to handle them and don't have to be).

So, this private school accepts no money from the government, of any kind?

Operationally, no. We have gotten some purpose-specific grants for security and we contract our food service with the local public district so eligible students can get free/reduced lunch, but our state constitution strictly limits public funding for private education. We are also exempt from many of the requirements that bind public schools. We don't offer a full special education program, we don't offer transportation, we don't do the annual standardized tests, etc. We have parental participation requirements that a public school couldn't impose. And although we obviously hate to do it - we're a very small school, so losing any student hurts both because of the close relationships and because of the economics of it - we're freer to suspend or expel disruptive students than public schools are. I'm friends with several of our teachers and they talk about those things, even more than the religious element, as reasons why they stay. Most have taught in public school in the past and feel like the better working environment is worth the lower pay.