DCPS does nothing to mitigate the Omicron surge, sorry, make that next to nothing

Greene has shown over and over she isn't a fan of masks, spoiler, neither am I. I guess the difference is, I think we should wear them even I don't like them because they help save lives and stop the spread. Greene over and over again through her actions has said she disagrees.

Now you might be asking, what could she do, the state has passed laws and made threats, well she could fight and the truth is if she fights she might lose, and there might be consequences, the thing is, it might save lives too. This surge will not last forever, a few weeks may be all we need.

Okay, let's look at what they have proposed, and then I will throw in a few suggestions too. I think it's all right to criticize if you are trying to make things better (and safer as well).  

Below is what they proposed, my thoughts in bold. 

To assist with slowing the spread in our schools, the following strategies will be implemented during January.  These strategies will be re-evaluated after 30 days to determine if they will be extended.  

 

• Employees and students should stay home from work/school if sick. Great, but can we add children will be sent home if they show up sick, or be isolated if they get sick?
• COVID-19 testing is offered to symptomatic employees. Please contact your administrator to be referred for testing through the school health services office if you are experiencing symptoms. Results are normally provided the same day. Employees may return to work the next day if symptoms have improved, and their results are negative. Nothing new but shouldn't we be testing asymptomatic people if they have had close contact with an infected person. A staff member could go after school or better given time to go during it.
• Employees are required to wear a facial covering when working directly with students, or when unable to social distance. Just employees? I am over masks I really am, but what's the point if kids don't wear them as well?
• Students are strongly encouraged, but not required, to wear a facial covering. Strongly encouraged? Let's strongly encourage them to eat their vegetables while we are at it. The district might as well say it does not have a mask policy for students, zilch, nadda nothing.
• Visitors are required to wear masks at schools. See above
• All individuals should practice social distancing when possible. 98 percent of the other time, they should cross their fingers and hope for the best
• Meetings should be conducted via virtual platforms when possible. Or maybe cancer all meetings unless they are manifestly important. Maybe we need to have a meeting about meetings to plan this.
• Common gathering areas should be closed, or capacity reduced. Some elementary school staff is being compensated for covering lunch, this sounds like a lot of middle and high school staff will now be doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. 
• Field trips are temporarily postponed.  Instructional personnel should work directly with principals regarding trips that are pre-paid. Sad but fair enough though if kids don't have to wear masks at school then why? Why take away one of the few fun things they might have going on?
• Out of district travel is temporarily suspended.  Emergency requests should be submitted to leadership staff for review/approval. Um, why do I feel like the only people traveling out of district were leadership staff? That being said, if kids don't have to wear masks, then what are we protecting them from?
• Capacity at athletic and performing arts events is reduced to 75%. Well, I guess its good football season is over, but how are we going to gauge this and who is going to make sure it happens? This sounds like one of those things people brainstorm after a five-minute pause in no brainstorming. It's a list extender with zero practical effect, as is most of the above.   
• District office hours are limited for visitors.  Visitors should be encouraged to call offices in advance and report to designated areas only. It sounds like district leadership, who works in a building where everyone is required to mask, will be even safer. 

Well, there you go, pretty much as close to nothing as you can get. 

Sigh.

Education Corruption scandal should be rocking Floirda

 Republicans are corrupt and that's the bottom line. Whether it be Florida Power and Light backing shadow candidates to get sympathetic legislators elected, the attempt of selling JEA in Jacksonville or this latest education scandal, they are corrupt, corrupt, corrupt and I can't believe this is what my republican friends want, even if they love guns, hate abortions and look under their beds every night for the socialism boogeyman. Now I will get off my soapbox. 

So this is what happened. 

State board of education member Andy Tuck created what was basically a fake company in order to get state contracts with the help of a high-ranking FLDOE member, and when some I am sure career bureaucrat, one of those people the right always rails against brought it up and dominoes began to fall. Tuck rather than be questioned in the investigation resigned as did the high-ranking FLDOE official after they were caught lying. Then in an effort to sweep it all under the rug, Richard Corcoran, the czar of Florida education declared everything over. You know, because what's a little corruption between friends. Only in Florida 

...and getting back on my soapbox only by republicans. 

