Can somebody please tell Superintendent Greene there is a pandemic?

I mean, really, she is acting like there isn’t one.

Having kids come back to the school for district testing. This is just another example of the district not being able to read the room. The federal government will give a waiver for high stakes testing this year sooner or later. Now it is true Florida may pass on it, but who cares? We all know Florida is terrible, and nobody should take any results seriously.

Cajoling some and encouraging families to return like nothing is going on and our schools are safe. The dashboard, which is more honest than it was the first few months of the year, shows fifty cases a day. Principals telling families if they don’t take the district r state test, their children won’t graduate or miss out on choice assignments is really low, but it's happening.  

Forcing teachers into small groups under penalty of lowered evaluations, willfully telling them to ignore CDC guidelines is beyond the pale. I am not a big fan of small group instruction, it wasn’t that long ago that it was out and whole group was in, but that’s education. Some big wig reads an article while waiting for the bus, and everything changes. The thing is, it doesn’t matter if you like it or hate it; maybe when social distancing can be the determining factor of being healthy or sick, we take a break.

More common planning with less substance, this may be the wrong year to introduce something like learning arcs, and with the district, up in their principals @#$#@ they, in turn, are up teachers. All during a pandemic when surviving and helping each other survive should be our main goal. Teaching yes, but with a dash of realism, a pandemic is raging out of control in our nation.

Has Greene noticed any of this? Can somebody check because the district is acting like she doesn’t?  

Two years ago, DCPS was a point away from an A, and for a brief moment, nobody cared that high-stakes testing is terrible, that it is bad for education; instead, they saw the A and said, man, are we close. I think Greene wants that A so bad she is willing to step over the bodies of sick and worse students and staff to get it. Pandemic be damned. 

I am hopeful that after a few years of no standardized tests, maybe something good will come out of this, and they will mercifully come to an end. This is the thing too, Greene has to know that overall they are ineffective and damaging, but she wants that A on her resume, and if you or I have to get sick, if little Suzy or Johnny has to get sick, then so be it.