It was unbelievable to me and many others that the district spent the latter part of the winter and early spring cajoling families who had decided virtual school was the safer and better option to come in to take at first practice test and then the FSA. Anyone with a pulse could tell that scores were going to drop, well anyone but Greene and the school board, that is.
It's my thought that Greene could taste that barely missed A district grade from two years prior that she was willing to step over the bodies of staff and students to get it. If not, why risk their health for what was most likely going to be meaningless grades?
So as the except from the article will show, scores dropped. That's okay, it didn't mean people didn't work hard, and kids didn't learn. I know I worked harder than I ever had last year, and I know the lion's share of my colleagues did as well.
From the Times Union,
Overall, the test scores show achievement dips statewide, and Duval County is no exception...
...From the start, school officials say they expected some achievement gaps compared to a pre-pandemic school year.
Last month when third-grade reading scores were released, Superintendent Diana Greene said learning loss was expected due to the pandemic.
"COVID-19 was disruptive," Greene said at the time. "What matters now is how we respond."
Greene certainly did respond, and she did so by making the staff miserable and ratcheting up the pressure on staff and students alike. The district's actions were so inexplicable I often wondered if they knew a pandemic was happening or not.
It's a pandemic and one that, because of the actions of the willfully ignorant who have refused to get vaccinated, we are in for the foreseeable future. Instead of worrying about test scores, the district should worry about the health and well-being of its staff and students, you know, do the human thing.
One, two, three however many years from now, nobody is going to remember how they did on this test or that or how their students did either, they are going to remember if the district took their security and safety in mind, they are going to remember if the district was decent or not. They were not last year, but sadly because of the unvaccinated, they have another chance to get it right.
Right now Greene is more concerned about lawsuits and injunctions from Tallahassee than she is about the welfare of our kids. Other school districts in Florida have already taken the leap to make masks mandatory starting in a few weeks. What is she waiting for? A special legislative session in Tally would be my guess. That way she has her excuse for inaction ready. We thought we were getting a leader, a maverick, a change agent. Instead we got more of the same...just another empty suit.
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