Just a note, Corcoran's wife is also living off the state education dole. 

https://floridaphoenix.com/2019/08/23/fl-education-commissioners-wife-connected-to-private-christian-college-chosen-for-state-civics-education-review/

From Florida Politics, 

Two Florida Department of Education leaders resigned in November after an investigation unearthed a plan to pursue a state contract for a company they managed.

According to an Inspector General report, the two leaders — Vice Chancellor of Strategic Improvement Melissa Ramsey and State Board Member Richard “Andy” Tuck — sent a proposal to the Education Department in November after it asked 25 vendors for quotes on a bid to take over operations at Jefferson County Schools.

The bid, among other pursuits, solicited vendors who have a “demonstrated experience with successfully operating schools of similar status.”

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/481883-two-doe-employees-resign-after-investigation-conflict-of-interest/?fbclid=IwAR3Bvo14xLzz_dL1BQluxZpogz1c9qDwYoEvfGJ8np_iGoIgw8PmnuUGZRQ

Um, they created the company in August.

Here is more from Billy Towsend.

Florida Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran and Senior Chancellor for K-12 Jacob Oliva should both immediately resign over the state Department of Education’s Jefferson County state bid corruption scandal. If they don’t, Gov. DeSantis should fire them.

That’s how bad it is. The scandal already quietly took down Melissa Ramsey, former DoE Executive Vice Chancellor for the Division of Public Schools, and former state Board of Education Member and Chairman Andy Tuck. Their resignations were first reported — a month after they happened — by Jason Delgado of the “Florida Politics” website. But Delgado’s story did not detail the most overtly corrupt act.

In sum: Melissa Ramsey directed her immediate DoE subordinate to draft a proposal response for Ramsey and Tuck’s personal company to a DoE Request for Quote (RFQ) to support Jefferson County schools as they transition away from charter school control back to district control...

...Executive Vice Chancellor Melissa Ramsey resigned the same day she was interviewed by OIG investigators (Nov. 22) after they twice caught her lying in her testimony. BoE member Tuck first agreed to meet with OIG investigators on Nov. 17, then backed out after talking to a lawyer. Instead of submitting to an interview on Nov. 17, Tuck abruptly resigned from the BoE, retroactive to the previous day (Nov. 16) for some reason. OIG has still not interviewed Tuck — and does not plan to. It considers the investigation closed.

Really. That all happened. It’s clearly, unequivocally documented in the DoE’s Inspector General report.

https://billytownsend.substack.com/p/re-open-the-florida-doejefferson?r=56jld&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Once again the company was founded in August.

Quite often stuff like this gets a shrug and that's because those in charge don't want their own malfeasance brought to light. Corcoran should also go.

While the governor was complaining about saving children from nonexistent CRT a corruption scandal all the way to the top of the FLDOE was going on. Who wants to bet it wasn't the only one. 

Omicron is here, where is Greene and the school board?

 I had hoped that light at the end of the tunnel after the summer's delta surge was the end of the pandemic, sadly it turns out it was an Omicron train racing at us. Last summer after community demand that the district do something, the board went around the superintendent and initiated a mask mandate, well with things looking just as bad or worse, suddenly everyone is silent.

The last thing the district said about the pandemic came on 12/16 a little over two weeks ago and like usual the super put an everything is a hunky-dory spin on things.  

When we return from Winter Break you will notice a few changes regarding the intake of students and access to our campuses by volunteers and visitors.  At the elementary level, schools will no longer be required to conduct temperature checks for students or guests on campus.  Facial coverings for visitors and volunteers will be optional.  This means that requirements for all stakeholder groups-including employees, students and guests,-are the same. 

