This is Boston, too. In-person did not work for the students not included in our 75% graduation rate. It didn’t work for the kids impacted by our 3.4% suspension rate. In some ways, remote actually may work better for kids whose bodies were incessantly policed in school. https://twitter.com/chiteachermemes/status/1330180942342873090

Any comparison that assumes in-person “worked” and remote “doesn’t work” ignores the ways in which injustice and inequity have plagued public education forever. The narrative is a lot more complicated than too many people want it to be.

Here’s the truth: Remote is not working at all for some kids. For others, it works ok. And for some, it actually works better. And what we have to figure out is how to best support the kids who it doesn’t work for at all.

We need creative solutions for supporting our most vulnerable students. Ones that happen in safe spaces, with trained staff who aren’t being asked to simulteach. We need our state leadership to fund these solutions, instead of acting like the Carlisle schools are representative.

We can’t claim that our most vulnerable students are our priority, & then preach full re-opening/sending all kids back. Those two ideas are antithetical. Prioritizing students with the highest needs means putting them at the center & building plans around them. We don’t do that.

We say that’s what we are doing, but we don’t every actually do that. We’ve never built education that way, and we still aren’t doing it that way now.