America in a headline. Jesus. I do wonder what the cops are doing in those classrooms, beyond “keeping order.” I’m guessing the kids are actually doing all their work on their computers, so the cops literally are just there to keep the kids “in line.”
The school-to-prison pipeline wasn’t streamlined enough, so they decided to collapse it entirely, I guess.
There is one thing that is abundantly clear after two years of this nonsense. The role of public education as childcare is much more important than its role in educating children, at least from the perspective of the politicians making these decisions.
I live in an area that still has an indoor mask mandate and we’re currently staffing schools with parent volunteers. That, or schools are operating remotely.
All C’s? Oh, so he’s one of the better educated cops, then?
I wonder if they all parked their cars in the hallway just outside the classroom doors.
The response to “defund the police” is apparently “stick police everywhere and let them handle everything- who needs expertise or experience when you have a gun?” In this specific instance, though, it almost feels like a deliberate intimidation tactic: “We have access to your children and their developing minds, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I would ask how many gunshot wounds were reported, but regardless I would be shocked at the answer.
Either they’re able to not go Yosemite Sam when faced with a stressful situation, or they did and they’re just hiding evidence.
Are any of the children taking to the cops.
Because, NEVER talk to the cops.
… is “defund everything except the police”
Jesus wept.
If they were there for a whole day, each of those kids must be getting close to having all the training they need to be officers!
Simply put: because at this point in the game they have exhausted their supply of certified subs. They are looking for people who will make sure no one will burn down the classroom or stab someone with a pencil.
Cops would at least pass background check (if they couldn’t, they shouldn’t be cops, but that is another story.) In Kansas it has gotten so bad, they are literally letting anyone with a pulse over the age of 18 and a clean background to fill in. They are looking for literal baby sitters that won’t harm the kids.
And yes, my teacher friends are miffed about this decision. But at this point the schools aren’t looking for a near peer that could actually TEACH, they are looking at someone who can keep the schools in session. I am not suggesting these people are an actual replacement for teachers, have anything resembling the proper skill set and knowledge to teach, nor that teachers are aren’t highly trained, passionate people who deserve better.
FWIW my mom was a substitute and a para for many years.
Imagine what kind of fuss the cops would make if the situation was reversed and the city decided to let teachers drive around patrolling the city in their squad cars.
I think that isn’t an accurate analogy. I don’t think anyone is realistically expecting non certified subs to actually teach. They are more or less being asked to baby sit.
It isn’t an optimal solution. The problem is the pressure to keep kids in schools in many locations is too great. Parents not working from home especially would struggle and either have to take time off, or find an already full day care, or friend/family member to watch them.
Though in some of the cases, they should be shutting it down. But if they aren’t going to do that, then what are your options?
I am not saying cops are particularly well suited for watching over a classroom, only that they would be about the same as having a random parent watch a class for a day. I am looking at this pragmatically. What other solution do you propose other than cancelling classes?
You want Police Academy 4? Because that’s how you get Police Academy 4!
(Without the rollicking good times I’m sure)
I loved Police Academy 4! I had that poster on my wall I won in a school carnival.
Armed and unmasked. Therefore posing multiple dangers to the students. But OK, I guess?
Again, I think “we must keep the schools running whether or not there are people qualified to be in classrooms“ shows a fundamental disrespect for the work that teachers are trained to do.
If there was a critical shortage of truck drivers we wouldn’t say “it is better to let untrained, unlicensed cops drive big rigs than to let goods go undelivered.“ If there was a critical shortage of doctors we wouldn’t say “it is better to put untrained cops in hospitals than to let medical problems go untreated.”
If this community really cared about education they would start by enforcing a mask mandate in the schools they want to keep open. The fact that unmasked police officers are in the classrooms rendered teacherless due to the pandemic is unconscionable.
One of the things this pandemic has exposed is that right-wing and Third Way politicians see teachers as little more than babysitters who are there to watch the kids while their parents dutifully show up at work. Education is almost beside the point for these types, although they’ll grudgingly settle for applying tax dollars to job training that benefits their capitalist overlords.
Oh dear.
“State employees”:
A thought experiment:
You are the school district superintendent in a district with severe staffing shortages. You have told by your state governor that for every X number of days of virtual classroom teaching, some Y number of in-person student attendance will be required in the summer to “make up for” learning shortfalls stemming from the online instruction period. (X and Y vary from state to state, apparently.)
Whatever budget your district has had contingency-supplemented by federal/state/other monies, you know that summer in-person course instruction will cost serious money, which the budget is unlikely to cover, since the budget was set the fiscal year previous.
Your school district is paid (likely out of property taxes held by your county) per student, per day, only for days when student attendance is in-person, on school property. Your district is therefore being starved of money it relied on to pay staff, utilities, resources like books and computers and musical instruments, building maintenance and repairs, etc.
Your students are probably underperforming on state-mandated tests, and if you have some trigger-number of bad test scores, your district may be taken from your management and put in the hands of people whose only job is get those test scores up. Your students’ parents are variously unhappy with the whole situation, and represent an average cross-section of Americans who are vehemently anti-vax, vehemently pro-vax, financially strapped, overworked, having to take care of family who may be sick–there’s a lot of this even before the pandemic, because the U.S. healthcare “system” and U.S. workplace paid sick leave are shit even when you do have health insurance.
Your state has expressly banned a mandatory mask mandate. Your state is one of the states in the U.S. where current winter weather has made outdoor instruction impossible. You do not anticipate resolving classroom problems caused by the pandemic anytime soon.
Your governor makes an offer to you to solve several of your problems at once: using already-vetted state employees who have already had criminal background checks, urine tests for drugs, have a known work history, etc.
What do you do next?
ETA: additional qualifiers, typos
That sentiment applies to pretty much everyone classified as “essential workers.” “You can’t protect yourself and your family, you need to serve me!”