Looking back we probably could have used a depending on where things are or some other caveat but then again that wouldn't be Greene who has been anti-mask since last summer. 

To be completely honest I am over wearing masks, and back on the sixteenth, I was probably like okay sounds great but that being said, my plan has always been to follow the science and what is happening, and sadly right now the entire country is in an Omicron firestorm.   

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_state=all_states&list_select_county=all_counties&data-type=Risk

That's a lot of red and Jacksonville is as red as anywhere and yet DCPS, the super, and board remain silent.

I completely understand closing schools and going remote is a non-starter but we better come up with a plan and quick. The district should not mimic Florida's, ostrich meet hole, strategy.

JPEF's ageism problem

 You know I expect the state to disregard veteran teachers; I really do. We should add the Jacksonville Public Education Fund to the list as well, though since they were founded and run by Teach for America, young masters of the universe types, it really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Two things.

First, JPEF wants a thousand teachers of color to join the district. That's awesome, and I would love to see it too. Though I think the fact we already have hundreds of openings, fewer people are entering the profession, and those that do, don't stay long, and veterans are taking every opportunity they can to retire, I think we should start with different priorities. 

Yes, we want to recruit minority teachers, but if we keep ignoring veterans, who will show them the ropes?

As I look at it, retaining veterans should be our priority. But JPEF going to do what JPEF going to do. 

https://www.jaxpef.org/news/new-research-sheds-light-on-inequities-in-teacher-retention-in-duval-county

Then there is ignite, and this is from their website.

Ignite is an affinity group for young professionals that focuses on igniting, YOU, the next generation of leaders and philanthropists in education!

Young professionals, hmm, don't even think about it if you are 41; this is also from their website.

• Applicants must be passionate about public education and eager to learn
• Applicants must be between 18 and 40 years old

https://www.jaxpef.org/get-involved/ignite-young-professionals-group

Hmm, be passionate but be young?

If you are passionate but under 40 here is their next event.

 Strangely this sounds like something they might want to ask veterans about, but what do they know.

 Let's put this on the heals of the state's scheme to greatly reward people new or who aren't even in the profession yet at the expense of our veterans. 

I have said it before, and I will repeat it, we are never going to be the district we can be, heck the school system we can be if we marginalize teachers, veteran teachers too.

JPEF should understand that, even if the state doesn't.

Why dos DeSantis keep going to the classical charter school?

 Governor DeSantis gave his education announcement at the Jax Classical Academy, far from the first time he has been there. There can be no doubt this is his favorite Northeast Florida charter school (and the KIPP school is probably very jealous about that fact). It routinely gets luminaries on the right, Marco Rubio was also there a few months back 

I think its past time we ask why this school  which also did not have a mask mandate, and if the state would have done grades got an F receives so much attention from the republican establishment.

David Withum is the headmaster and his Twitter feed reads like a right-wing and curious tenth grader musing about education but a few stand out. 

Now I have issues with teacher certification too, but at the same time, having minimum standards for teachers is not one of them. He also had a tweet where he talks about getting rid of grades, as a c+ student maybe I can get behind that one, as long as we did it retroactively. 

Impressive right? But the thing is the TU reported the Classical Academy would have been an F school had the state done grades. Now. I guess technically you can have great improvement and still be an F but it is unlikely.

And we wouldn't be complete without an anti-teacher union tweet.

Finally, he doesn't have a very high opinion of education reporters either. Maybe you are slaves to teacher unions?

Now to be honest I get frustrated too. I think there are a lot of stories that go under the radar, but anyway. So that's the headmaster and admittedly nothing super crazy, but maybe they left that to the operator Erica Donalds and where they get their curriculum.

They get their curriculum from the Hillsdale Barney Charter school initiative. 

https://www.jaxclassical.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=424057&type=d 

Hillsdale is a small far-right liberal arts college out of Michigan, and recently they have sent out a series of mailers to locals.   

