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Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 16 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,078,565 times
Reputation: 15537
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twingles
This is where private schools are blowing it out of the water, my son's alma mater missed two days of school and then right back to it. Kids all have school issued laptops from the jump and the teachers are passionate about what they do, not just whiling away the hours till they can retire to FL and STILL find it in their hearts to be bitter. Of course you pay for the privilege, but my school taxes on LI are more than his tuition was.
Public schools should be prepared for long term closures but it's easier to bury your head in the sand. Oh, wait they are run by the government.
My district provides a laptop at the secondary level but the one I work in does not. I think the larger issue was how much curriculum was not online yet and the elementary level had almost none. We have been providing paper work packages for those with no device or internet available (ah life in the country) but overall the kids have stuff to work on by one method or the other and our teachers are not complaining. We always say 15 minutes after the teaches leave for the year we start the countdown to get ready for the fall opening, this year we'll just start earlier once they allow us back in the buildings. At least I don't have to deal with the big problems like blower noise from the landscaping services, now that's a major problem.
This is where private schools are blowing it out of the water, my son's alma mater missed two days of school and then right back to it. Kids all have school issued laptops from the jump and the teachers are passionate about what they do, not just whiling away the hours till they can retire to FL and STILL find it in their hearts to be bitter. Of course you pay for the privilege, but my school taxes on LI are more than his tuition was.
Public schools should be prepared for long term closures but it's easier to bury your head in the sand. Oh, wait they are run by the government.
Well, if you’re paying $20K+ a year in addition to over half of your property tax bill, you should be getting concierge level service.
This isn’t a LI story but imagine how this would play out. There will be a massive revolt if parents are having to be homeschool teachers/assistants AND still pay outrageous taxes so that the old and obese teachers don’t have to face a classroom. Really?
Just keep telling yourself that. I’m just jealous because we don’t qualify for any stimulus check. Not fair. Maybe I’ll start another boohoo post on here.
Telling myself what exactly? All 3 lines were sarcasm and I threw in some DJT in there for you. How could someone like you not tell?
Then why are they complaining about the teachers? Is their QOL dependent on teacher contracts? LIers can't accept they vote for the same idiots who ratified those "horrible" contracts over and over again. Teachers don't negotiate, unions do. They bring pro labor lawyers and a powerful voting block to the table. What does your district bring? A lawyer that reps 100+ other schools, a board with zero experience and a superintendent pressured by the local unions and parents to get a deal done. You lose. Stop voting against our own interests would be a good start. Same way we lost the SALT deductions. But nah......not gonna happen. Let's all just vent on here and re-elect Murray and Clavin out there. That should do it.
You miss the real fundamental problem. We have the liberty to elect people and with that, we believe that they will do the job the way it was intended. After all, we put in the time/effort to entrust them with the power the position provides. Instead, you still have underhanded dealings and whatever else driven by power, greed, or benefits from the same elected officials.
And this is still coming back to us the voters as the culprits...? What guarantee do we have the next one we put in power will be any different? Why would it be? The system is the same. The whole system is the problem. The ones given all the power _and cannot help themselves_ are the problem.
I started out as a teacher ions ago and married and moved with the military hubby. We split and I came back to LI and a teaching job was impossible to get even as a former teacher. So, I will say that regardless of what anyone thinks, teaching is not a piece of cake for many caring teachers that I know. I will agree that every job has their own negatives and no job is perfect. In teaching you have many individual "bosses" to answer to. Parents are more interested today than even years ago, because the teacher is now doing it all, in many cases and in many instances both parents are working and they have little time to review anything with their kids when they get home from work. So, there is more expected all around and I won't even touch on supplies that back in the day were provided. Parents are asked to provide more and so are the teachers.
If what you are reporting here is true, (I am not suggesting it is not, rather I don't have any knowledge of the teachers there), then all the taxpayers should bombard the superintendent with emails left, right and center and complain about the remote learning and how unsatisfactory it is. Express your displeasure. I will agree that remote learning is far from ideal as the excellent students are bored, the average ones are doing ok and the below average are having trouble. Yes, this is a generalization for sure.
That said, teacher contracts have been off the rails for a long time. When I retuned, I tried subbing to get a foot in the door. Before I left, I used to meet students after school in the class room for extra help in bio or science. When I came back, they had negotiated a phenomena called "lunch lab", which was a teacher per discipline set up at a table during the lunch hours and students could stop by for help. I didn't find that to be a great tutoring opportunity, so I arranged for my students to come to my classroom as I had before. It didn't take long before the union rep visited me and told me that was not permitted and if the parents wanted tutoring they could make arrangements by leaving their names with the office and a teacher would contact them.
The contracts are out of control, JMO, I am ok with the salary portion but that is only part of the story, there're a ton of negotiated perks that are opportunistic and blatant and this should be eliminated.
This is great feedback from someone who has experienced both sides. I completely agree as to that the union protects a lot of perks and benefits of the members at the expense of kids education. For example, I’ve emailed teacher as well as the school principal with regard to what can be helpful because we found it helpful from other activities. Examples including teaching videos made by teachers especially certain lessons that need more explanation. The reason (or excuse) they don’t do such is that teachers videos have been compromised before. Therefore in order to “protect” teachers they don’t do any virtual classroom or pre recorded videos from teachers. It’s a total BS because everything is online these days. So we are sent links of some boring YouTube videos that my kids are refusing to watch because it’s too boring. This is all fine and dandy as long as I’m not paying the full expense still. Our dance and soccer classes have provided videos but refunded us the tuition for the month. Our music lessons are via zoom which have been working out great. The public school remote learning is the biggest joke, period. Little effort and little concern. I would love to move out of this archaic educational system. I’m already looking at other school districts because if I were to stay I might as well pick one that’s a bit more responsive to our needs.
