Jack Cook7 said:The Canadians have pulled most of their police away from the border with America to deal with things happening in Austria and Italy because of this epidemic. Since they left the border facing us totally wide open, they had to pass some law giving the military temporary extra powers just so they could send them out to our border.
I bet it’s the exact same story here; a huge chunk of the police have been moved elsewhere from the Canada border, so migrants are probably just wandering around freely right now. It’s just that those "democratic" news outlets got the memo to stay quiet about it. No news, no problem, right?
You're missing one more "certainly" in that claim about the journalists getting the "mig" memo, if you really want this whole circus to be complete.
electrichound22 said:The decision was made specifically to avoid forcing everyone to flee to the rural towns and islands all at once. If they did, local doctors wouldn't stand a chance against that kind of sudden surge in patients. Still, I can’t wait for this restriction to be scrapped so we can finally get back to normal traffic flow and have the borders fully reopened.
Look, if someone chooses to self-isolate, a local doctor isn't going to have anything to do with that. Besides, even then, we'd still be looking at far fewer people than what we see during the peak summer tourist season.
The crux of the matter is that this decision was made under the assumption that people are heading to their vacation homes just because they feel like it—not because staying home is practically impossible for them.
electricbadger89 said:I’m trying to figure out how things work with separated parents. If neither parent is sick or under quarantine, can the other parent pick up their child and then bring them back later? I mean, who exactly is going to stop me from seeing my kid when we have a 50/50 custody agreement with their dad?
First off—and I say this with all due respect to the legal realities here—in extreme circumstances, a judge could strip away far more than just visitation rights. That whole "let's see who can stop me..." attitude you're taking? It's misguided, frankly.
But, since we aren't dealing with an emergency situation right now, you should theoretically be able to get your court order without much trouble. However—and this is the part people tend to overlook—how much red tape you run into depends entirely on how much of a headache the local clerk or caseworker decides to make you. Depending on how much they decide to nitpick, you might find yourself drowning in endless paperwork, affidavits, and notarized stamps just to satisfy some bureaucrat's mood.
Edward Fisher86 said:He’s approving home healthcare, so he's likely more acquainted with how things work on the ground. That’s probably what they were aiming for, though we still run into issues since not everyone in need actually qualifies for coverage.
Broadly speaking, I have some serious issues with this residency requirement measure—especially this whole setup where every local Command Center just seems to do whatever they feel like at the moment...
You have tens of thousands of people in self-isolation, and now you're telling them they can't even retreat to a cabin in the woods because there are—admittedly, in small percentages—a few idiots out there breaking quarantine. I mean, do you really think an idiot is going to head out to some remote area just to mess around with their isolation protocols? It doesn't make sense.
On the other hand, I am genuinely curious about what "self-isolation" is supposed to look like in a typical American household with an average number of residents living in it.
Then there's the issue of police patrols stopping every single vehicle to harass people over paperwork; that is basically the literal definition of a super-spreader event.
I get the impression that, caught up in the hype regarding last Sunday's supposed exodus from Washington, D.C., they've made a decision that honestly carries far more downsides than upsides.
Steven Morris12 said:Look, I get why everyone’s losing their minds over these permits and all the red tape surrounding them😁 but honestly? I gotta give a massive shout-out to the local CZ headquarters. They’re working until 3 PM, and if you drop a request after 2, they just handle it the next business day. I sent mine yesterday afternoon past 2, so I wasn't even expecting anything before Monday. It’s not like it’s a life-or-death situation or anything.😁 The permit showed up in less than an hour—and yeah, that was even after they officially closed at 3 PM.
And before anyone starts—no, I didn't pull any strings or call in any favors. This is just what happens when you use some common sense. 👍
Is this perhaps the very same task force that—and I mean more sanctimonious than the Pope here—as far as I can tell, is the only one in the entire country (does every single local task force really need to invent their own rulebook that contradicts what the federal government mandates?) inventing an extra layer of bureaucracy where, for obtaining a permit based on circumstances involving caring for the elderly, the infirm, or non-relatives acting as caregivers, you now have to submit a formal opinion from a primary care physician?