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Imprimis_Mar_3-21_6pgNM.pdf 

 

They espouse some pretty radical theories where they basically say racism is a made-up tool to divide society so the radical left can seize power. 

 

For as long as I can remember, the right has accused public schools of trying to indoctrinate kids; well, friends, this seems like some straight-up far-right indoctrination on their part. 

 

Furthermore, last year, Hillsdale sent out a Facebook poll asking how afraid of socialism people were; I kid a little, but the answers were basically really scared, and really #$@%ing scared, 

 

https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2020/02/troubling-details-about-jaxs-new.html 

 

Then, however, it gets worse. 

 

This is an Optima Foundation. 

https://optimaed.org/schools/

 

The Optima Foundation is led by Erika Donalds 

 

https://optimaed.org/leadership/  

 

Erika Donalds has rather interesting views on banning books and troubling views on LGBTQ individuals. 

 

Banning Books 

 

http://cbldf.org/2016/09/collier-county-school-board-voters-reject-censorship-agenda/ 

 

Removing LGBTQ protections 

 

https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/education/2018/01/01/mother-gay-teen-critiques-collier-school-boards-anti-lgbtq-decision/983839001/ 

 

Gay people are going to hell. 

 

 

 

Just some random troubling stuff, from the Tampa Times, 

 

 She led the conservative Florida Coalition of School Board Members, which split from the larger Florida School Boards Association over vouchers. She pressed for school board term limits and a statewide charter school authorizer in an amendment that famously failed Supreme Court muster amid heated statewide debate. 

 

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/2019/01/23/off-her-school-board-erika-donalds-focuses-on-florida-school-choice-expansio 

So that's a lot but that's who they are. That's where DeSantis and Rubio want to go.

I think there is a story here.

CG

Forgiving student loan debt is a moral imperative.

 Society made a promise to its children. They said if you get a college degree you will be provided with a job that will enable you to both pay back any money you borrowed and live well. Not extravagant but well. Society then reneged on that promise and instead gave many of us an unaffordable education and depressed wages, and millions of people have paid the price both literally and figuratively. It’s time society made good on its promise and step one is to forgive student loan debt. Listen to my story and tell me if you don’t agree.

I graduated from college in 2000 with 55 thousand in student loan debt. I became a public-school teacher and started my 22nd year a few months ago. I am scheduled to make about fifty thousand dollars where a teacher on the same step as I in 2005 could expect to make an inflation-adjusted 72 thousand dollars. In the last five years, I have missed out on approximately 60 thousand dollars that teachers on the same level of experience would have received when I started teaching. I can also expect to miss out on another 150k if things don’t change before I retire.

That would be more than enough to pay off my student loans. And about those student loans, I have paid back about 25 thousand dollars and still owe fifty. At this rate, when I retire, instead of living comfortably and student loan debt-free, which I was promised, I will still owe thousands of dollars.

I am not alone in this boat, there are millions of teachers, police officers, civil servants, and others, people who have spent decades in service to the country, with me.

We have collectively missed out on billions that could have gone to mortgage and car payments, investing in startups and paying back our loans. Billions that would have been spent in communities across the country that would have benefited them as well. Instead, we have been forced to struggle to make ends meet, we rent, our cars are five and ten years old and we have been saddled with a debt that many of us after a lifetime of service will never be able to pay back.   

For decades college has been unaffordable without debt and for decades, wages have been dropping as well, this is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, there is a solution and that is to forgive student loan debt.

If president Biden, Secretary of Education Cardona, and our other leaders in Washington D.C. are not going to do the right thing and forgive student loan debt, then they could make it easier to get student loan forgiveness. Right now you need 120 consecutive payments to even be considered, ten years’ worth. I submit more than a few people have had to make a choice of what bill to pay at least a few times in a decade.

Like many others, I was made a promise and I held up my side of it. It is past time society does so as well.  

$%#@ FAPE

 Or at least that is what the state and district did.

The state of Florida and Duval County Public schools have created a new precedent when they recently extended the age range of education for a student, extending FAPE. 

