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An Ellison High School corridor was seen on the first day of the 2021-2022 school year in Killeen.
Killeen Educators Association president Rachel Bourrage asked the Killeen ISD Board of Trustees on Jan. 11 to reinstate a virtual learning option until the current omicron COVID-19 surge is over.
An Ellison High School corridor was seen on the first day of the 2021-2022 school year in Killeen.
The Herald usually does not quote anonymous sources, but decided to make a rare exception to that policy in the article below. The names of six Killeen ISD educators in this article have been withheld, per their request, because they fear retaliation from the school district. The Herald honored their request because the newspaper’s staff felt it was important and timely for their voices to be heard. The Herald also spoke to other educators last week who backed up what the teachers said.
Halfway through the second school year upended by COVID-19, some Killeen Independent School District teachers say they are desperate for help — and on the verge of giving up — as the virus continues to sicken co-workers and students amid a worsening staff shortage that has persisted all school year.
The names of the six Killeen ISD educators quoted in this article have been withheld, per their request, because they fear retaliation from the school district. The Herald honored their request because the newspaper’s staff felt it was important and timely for their voices to be heard.
“The thing I wish people would understand: The house is on fire,” a Killeen ISD teacher said by phone Thursday. “We’re wearing gasoline drenched clothes and we’re expected to smile and pretend everything is OK. The house is on fire and nobody is talking about it.”
She said her school had more than a dozen classes without teachers or a substitute one day last week.
“Every day I know I’m covering a class, because at this point we already know we’re not going to get subs,” she said. “If there were subs we’d already have them by now.”
Another KISD teacher said she is exhausted and the current conditions are “just too much.”
“We are asked to cover classes during every free period we have every single day because there simply aren’t enough substitute teachers on campus,” she said by email Thursday. “We are exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Weekends are spent grading papers and prepping lessons that normally we’d have time for during our off periods but right now we don’t have any off periods.”
The teachers said the exhaustion isn’t limited to just educators.
“Campus administrators are worn out and exhausted and constantly trying to figure out how to pretend the fire is not there while also trying to keep their staff from burning,” said the teacher in the phone interview.
Killeen ISD says cleaning measures are taking place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on campuses, but some employees say that is not the case at their campuses.
“They keep saying there’s cleaning and I’m wondering where they are cleaning,” said the teacher who spoke to the Herald by phone. “When we came back in January, I walked in and the trash from December was still in there.”
Another KISD teacher said the district needs to step up cleaning measures, among other things.
“When I had kids test positive, I would’ve expected a deep cleaning, all tables wiped, but I know they’re not,” he said. “The only way my tables get cleaned are if I do it or the kids do it. They say they’re spraying but I’m seeing no evidence of it.”
The teacher said he’s decided this will likely be his last year with the district.
“I’ve just about had enough of it,” he said. “I’m worried I’ll get it and bring it home to my wife.”
Watching KISD Superintendent John Craft’s YouTube video Wednesday, was like adding salt to a wound, teachers said.
Wednesday Craft took to the video platform to inform parents and employees that COVID was affecting everything from the classroom to the school bus, and some student’s may experience class changes because of the teacher shortage. To view Craft’s YouTube video visit https://bit.ly/3ACA44F.
“This means your student’s class may be combined with another,” Craft said. “Or they may have a substitute or an administrator covering the class for the day. Several classes are gathering for instruction in the auditorium, cafeteria, and, or gym to ensure students are receiving high-quality instruction from KISD-certified educators.”
A KISD education professional who asked to keep her title generic because the district may retaliate, said she couldn’t believe the words coming out of the superintendent’s mouth Wednesday when he referred to combined classes as “high-quality instruction.”
“Is he lying to himself, lying to make himself look good? Why don’t they want the truth out,” she said. “Here’s the reality: We need help and we’re not getting it.”
She said her son even called Craft’s bluff when he heard it.
“My son was like, ‘Mom, we’re not getting an education when we’re sitting in a gym’,” the educator said.
She told the Herald a fifth of her campus’ staff were out sick Thursday.
Another KISD teacher wrote the Herald to say the district is not being completely honest.
“I am extremely shocked and frustrated at the lack of transparency of Dr. Craft to the public and teachers about what is actually happening inside our school walls,” she said in an email to the Herald Thursday.
Another KISD teacher said the public is not getting an accurate picture of the crisis.