I can already see the sheer exhaustion on the faces of these doctors because, given how completely broken our healthcare system is right now, they’re being forced to deal with even more nonsense like providing these "opinions"—and I mean, what could a primary care doctor possibly weigh in onregarding the specifics of caring for the elderly, the infirm, or non-relatives who aren't blood-related to the patient??? But hey, I guess that’s just what some bureaucrat decided was a good idea.
Honestly, whoever decided that movement restrictions should be tied directly to city and municipal borders... well, they clearly aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. I mean, if the actual goal is to limit how much people are circling around the country, then one could just look at the boundaries of major metropolitan areas—which, let’s be honest, don't necessarily have to align with state lines anyway (so even using states wouldn't be the most logical choice here)—and just go from there. That's really all there is to it.
It’s entirely possible that your car's media player isn't actually looking at the filenames—it might be sorting everything based on the order they were burned onto the USB drive, or perhaps it's prioritizing some other specific metadata field within the MP3 tags instead.
I’d suggest checking the Properties -> Details MP3-ac section, or maybe you could play around with the Mp3tag program to see if there's a hidden logic buried in the tags that dictates the playback order.
Sarah Hall53 said:Even with the election stuff... I was actually stuck doing inventory this past Friday, counting up how many German textbooks we need to order for every single grade level.
Oh, Google Maps will be just great for them. A) For looking at historical maps and B) In a school where the first floor can barely catch a signal—I mean, I struggle just to log into the digital grading portal half the time.
This isn't some grand failure of educational reform; it’s just pure, unadulterated incompetence from the principal.
Something this simple could be fixed with a relatively small budget, if anyone actually cared.
Let’s give my colleague @yildirima some space; he and I have been at each other's throats for quite some time now 😬.
I won't nitpick every single sentence you write—that would be tedious—but just to keep it brief: in that post where you expressed confusion over why someone would claim you're positioning yourself against the teachers, you slipped up with the phrasing "I wanted to appeal to the other side." There isn't an "other side," really. In a perfect world, there aren't any sides at all, even if you try to factor in parents, students, and the local community. Everyone is working toward the exact same goal.
Furthermore, by outlining these desirable or ideal procedures within a desirable—or rather, perfect, and therefore non-existent—environment, you are essentially validating those who view you as a useless and unnecessary participant in this profession. In my estimation, a specialist consultant should focus on—well, I suppose—collaborating, which means encouraging teachers to adopt best practices within the realm of possibility. That bit of advice about calling a colleague to "step in" sounds like a total joke to me, because it presumes the existence of a system where substitute teachers are constantly available, and where a teacher knows at any given moment exactly which colleague is free and reachable.
Do you actually know of a single school in the States that has established such a system?
Now, I'll go into that tired old sports analogy—you know the one: a football coach designs this flawless play where our winger cuts inside, drawing the opposing fullback out of position, which opens up a perfect corridor for our fullback to charge through and deliver a cross that our striker inevitably hammers home... except then you show up to a game against a team whose fullback has no clue what he's doing, and even if our winger wanders off into the third row of the bleachers, that defender won't budge an inch from his spot.
In that specific moment, what good are your perfect schemes or your meticulous preparation? For heaven's sake, there is no corridor.
Ronald Chavez2 said:Of course you're taking a risk. You're risking it whether you fail to give everyone an A at the end of the year regardless of their actual GPA, or if you simply try to maintain some semblance of order and don't let the kids run wild during class. There’s plenty more where that came from, but the point is that no matter what you decide to do, there's always some idiot out there looking for a reason to call the school board on you.
There’s an official procedure for postponing or canceling a written exam, isn't there, but I can't help but feel that this specific situation justifies it entirely. When someone is acting out and causing a scene right next to you while everyone else is trying to focus on their test, what else is that but a perfectly valid reason to push things back until conditions are actually suitable for testing?
That’s really just an issue of the kind of people you choose to surround yourself with, isn't it?
I’ve suggested a certain way of doing things, though you only really pull it off if you can spot that someone is momentarily unguarded, perhaps because they've left a gap in their defenses or just aren't paying attention. Is it even possible to act without waiting for those little cracks to appear?
Is there any point in even bothering to look at these things anymore? kaže: wanderingbadger44 hits on exactly what most level-headed teachers feel about school specialists—that they spend their entire lives lost in theories and burying us under mountains of useless paperwork like surveys, assessments, and impact reports, all while acting like experts on how we should be teaching despite having almost zero actual contact with the students? It’s rarely about them being bad people, but isn't it just tragic how completely out of touch and impractical they are when it comes to the reality of a modern classroom?