Where it would be inappropriate for me to talk about the particulars of one student, I think it is fair to say the reasons for this extension could apply to dozens, hundreds, or maybe thousands of students here in Duval and statewide.  

FAPE stands for the right of disabled students to receive a free and appropriate education, guaranteed by the Rehabilitation act of 1973 and then reaffirmed by the Persons with Disability Act. 

Where there are lots of different requirements, basically FAPE says a disabled student can stay in school until they are 22. Some school districts end a student's education the day they turn 22. DCPS however has allowed students to finish the school year in which they turn 22 and then they "age out." That was until this year when the state and the district allowed a student who should have aged out to return.

https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/b/300.101

Whether I think that is appropriate or not is moot. What I can't remain silent about is this exception was made for one student whose family had the means to force it to happen. When as I said, so many other students who also aged out under COVID have not been offered the same opportunity. 

During COVID, schools did their best to service special needs students, but it would be disingenuous to say it was the same as an average year. If one family can use this to extend their students' education for a year, then every family should be able to as well.  

If any family whose student aged out during COVID feels their student would benefit from another year of education, I would urge them to contact the state and the district and demand the same special treatment. 

The district's lack of paras is a crisis.

 There are seventeen vacancies for paras at my school alone. Now my school is a center school, so we tend to have more, but I was told there were double-digit vacancies at all the center schools. Then if you look at the vacancies district-wide, the problem gets more and more severe. 

Any vacancy is troubling, but the consequences can be even more extreme when they happen at center schools. Classes lose coverage, behaviors become unmanageable, opportunities for violence soar, and an already overworked staff becomes more fragile and willing to quit. Part of the massive number of vacancies at my school results from people looking for other jobs elsewhere, and why wouldn’t they.  

The district says, if you have 60 credit hours or have passed the paraprofessional certification, you to can join our team where you can make 11 dollars and eighteen cents an hour where you can expect to change diapers, the chance of being assaulted is real, and help teach watered-down academics to students who don’t know their numbers or colors.  

At a recent training for learning arcs, a whole other story, the high school standard we picked to decode was an algebra one that included graphing and slopes. Um, any student capable of learning even a watered-down version of algebra and slopes shouldn’t be at a center school in the first place, but rather than teaching, life, personal and coping skills the powers that be, and I a not looking at my school administration but the politicians in Tallahassee, think somehow that is appropriate. 

Now there was a time when we didn’t do nearly enough with our disabled students, but the pendulum has gone way too far the other way, and I digress, and I guess all of this is a whole different story too. 

We will not solve the mystery of the missing para, sorry hundreds of unfilled positions, by doing what we are doing. 

Why would anyone want to work for 11.18 and have to wipe butts and potentially get hit when Walmart, Amazon, and so many other places are paying a fair amount more, and those things and unrealistic expectations don’t come up.  

Fifteen dollars should be the minimum, and where I usually am, all for more education and certification, we desperately need bodies. When we get them in the door, we need to give them a week of training, maybe two, before we put them in the classroom because one way to lose someone quickly is just to throw them in the deep end.   

Now I imagine some people might be asking where the district would get the money to pay for this increase. The answer is a couple places. Since the referendum kicked in, the district should have about 500k a month it isn’t spending on emergency maintenance. The state is sitting on billions in extra education funding that, for whatever specious reason, they aren’t sending to districts. Worse, there are billions more Florida could apply for but have chosen not to, and then it's past time we demanded Florida appropriately fund education. When you factor in inflation, we aren’t even at 2007 levels of funding.     

What’s happening is an unmitigated disaster. There is no way to sugarcoat this, and instead of pretending there isn’t a problem, the district's current strategy, they should do something.  

 To learn more, click the link.

DCPS should step up and offer its staff COVID days.

 Duval County public schools should step up like the school boards in St. Johns and Clay County and take care of their staff members if they get COVID. Right now, the district is knowingly putting them in danger, and then if they get sick or are required to quarantine, forcing them to use their sick and personal days.   