“We are drowning,” she said in an email to the Herald Thursday. “The perception that the district is putting out to the public is ridiculous. The COVID numbers being reported are not accurate. The district only counts the PCR test reports not the rapid tests, yet the test the district offers for free is the rapid test. Teachers are having to cover 4-6 classes in the cafeteria and let me tell you, there is definitely no instruction or learning taking place.”
The teacher said her campus is pulling special education staff from their assigned positions to cover for the lack of general education teachers — leaving special education students without the services under federal law they are legally required to receive.
“It is insane all the stress the district is putting on their teachers,” she said.
The conditions the teachers describe are similar to what they experienced in the fall but worse now that additional teachers have quit, resigned or are out sick.
“Literally it’s dicey every week whether we’re coming back,” said the first teacher mentioned in this article. “Those are the conversations we’re having off to the side. ...We give so much importance to people at the top who have been out of the classroom for 10 years. What I need to see is district leadership actually taking the time to go back to the classroom.”
All of the teachers said teaching at KISD during a pandemic is causing a strain on their physical and mental health.
One of the teachers said she’s adopted a routine of not drinking water during the day because she simply doesn’t have the ability to leave her classroom for a restroom break. She said she doesn’t know how long she’s going to make it in KISD at this rate.
“I’m really thinking about whether I want to stay in Texas,” she said. “This is just some Texas stuff right here. This is not education everywhere, this is Texas messing with education. ...Maybe I need to go where I’m appreciated and valued.”
The education professional said she’s disappointed in the way KISD has handled the pandemic.
“I came to Killeen with a fresh start, but that excitement has declined and declined,” she said. “Every year it’s harder and harder. I thought we were one of the good ones. I thought it’d be different. It’s a joke at the end of the day.”
The educators suggested the district should close for two weeks until the current omicron surge drops off, implement a mask mandate, or have a virtual option for those who are sick at home.
The education professional said she would like to see the district go one-to-one, meaning each student has a device to participate in virtual learning at home, like Belton ISD does.
“I think we honestly do have the ability to go one-to-one, I just don’t know if the district wants to put the money in or not,” she said.
One of the teachers said he is in support of a virtual option.
“I think you could do a split — virtual and school,” he said. “I think you should give parents the option.”
He also encouraged the Texas Education Agency to suspend STAAR testing until the pandemic is over.
“We’re still basing everything on these standardized tests, when we really need to be going back to teaching and away from testing and just allowing kids to grow,” he said. “The gaps are there and they’re not going away.”
At the Jan. 11 KISD school board meeting, Killeen Educators Association President Rachel Bourrage asked the district to close until the omicron surge is over, and mandate masks.
Killeen Educators Association president Rachel Bourrage asked the Killeen ISD Board of Trustees on Jan. 11 to reinstate a virtual learning option until the current omicron COVID-19 surge is over.
On Thursday, Bourrage issued the following statement.
“Killeen Educators Association welcomes the video statement put out by the Superintendent in this time of crisis caused by Omicron sweeping through our schools,” Bourrage said. “Ploughing through can seem like a noble cause but it is not the safest. The Governor and TEA, by refusing to fund a virtual option as the pandemic surges has put students and employees in harms way. KEA would like to see the district introduce a mask mandate like many other districts have done in defiance of the Governor’s order. A short temporary closure of a few days should be an option under consideration.”
One of the teachers said it’s time for the district to do more to protect their staff — a one-time $1,000 retention stipend isn’t enough.
“When you have people crying out for help and saying, ‘Oh no, you’re fine,’ I think this would be a really excellent time to remind people three school board members are up for election,” she said, referring to an upcoming Killeen school board election on May 7. The seats currently occupied by long-time Killeen ISD school board members Susan Jones, Corbett Lawler and Shelley Wells will be up for grabs.
The Herald relayed a summary of the reported employee concerns to the district Friday morning. KISD Communications Director Taina Maya issued the following statement Friday evening.
“Killeen ISD administrators from Learning Services and Central Office are supporting campuses throughout the day with classroom coverage, lunch duty, pick up and drop off, and front desk assistance,” Maya said in an email Friday. “We remain in constant communication with our campus principals, and they can request additional help throughout the day if needed. We monitor the number of staff and student absences multiple times and deploy help as requested. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) may fund any loss of state aid as a result of the pandemic. We are grateful to the community members and parents who have risen to the call to volunteer at campuses and who have already begun the process to become a substitute teacher. Since Friday, we have had 109 people apply to be a substitute teacher. Our Fort Hood campuses remain under a mask mandate and all other employees and students are able to wear a mask.”