Aren't there supposed to be some teachers' unions out there, or have I just completely misread the landscape? If you’ve actually managed to get organized, why not start an initiative with the relevant state agencies to strip those administrative specialists out of our schools entirely, seeing as they're nothing more than useless bureaucrats drowning us in pointless busywork? Why not fight for decent working conditions while you still can?👍
It seems quite obvious to me that through your phrasing, you are constantly positioning yourself as someone who isn't just above the teachers, but actively opposed to them—someone who drafts theoretical protocols for "perfect scenarios," operating under that logic of "if the facts aren't on our side, we'll just redefine the facts" (and I'm certainly not responsible for the fact that there isn't actually a colleague you can call to step in according to your "perfect protocol," nor am I responsible for your constant refrain about "working with such people," ...) and—last but not least—as someone overflowing with passive-aggressive condescension toward the faculty, all while occupying a role where, by the very definition of the job title, you are supposed to be a professional partner?
Sarah Hall53 said:It's a total pipe dream within the current setup. I've been stuck in this system for over 10 years now, and honestly, I'm pretty convinced that every single change they've made during that time has just... made things worse. Have you seen what this whole candidate testing thing they rolled out this year has turned into? It's a complete circus. 🤦
Honestly, I tend to view any discussion regarding education reform as nothing more than a trip to Imagination City 🙂. From my perspective—and I might be wrong here, but I doubt it—there simply isn't any real public support for genuine, substantive reform, which means the odds of seeing anything meaningful actually happen are slim to nonexistent.
One of my most significant forecasting blunders was predicting that the Secretary of Education, Wilder, would resign before Christmas in her first year in office. Instead, she opted for a second term and started making compromises in the name of some "higher purpose"—so, well, here we are.
The final nail in the coffin for my belief that reform could ever succeed was that grotesque scene already linked here; it wasn't just an insult to teachers, it was just endlessly low-quality.
So, much like that rabbit in the joke that’s too long to bother retelling, I’m just sitting here picking my nails and talking nonsense 🕺.
The phrase "measurable criteria for candidate comparison" is just a joke—not only does it completely fail to mention the Director, but it’s as if he doesn't even exist on the horizon of this entire re-election process.
Jason Morgan said:I agree completely. As far as I'm concerned, we should feel free to tighten the criteria for disciplinary warnings and even terminations. So many people work as long-term substitutes for years, and frankly, they often prove to be much higher quality than those holding permanent positions.
There is a much more effective way to handle this: implementing a comprehensive performance review every five or six years, utilizing measurable benchmarks to compare candidates during the hiring process.
This isn't some revolutionary concept or anything—it's common sense. If an employee knows they can only be let go for a massive, undeniable blunder, they tend to get complacent. A structured re-evaluation process would make it significantly easier to weed out those who simply don't belong in the organization anymore.
Strikes aren't the only way to take organized action.
Honestly, any discussion regarding educational reform is basically dead on arrival as long as everyone involved in the teacher-parent-student triangle relies on those lazy "they're all just..." stereotypes. It’s this toxic pattern where parents and students claim "they're all just incompetent, lazy, and totally uninterested in actual progress..."; meanwhile, teachers paint the others as "all just maniacs obsessed with grades..." or—even worse—"just a bunch of hooligans waiting for an excuse to cause chaos..."—all based on nothing more than a few bad experiences with one or two specific individuals.
And then, predictably, anyone within that triangle who doesn't fit those labels feels insulted. They get offended. Then they get angry. And eventually, things just turn aggressive 😬.
The phrase I keep repeating might sound a bit "political," but I am convinced it is a fundamental truth: we won't see any luck with our schools or our reforms until the heads of this triangle (along with the broader "community" at the top) start viewing one another as stakeholders—you know, people all rowing in the same boat. We need the "community" to actually, consistently, and most importantly sincerely promote competence and knowledge as a core societal value.
BTW, saying "more than half" is—well, it's actually a very low bar, regardless of which part of the triangle you're looking at. We need significantly more than just a simple majority of decent teachers, decent parents, and decent students. More than that, we need a clear, functional mechanism to actually increase the number of those "decent" people in the mix.