Last year the Federal Government paid for COVID sick days something the district graciously extended till June, but now as the effects of COVID have become even worse and more prevalent unlike our neighbors and many other districts across Florida, DCPS has said there is nothing they can do. I find that both unacceptable and disingenuous. 

When the district was pushing the surtax referendum, they said they were spending 500k a month from the general fund to pay for maintenance. Well, friends since the referendum passed, they are no longer doing that which should leave more than enough money to take care of its staff. 

Furthermore, the state of Florida is sitting on billions of COVID relief money earmarked for schools and hasn’t even bothered to apply for billions more that the state is eligible for. The money to take care of staff and then some is available, but the state and the district have instead shrugged their shoulders.  

It should be obvious by now that schools are vectors for the spread of COVID and since closing them down and learning remotely is a non-starter the super and school board should be doing all they can to keep students and staff safe and insisting the state do so as well, but instead, all we have gotten is a top to bottom failure in leadership.   

Social distancing is nonexistent, contact tracing is between nonexistent and dreadful, and air filtration at many schools is the same and since all that is the case it's maddening and frustrating that the district won’t take care of its staff that is forced to miss time for COVID. It is past time for them to step up and do the right thing.  

DCPS disproportionately punishes minority staff

At least once a year, you see a piece of how school districts, by and large, suspend and expel minority students at a disproportionate rate. I look at these pieces with a grain of salt because, quite frankly, I think students who break the rules need a consequence. If they don't get one or an appropriate one, all they have learned is they can break the rules again. Typically this escalates until it doesn't, and other students have their learning interrupted, and teachers have lost their ability to teach. 

I also think this is socio-economically based. Instead of doing these studies by race, I have thought if they did these studies by family income, the results would be the same.  There are many reasons, but one f the biggest is the sad fact that we often send our newest and most inexperienced teachers to schools wracked in poverty where they are overwhelmed and haven't had the time to develop class management techniques which often leads to poor behavior. Many of these teachers don't stand much of a chance, and that's both tragic and trickles down to their students. 

I am almost off my soapbox. All that being said, the one major change I would make is once a student got in trouble or even better before, they received services to help them avoid the trouble. Tutoring, after-school programs, smaller classrooms, counseling, etc. We have to give these kids the tools to be able to deal with their problems. A small but meaningful consequence at the onset of a problem, followed by support, may stop a lot of future problems.     

But what about teachers? We have a system that often doesn't care about teachers; see new teachers at poorer schools as example number one. Example number 2 is how the district disproportionality punished minority staff, and nobody seems to give a damn. 

After a tip that most of the people in Bulls Bay, teacher jail were African American, I asked the district, and quite frankly, the results were admittedly not definitive; they were shocking. 

22 of the 37 teachers sent to teacher jail were minorities. That is nearly sixty percent. Compare that to the amount of minority staff in the district. 

 From NEWS for Jax,

The report, released by JPEF Tuesday, shows two-thirds of DCPS teachers are white, while white students make up only one-third of the district’s enrollment. It also shows 29% of teachers identify as Black -- compared to 45% of students in the district identifying as such. Less than 6% of DCPS teachers are Black men.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/02/24/report-dcps-teacher-workforce-is-less-diverse-than-its-student-body/

Now the percentages may change when district staff is factored in, but I couldn't see them changing dramatically.   

If a teacher needs to go to Bull's Bay, they have to go to Bull's Bay. I am all for punishing teachers that are reckless, inappropriate, or criminal. That being said, I am not sure how many of the teachers there fall into those categories and not into their principal or the district didn't like them, which is where I imagine most of them fall. 

I also wonder what kind of meaningful support and training these teachers have gotten. My guess is not much. 

I have asked the district for the last five years worth of numbers for people staffed to Bull's Bay and just investigations in general, but it's my bet the numbers won't change much at all.