The district’s next board meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the administration building located at 200 N. W.S. Young Drive in Killeen.
ldodd@kdhnews.com | 254-501-7567
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, one former educator and activist continues to protest outside the Killeen Independent School District admin…
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I cannot help but laugh at all of the comments about how cleaning is not happening. None of you are up at your schools at night watching exactly how the custodial crew is cleaning your school. You do not see, whatever sign, you are looking to see as proof there is better cleaning. maybe you should tell your custodial staff, "Hey unless I see things moved out of place on my desk, then you are not cleaning". Online virtual learning is a joke. My students are year behind where they should be because of virtual learning. The risk of serious illness or death from COVID for person under 18 is 0.0002%, quit living in fear.
We don't have to be up at our schools when the custodians are the ones telling us that they are cleaning. They laugh when we ask them. It's not visual, I don't look for crumbs or dust every morning. I asked out of curiosity because we're always hearing about this cleaning. The custodians stated plain and simple. These schools, especially our school, is not being cleaned like that. They said the steamers are always broken and there's not enough staff to clean even if they wanted to.
Everyone is entitled to live within their comfort level. Don't tell people what to be comfortable with.
Hope you have a wonderful day and you and your loved ones stay safe, happy and healthy.
Well Dr. Craft, you sure seem to know all the answers and there is plenty of reason why the teachers in this article want to remain anonymous, you have repeatedly personally attacked a former teacher who protests your lack of action to protect staff and students. No one but yourself seems to think it is funny that teachers have doubts about the sanitation measures being taken in the districts schools. I mean seriously, lets look at this from a realistic standpoint. Custodians work an average 8 hour shift, they do not get paid overtime to work until the school is thoroughly cleaned, once their shift is over they go home and what has not been cleaned remains unsanitary. An average High School has over 100 rooms in it, if a custodian were to spend an average of 30 minutes per room wiping all surfaces, sweeping, mopping and then steaming it completely (which is very fast) that one custodian would only reach 16 rooms during their shift. Each school would have to have a minimum of 7 custodians to even attempt to reach every room and sanitize it thoroughly and to do so would also require that each have the proper sanitization equipment. Per an article from last year the district has had problems recruiting sufficient custodians to support the needs of the district, with that being publicly announced it would be safe to assume that there is a lack of sufficient sanitation in most of the districts schools. I agree with you that there is cleaning happening, but is it sufficient? Are all classrooms being thoroughly cleaned and sanitized each evening? These are questions that you are unable or unwilling to answer. It is a scientific fact that omicron survives longer on surfaces than prior Covid variants so the need to sanitize to combat the spread is required more now than ever in the past. I truly do not believe that KISD has sufficient staff to meet that need. I also agree with you that the virtual learning platform that KISD offered put parents and students at a great disadvantage and yes, many of the students are a year behind in their studies. I suggested early on in several forums that KISD adopt the curriculum that is taught by Connections Academy via Houston ISD. But what the district choose to do was put teachers at a disadvantage by having them develop their own online curriculum via Schoology (this is the job of instructional/curriculum designers and is no easy task even for those trained to do this) and then have them teach in person and online simultaneously. All of this on a system that did not have the bandwidth to support it, a lack of access for many students and a huge failure on the districts part to provide technology to all of its students. But we are not counting the many parents who are/were apathetic and did not feel any responsibility in ensuring that their children were studying. This is the largest problem and there is nothing any district can do to remedy poor parenting. You can give them all of the tools and if they do not care, their student will simply fail. To many, school is just a way to get their children out of the homes i.e. free babysitting, they could care less how well their students are learning. You cannot put the entirety of our students falling behind in studies solely on the district. Again, you scew numbers/facts to meet your particular need or point of view. While yes children have a less chance of serious illness and death from Covid, teachers and administrators do not have that advantage. I compare it to a firing squad... if you are surrounded by 30 people firing off weapons towards you there is a high probability you will be hit and die. 25+ students who may be carriers of the virus and show no signs of illness, in a cramped room breathing without masks puts teachers at risk, simple as that. I don't care how you scew the numbers, the risk is there. How do you mitigate that risk? According to you it is simple... just suck it up and move on out because living in fear for ones life and their family's lives is unrealistic, the possibility of losing not only one's life but their income, their ability to work in the future, etc. etc. is not that important. I am calling you out on your unrealistic expectations of educators.... obviously you are NOT in at REAL classroom otherwise you would know that this is a concern that NORMAL people have. Also, please work on that grammar, I've read all of your posts and you are an embarrasment to educators everywhere.