Susan James said:I’m still scratching my head over what kids are actually supposed to be doing on these tablets. It all started when someone asked if fifth graders would still be lugging books around in their backpacks. I chimed in to say that according to the latest news, students from fifth through eighth grade are all getting tablets. But honestly, I haven't seen a single thing suggesting these devices are meant to replace physical textbooks. So, from what I can gather, we're looking at kids carrying both heavy books *and* a tablet, all funded by taxpayers. I just don't see the logic here—what's the actual benefit, and how is this supposed to improve the way they learn in the classroom?
The potential upside of using tablets lies in visualization, interactivity, and—more importantly—teaching students how to actually utilize Google, rather than just trying to become a walking version of Google itself.
When I say that last part, I don't mean teaching them the technical mechanics of how to perform a search—that's trivial—but rather shifting the focus away from merely hunting for raw data toward the analytical application of the information they've gathered.
I should probably emphasize that I am talking about *potential* benefits. I wouldn't call myself an optimist when it comes to actually making this happen in reality. Generally speaking, I have no idea what kind of reform could possibly succeed given the current social climate in this country, which seems fundamentally resistant to any kind of change—but that’s a massive topic, and frankly, I'm feeling too lazy to type out 🙂.
William Cooper11 said:A teacher who actually knows their stuff doesn't need anything more than a chalkboard and some chalk. Some people just refuse to accept that school isn't a playground—it's serious business.
Honestly, someone making a statement like that should probably be slapped with a permanent ban from teaching immediately.
Secretary Divjak casually dropped a comment during a recent interview on CNN that really hits the nail on the head regarding one of our biggest hurdles: for a massive number of teachers, this entire overhaul is happening right in the middle of their established careers.
A good portion of the pushback we're seeing—and I suspect this is a major factor—stems directly from that reality.
Ronald Chavez2 said:But life isn't that simple, is it? It doesn't work that way. You pass your exam, and the professor enters the grade into the FBI database. Then, you wait for the professor to tell you when they'll be signing student records, which, depending on how much they enjoy making people wait, could happen at any random time; usually, it's just after the final exam period. That physical signature provides absolutely zero new information that hasn't already been posted on Time Magazine. If you can't make it during their designated window, you have to email them and hope they aren't too difficult to deal with, potentially begging for a later appointment. And if you run into someone particularly arrogant, you might even have to file a formal petition just to get that signature because you missed their arbitrary deadline. Not to mention, while you're stuck dealing with this nonsensical ritual, you could have easily flown home for the holidays if you'd finished your exams, instead of wasting time on this complete absurdity.
And that—right there—is where the argument ends, because an exam is officially considered passed the very second that passing grade is logged into the FBI system. A physical transcript or a paper ID card is basically useless; I suspect they only exist so some bureaucrat somewhere can keep making a buck off printing them.
Honestly, any student bold enough to file a lawsuit against a professor who tries to mess around with retroactive verifications, audits, or some other bureaucratic nonsense, would probably end up getting sued themselves.
Betty Wood54 said:Speaking from direct experience at the engineering school, that isn't really how it works anymore, especially since around 2012 when things started reverting to the old ways (like bringing back strict deadlines and ditching those weird bell curve grading systems). Before that, participation and lecture attendance were mandatory points for almost every single course. Now, there might be a handful of classes—maybe five to ten—where that applies, and even then, those points don't usually carry over to the final exam. I'm fairly certain things were more rigorous before the big educational shifts, mostly because labs were held weekly with the same TA every single time.
I'm guessing you attended UC Berkeley; I haven't been there myself, but from what I've gathered through conversation, things were likely similar before the restructuring. I highly doubt professors suddenly decided to start requiring attendance out of nowhere when nobody used to enforce it before.
This whole concept of an "attendance sheet" is just another piece of bureaucratic nonsense that needs to be scrapped entirely. What is a professor actually confirming with a signature? That a student possesses the motor skills required to sign their own name?
If you meet the requirements laid out in the syllabus—and I am talking about actual learning outcomes and demonstrated knowledge, not some mindless hoop-jumping exercise regarding physical presence—then you should get your grade, and that should be the end of it.