My daughter is in 8th grade and her school is doing a great job. All students are given an Ipad right before school starts. This made remote learning an easy transition. 3 out of her 4 core classes are taught live each day.
It's really amazing, the teacher sees the kids and the kids see the teacher and all the kids can interact with each other. Her math teacher doesn't teach live, but make a video of each lesson and is available to answer any questions as the class progresses. As my daughter does the math lesson on the Ipad, the teacher is writing notes and showing her how to correct anything she is not understanding just like she would in class.
The PE log is a bit of a joke, but I guess that's about what they can do. Technology consists of reading and videos with questions that follow. Music is mostly definitions and listening to pieces played on you tube and responding to questions and thoughts.
Her school really didn't miss more than a few days which are being made up unused snow days and some spring break days. Overall they are doing a fantastic job and it's a public school.
You miss the real fundamental problem. We have the liberty to elect people and with that, we believe that they will do the job the way it was intended. After all, we put in the time/effort to entrust them with the power the position provides. Instead, you still have underhanded dealings and whatever else driven by power, greed, or benefits from the same elected officials.
And this is still coming back to us the voters as the culprits...? What guarantee do we have the next one we put in power will be any different? Why would it be? The system is the same. The whole system is the problem. The ones given all the power _and cannot help themselves_ are the problem.
Actually we're lucky if 30-40% vote in any election. Those are the ones who get what they want. They've created voting blocks. The go in with the votes in their pockets. The only way to beat them is if the other 60-70% get off their asses and decide to care. Then we might stop electing billionaires or criminals or criminal billionaires.
My daughter is in 8th grade and her school is doing a great job. All students are given an Ipad right before school starts. This made remote learning an easy transition. 3 out of her 4 core classes are taught live each day.
It's really amazing, the teacher sees the kids and the kids see the teacher and all the kids can interact with each other. Her math teacher doesn't teach live, but make a video of each lesson and is available to answer any questions as the class progresses. As my daughter does the math lesson on the Ipad, the teacher is writing notes and showing her how to correct anything she is not understanding just like she would in class.
The PE log is a bit of a joke, but I guess that's about what they can do. Technology consists of reading and videos with questions that follow. Music is mostly definitions and listening to pieces played on you tube and responding to questions and thoughts.
Her school really didn't miss more than a few days which are being made up unused snow days and some spring break days. Overall they are doing a fantastic job and it's a public school.
Which school district is this? Sounds so much better than mine!
Actually we're lucky if 30-40% vote in any election. Those are the ones who get what they want. They've created voting blocks. The go in with the votes in their pockets. The only way to beat them is if the other 60-70% get off their asses and decide to care. Then we might stop electing billionaires or criminals or criminal billionaires.
You are right about voter turnout. I'd have to strongly disagree with the rest.
The "voter blocks" are created by the available choices. We get to choose between the corrupt blue machine or the corrupt red machine. To use your words, we get to choose between a criminal, a criminal billionaire, or someone on their way to be one or the other.
In some places on LI, we don't even have that choice. In my district, there is usually one choice. All the local ballot positions have the same person. You can vote, but there's only one person to vote for. This is because of a "cross-endorsement" policy the parties have created. They hand-pick one candidate and then all the parties - Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Green, Working Families, Independence, Socialist, Communist, etc. - agree to endorse and put that person on their ticket. This is done in return for favors. In effect, many town and county positions are "appointed" by a handful of people.
It's not much better at the state level. New York City's population is large enough to keep one party running the legislature and governor's office. While I always vote, I still see the pointlessness of, for example, voting against Cuomo.
What about the national level? There's a reason Schumer is a senator for life, just as D'Amato was before him. Even the useless puppet Gillibrand would be virtually impossible to unseat. Sadly, it takes more than a few more people voting to get these crooks out of office.
In the rare case some outsider gets elected and attempts to change the system, they are run out of town on a rail. Their own party will cut off support and money. The opposing party will demonize them. The entire system will do everything it can to crush the agent of change. Politics is big business. There is too much money at stake.
Obama came into the Presidency with supposedly modest means. I read something this week that he is now the 17th richest man in the US (I doubt that claim, but the fact is he's worth at least tens of millions). The Clintons claimed to be "broke" when they left the White House... they are now worth more than $100 million. Don't get bogged down in the numbers or political parties. The point is that there is some very serious money to be made in politics from jobs that don't pay anywhere near enough to justify the outcome.
Voter turnout can be part of the solution but is nowhere near enough to fix the problem. Term limits and effective ways to take the money out of politics are other pieces to consider. An educated and involved public is also important - we need to stop arguing and believing what out halfwit neighbor posts on Facebook, just as we need to demand that the "news" starts reporting the facts without bias and agenda.
In a perfect world, there would also be an effective system of laws, penalties, and enforcement that apply to politicians. Far too often they live above the law and never face the consequences of their actions.
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