Dear KDH, it's not nice to throw stones in glass houses. Your company doesn't have ANY protocols when it comes to your employees. This reporter, Lauren Dodd, was tested positive for COVID-19 and was still allowed in the building let alone the newsroom with others inside. Then the paper has a "COVID box" where infected employees, who instead aren't given an option to work from home, are forced to work inside the building possibly infecting fellow co-workers and their families.
What does KDH have to do with this? Are our kids crammed in a room in their building? Are they sitting right next to each other and across in their cafeteria? This is about KISD and the lack of safety in our schools.
Firstly I want to say that I am a prior substitute teacher who left the district early in the Covid outbreak for mine and my families safety. I have taught in a large number of the schools in the district and have personal knowledge of how things were even before the pandemic. On several occasions where there were no subs available students were put into the gynmnasium with 1-2 coaches watching over them, there was NO instruction whatsoever. It was mass babysitting and this was in both Middle School and High School settings. I have taught in classrooms where there were 25+ students in the each class because even then there was a teacher shortage. Now that we are in the midst of a long term pandemic I can only imagine how things have gone from bad to worse. I can assure you that there is no possible way that any teacher or administrator can keep control of 40+ students in a gymnasium, cafeteria or other large area in such a way as to make a productive learning environment. Just imagine if you were in a meeting with 40+ colleagues do you think that you would accomplish much? NOT! Now imagine those colleagues being small children, pre-teens or teenagers who would rather spend their time talking or playing on their phones and doing anything other than learning. It is simply NOT going to happen. Let's be real folks... it is a sh*t show at best! Anytime there is a mass exodus or extreme lack of people applying for jobs at any workplace, that is a great indicator that something in terribly wrong! When teachers break contracts and risk losing their certification that is a strong indicator that the district is failing to support them. KISD is a failure at best and your children are the ones who will pay the ulitmate price for it. You might not see it now but when it really matters and your child is so far behind that he or she cannot possibly attain their educational goals, then you will see the real damage that was done by an administration that cared more about saving face than acknowledging that they like so many other districts in America are struggling. I am saddened because there are districts here in Texas, that have always offered an online component for those students that are homebound. They have quality instructional designers who work for the district who support teachers and administration by building and designing quality curriculum. KISD does NOT have this option and refuses to explore it. Wake up KISD, this is the way of the future and you are stuck on stupid. Look to Houston ISD who offers an online option through Connections Academy as an example, and there are many others in this state that offer the same. The solution is simple, offer an online option all the time and have an instructional and curriculum design department that develops the courses for the district. This department can easily send out instructors to help current teachers move to an online learning environment and also support those who wish to remain in the classroom who may wish to implement some online components into their instruction and lesson plans. Hire teachers for both specific areas, online and in person instruction, this alone will combat the teacher shortage. Do not force teachers who are struggling to provide in person instruction to become impromptu instructional designers and then have to double down and teach both online and in person. Even superman could not beat those odds. And lastly, pay a great wage! If you want quality teachers then you need to offer some perks to draw them to the district, myself personally am a certified teacher with a Master's and soon to be Doctorate in Education and $52K to start is not even a drop in the bucket on the cost of my education. Compared to $80K I am making sitting at home doing instructional design for training modules for a local corporation. That's why there is a teacher shortage... I won't risk my life for peanuts, packed virus laden rooms, poor safety measures, long hours, and stress levels that would scare even the strongest of souls, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to do so either. For those who are still in the classroom, you all need to say a huge "Thank you" and give them lots of props for being braver than most, present company included. If you think that these teachers are working in a warzone then by all means you go on and take that poor paying substitute job that they are begging people to take and you see for yourself firsthand and come back and let me tell you "I told you so." For the rest of you who feel that teachers are exaggerating on their work conditions... you are clueless!
Correction: If you think that these teachers are "NOT" working in a warzone...
They need Shut the school down to drop the infection numbers, Need to Implement Virtual Option back, Each school have a system that shows proof, hour to hour log that custodians are actually cleaning if its a concern. Give better incentives to keep our Teachers, Appreciate your people KISD,because without our teachers,....now KISD is begging (under qualified parents) to teach our kids because leadership didn't handle business properly....All students should test and be cleared of covid if they were exposed or tested positive to come back to the classroom.....My daughter's school didn't even enforce to check and clear you if someone was over covid infection or not. To be honest...5 days isn't enough time to recover from covid...My family just had covid, and on our 10th day of quarantine... still was positive with covid!! Teachers should have work packets online access on standby to have students work at home during quarantine if they should be sick.
