Education talk

[DigitalGypsy66]

I don't remember her getting this amount of stuff back 12+ years ago when she last was in the classroom, but it was a different district and a different time lol

[MWB]

In my 2 years teaching, I received one gift. One of my students was in a second hand shop, she saw a teddy bear with a penguins uniform, skates, and a hockey stick. She thought of me, bought it and gave it to me for Christmas. I still have it.

Beyond that, not a damn thing. I must have been a bad teacher.

You were high school right? Higher the grades, lower the gift count.

[count2infinity]

Yup. Mostly 11th graders.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Oh yeah, middle and high school teachers don't get much - mostly because kids change classes. High school classes here are in blocks, like semesters for college students.

[count2infinity]

I saw a rando video on Reddit from a school board meeting from Glendale Unified School District (just north of Los Angeles), which lead me to look at others. My gawd.





Video I saw on Reddit:

Wait... last one is Parks and Rec. My bad.

[DigitalGypsy66]

...and that's happening in librul, fascist California.

[dodint]

"Protect Family Rights"

I honestly don't know which side they're on.

[count2infinity]

https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-sch ... ddf06dcac9

Kentucky’s largest school system cancelled the second and third day of classes after a disastrous overhaul of the transportation system that left some children on buses until just before 10 p.m. on opening day.

Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio called it a “transportation disaster” in a video posted on social media Thursday morning. Pollio apologized to the district’s 96,000 students along with their families, the bus drivers, and the school officials who had to stay with students for hours as they waited on buses to arrive Wednesday.

The disaster came after major changes to school bus routes and school start times this year meant to alleviate a bus driver shortage, the Courier Journal reported. The district spent $199,000 to hire the AlphaRoute engineering firm to create a plan that would cut the number of bus routes and stops.

200K to completely blow up the school's bus routes. Yikes.

[MWB]

How does a company get it so wrong? You’d think they’d have tested the routes before day 1. That said, the first day is always the worst, but usually ends up in kids getting home at 6 or 7, not 10.

[Dickie Dunn]

$200k to a company to engineering cutting bus routes and stops instead of using that $200k to just pay drivers more and attract more of them.

[MR25]

I'll admit I only know what's been posted here and don't know the make up of the board (though given the state, I can make a pretty educated guess), but this seems very much a "we're going to **** this up to drive people toward non-public schools/show everyone that public education doesn't work" type of move.

[MWB]

$200k to a company to engineering cutting bus routes and stops instead of using that $200k to just pay drivers more and attract more of them.

I would guess they've tried those things and this was a reaction to that not working. They've increased pay here and advertise all over the place, but a lot of drivers still have to do double routes to get kids home. It's a **** job, even in good districts.

[RonnieFranchise]

In theory it makes sense. My oldest started Kindergarten 18 years ago and the bus routes here haven't changed since, other than new subdivisions, etc. Whether $200k is reasonable, depends on the size of the district I guess but I can see where a study of routes could make sense and you'd require fewer drivers you can't get anyway.

That said clearly they effed it up.

[DigitalGypsy66]

There has been a bus driver shortage down here for a long time, even prior to COVID. The elementary school kids start earlier, so they get picked up first, then the drivers run middle and high school runs. The K-5 pickup runs in our neighborhood at 6 am, sometimes even earlier than that. School doesn't start until 7:30 or something.

So most parents - or grandparents - drop and pick kids up, which causes traffic to be horrendous from 7-7:45 around the schools. More cars on overloaded roads makes my BP rise.

On a related note, it was nice sleeping in until 6:45 all summer. Now, we'll be getting up at 5 so my wife can get out of the house by 6. It's depressing.

[dodint]

Maybe if the bus didn't stop at every single house the routes would run a little quicker.

[MWB]

They’ve definitely consolidated stops down here, but I’m sure that’s not true everywhere.

[NTP66]

My daughter's bus is mainly consolidated stops with a few random houses that make sense given their location (no sidewalk in front of them). However, the last stop is around the corner of the school. No sidewalk, so I get it, but the person can literally walk through their yard to the school that is 100 yards away.

[count2infinity]

The article I linked said that the bus stop was a half mile walk for the one family with no sidewalks to get there.

[CBear3]

$200k to a company to engineering cutting bus routes and stops instead of using that $200k to just pay drivers more and attract more of them.

We pay $20k, full time, 6 hrs a day for 179 days with benefits. So it's probably 30k actual cost. So maybe 6 bus drivers for 200K?

[MWB]

The school I used to work at had a neighborhood with 150 houses across the street and another a tenth of a mile away with at least 500 homes. There are no sidewalks or crosswalks to either because the district and the county could never come to an agreement on who would pay for it. So instead four buses (three with double runs) have to be used. I don’t really blame parents for having kids take the bus because the street is not good to cross and also has high school kids leaving, making it less safe.

[MWB]

$200k to a company to engineering cutting bus routes and stops instead of using that $200k to just pay drivers more and attract more of them.

We pay $20k, full time, 6 hrs a day for 179 days with benefits. So it's probably 30k actual cost. So maybe 6 bus drivers for 200K?

For one year. The company is presumably not a yearly cost. That’s much better than our bus drivers get down here though.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I'm not sure if it was a problem in NC, but for years the SC department of education wouldn't buy new buses. They had 30+ year old buses in some districts, and either Mark Sanford or Nikki Haley (so not that long ago) made a big deal about finally getting rid of the old buses and mandating funding to replace and keep the fleet a certain age. They admonished the state legislature - majority one party in both houses, and you know which party - about doing nothing. It's all performative theater.

[MWB]

Moving this Parents Bill of Rights stuff to this thread instead.

There are many parts of this bill that also just take the job of communicating with your kid to communicating with the school instead. And also to put the burden on the school for making parents actually parent. Including:
"Governing bodies of public school units shall, in consultation with parents, teachers, administrators, and community partners, develop and adopt policies to promote parental involvement and empowerment of the school unit... Policies that provide for parental involvement shall include the following: (1) Providing links to parents for community service." Along with "Provide for parental participation in their child's education to improve parent and teacher cooperation in areas such as homework, school attendance, and discipline that aligns with the parent guide for student achievement..."
Why is this the schools job? Parents should be talking to their kids and parenting. They don't trust schools to teach correctly, but they also want schools to help parents parent.

Also, for the last five years at least, our district has made a huge deal about making sure kids have someone to talk to. Teachers need to build connections and make sure that every kid has someone to talk to and trust, even if that person isn't someone at home. So now we're being told, "Actually, that person might be you, but you also have to make sure to tell the person they don't trust."

[count2infinity]

https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/08/24/he ... e-students


Good start...

[meow]

Not very capitalism of them