How did Dr. Craft get a contract extension?! He has failed from day one.
I am a KISD teacher with my own children in school here. Our school has never followed any distancing guidelines. In their defense it's impossible. A class with, now, 25 students at 3 feet intervals will have a 75ft line! How would desks in a now, 25 student room, place students even two feet from each other? We've asked if P.E. can be held outside on all good weather days instead of cramming 3-4 classrooms in the gym with kids coughing all over each other. In my school, a student threw up in the gym, was sent to the nurse, she gave the student a mask and sent her back to the gym after the student told us all that her mother had COVID. The district leadership, the Superintendent, his spoke person, are being so condescending and arrogant in their responses to us. How are we providing the best quality of education with cramming kids into a gym for the day and show movies? By splitting a room of 25 students and placing them in another room of 25 students? Over 30 students and a parent for a sub??? After having waited outside in the freezing weather because you don't know if your bus is just late or not coming at all?
How did Dr. Craft get a contract extension?! He has failed from day one.
Hi, I am a current highschol student taking highschool and college courses. These last two weeks have been especially hard on me and my friends as we have lost teachers left and right and our learning is becoming harder and harder. I think we should either close for a week or offer a better online school option becuase many of my classes don't have a good one set up. My dad is also a teacher, so I feel bad for him. He ends up cleaning his classroom becuase the school doesn't and I sometimes help do a deeper clean on PD days. I wish we had better cleaning in the schools as well. The classes are getting stacked together in some cases when teachers get sick and others are being sent to the auditorium/cafeteria. These aren't very good solutions as we aren't learning when we are sent there. I feel bad for all my teachers and how they are given added stress everyday. It's not healthy and it needs to be stopped. My ideas for solutions would be a 2 week break and we remove the spring break or make it smaller. Better cleaning, which means we need more custodians. One thing this article doesn't address is that they are cleaning the halls and the cafeteria but they are struggling. They been more help.. Last solution is that a lot of the work switches to online. This year more work has been on paper but if a student gets sick we can't make up the work. I hope the district can implement some changes as I am concerned for myself, my family, my teachers, and my friends and how we will get through this.
I work for the district and I for one think these teachers need to be found out and fired. They are probably some KEA cronies. Has there been a bunch of absences? Yes, but it is still better than being out of school or virtual. I spend so much time reteaching what my students did not learn during their virtual learning. I know on my campus the custodians are cleaning more and they are using the fogging machine 3 times as much as they use to use it. Since campuses are cleaned at night, I would really like to know how these people know there is no extra cleaning happening? What are they popping in at night and checking? No they are assuming, because they do it think there is more cleaning. I had to watch my coworker’s class and my class 2 weeks ago. Her students had work to do on Schoology and they had supervision while doing it. So yes there was still instruction happening. Students are not spending all day in the gym or auditorium. Maybe one or two classes, so that mean they are getting instruction in all their other classes. This is way better than if they were getting virtual instruction in all 6 classes. COVID is never going away. It so now like the flu, so we have to learn to deal with it. I am grateful to the district for staying open. In person of any kind is better than virtual will ever be.
Our school custodians have told us themselves that the rooms are not being cleaned like the district says they are. For about a month our school was short on custodians and they were only emptying trashcans, and sometimes not even that. They would come in during the morning to take the trash out from the previous day.
With the poor grammar that you wrote this response with, I highly doubt you are an educator.
Dr. Craft, is that you?!
Maybe taking out the trash more often, but not cleaning. How do I know? One day I was absent a kid drew on the grid lines on the floor, between the tiles, with a pencil. This was in October. I finally got tired of waiting and ran a Clorox wipe over it and instantly came off. If it had been mopped then it wouldn't be there.
I also end up having to wipe my desks myself because they're never cleaned. The wipes i use to clean them always come out dirty when I use them. If I didn't clean and disinfect my room, them it wouldn't be done period. I do see a new trash bag in here daily though.
Thank you to our teachers who are hanging in there through all of this madness. These comments are all true and let us not forget the instructional assistants who Maya calls aides. They are subbing students every single day and usually don't even know what grade they will be covering until they clock in. They are only 7.5 hr a day employees and don't get paid for lunch and yet the district is taking that thirty minutes pay every day even though they aren't getting time for lunch. They use that time to finally get a bathroom break and get organized for the rest of the day. Every day they are in a different class in a different grade. They often have more than one class if there is more than one teacher out. It is also true that there is no deep cleaning going on. The subs or instructional assistants or teachers are wiping desks down but floors are seldom mopped.
The true unsung heroes are the instructional aides. They are asked to substitute for teachers on an aides pay. Many times the aide has more than one class in a room. I believe these faithful hardworking people deserve to be paid at least what a substitute makes.
Substitute teacher pay is the same as Aide pay for the most part, there is very little difference in the pay rate based on education and certification. A certified teacher who works as a substitute makes $12 an hour, everything else is way below that. Walmart pays $14 to start and doesn't require experience or extensive background checks etc. which the substitutes and aides have to pay for out of pocket to even get hired. Oh and that's not even counting their training courses that they also have to pay out of pocket for. And they wonder why they cannot get and keep quality substitues and aides? Here is the link to the Aide and Substitute pay scale. https://www.killeenisd.org/WebData/DocumentViewer/Sub_Pay.pdf
I think the really difficult question I grapple with as a parent is trying to decide if I should or should not send a healthy child. Is my child better off missing school and staying safe at home without any online option? Can I really trust the school to keep my child safe with the way things are currently going? If they are going to be sitting in a gym all day not being taught by a real qualified teacher then why risk there health for them to be there at all?
Can you imagine what the numbers would be if the district accepted the results of the tests that THEY provide? It would paint a very, very different picture! I would venture to say that a majority of parents are going to places to get rapid tests done and they don't bother going to the doctor for a PCR test. Maybe the district should accept their test result and report those!
How many parents could even get into the doctor to get a PCR done? Our pediatrician is booked weeks out. With a positive rapid test is it fair for me to make other people sitting in the emergency room risk getting corona from up my child just so I could have a piece of paper from a doctor saying that they have coronavirus when I already know they have coronavirus. I wouldn’t feel right unnecessarily exposing people if my child is sick with coronavirus but still able to safely quarantine at home and get over it? Four out of five of my family members are in the process of getting over it after my 3rd grader brought it home from school. None of us have actually needed to see a doctor so far.
I almost choked on my food when I watched that video from Dr. Craft. When he said classes are being combined in the gym, auditorium, and cafeteria to receive high quality instruction from a KISD certified educator...Let me just say, there are very few people on the planet who can keep a group of 40-70+- middle/high school students quiet and learning all by themselves! It ain't happening! Those kids are put in one of those areas and the one teacher in there is just making sure no one starts fighting or swinging from the ceiling, or done other wildly inappropriate activity. They are just babysitting kids going they get through the day. We need to have a remote option. That will relieve a lot of pressure. The district needs to assign teachers to specifically do online classes only so there isn't teachers doing 2 full time jobs. But, as long as we keep playing politics with our kids we'll be in this boat!
This is a sad situation for all students and teachers. My child is 504 which is a federal program. She only had one teacher all week. In her math class they didn’t even have a sub, but one day. No combining classes or anything. It was all independent study video and they had papers over the new material with a test at the end of the week. For my student that has accommodations in place. None of these were met. These federal accommodations. I have already called and reported the school. Special Ed students unlike my daughter that in a contained classroom have an IEP that is supposed to be followed. That is yo be reported to the TEA. All of this mess going on at KIDD can be reported to the TEA and an investigator will come in.
We are failing these kids. We are failing these Teachers and School Staff Members. When we first moved here, a Secretary at HHHS thought the school system we came from was 'back water'. I explained to her that they had a phenomenal virtual & in person setup & that KISD was what would be considered 'back water'. Now it's a year later & even worse than back then! I don't understand why they make it out to be so hard to have quality virtual & in person learning here, in this part of Texas? Even a track program of in person learning would be better than this! These poor Teachers & Staff are being treated like garbage & you Parents are allowing it by not standing up & supporting their professional opinion. Your Children are being left behind... educationally & morally speaking. I do not care what your political views are. When it comes to your kids, you should move mountains to do right by them and, sadly, many here haven't and will not, all because they chose to make a pandemic political. Our children are our future and they deserve a good, quality education to provide them with a good chance at a good future. The Schools here also care more about Standardized Testing, than what's best for these kids to learn right now. The Staff that spoke up anonymously in this article are correct and their concerns should be heeded... before we have no one left to teach our kids at all. Please, if you're a Parent of Students in KISD, Speak out & Speak up at the meetings to get our Teachers & Kids what's best for them.
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