Beautiful.

Would love to see the sources of the unaltered data. Any links?

MS/HS math teacher here.

Biggest concern is that the students are coming in with a fundamental lack of understanding what it means to be human. Yes, COVID messed us up and set a good cohort of kids back some years. Yes, some of my students deal with generational poverty and societal issues that are often adjacent to that poverty. But hot damn...I see 7th graders who act as if they've never seen a parent actually parent before. There is a wholesale mentality that personal responsibility isn't a thing, and it ends up biting these students once they hit high school and end up having to retake classes they've failed. (Because, you know, that doesn't happen until high school level.). And even though a good percentage of the kids do have issues, giving them rewards simply for showing up to class (no joke--they even get "scribes" to write for them), is not setting the students up for anything other than a massive sense of entitlement.

I’ve heard of Starlink but never seen a convoy of satellites moving in such a pattern.

Have people actually never heard of these?

Weird. I Googled images and it totally looked like what came up.

I agree personal observations are not meaningful but it takes a 10 second google search to find meaningful peer reviewed studies.

Starlink satellites.

I'm looking at this, but my roof situation doesn't work because of the trees, siting, etc. It's not just cutting my own down, it's my neighbors' trees, too.

However I have a place in my back yard where a (mostly) stationary installation would work. I say mostly stationary because it's south-facing and I'd have to adjust the slope higher in the spring and lower in the fall for best power. (Friends from work do this.)

Do any of these companies do installations like this?

Not sure; I didn't see for myself. Perhaps it was Skylink?

Gotcha.

The state doesn't have the resources to have all testing in house. This self reporting is a very common practice in all agricultural practices across the state.

It sucks some people got sick but imagine the costs of weed if that needed to offset state employees doing all the testing at a state run lab.

In my best Boomer voice I say, "really cold?" Really cold was my first winter after moving to Vermont when there were 30 days straddling January/February that never made it above zero, and bottomed out at 35 below zero.

Boomer anecdotes aside, and I'm sure non-transplant Vermonters or especially those from outside of Chittenden County have colder stories, I'll agree with others that you have to look at averages over time. We used to get below zero regularly, it only happens occasionally now. It's so memorable when it does because it is so seldom.

I love trout fishing and the last three years of no snow melt combined with little rainfall have really beat up the streams. The water heats up and gets low by the beginning of May now. We used to have good stream flows well into June, but now it’s over in a month.

The climate is changing but it’s not a record low snow depth.

You're right. I'm also wrong about Indian Giver, I've always understood it as a gift that is taken back, not the expectation of a reciprocal gift. Thanks for correcting me.

The system allowed for this to happen in th first place is my point.

The grower tested it and submitted the results. Slight but important difference.

I’ve been teaching as an elementary classroom teacher for the last 4 years, but I’ve been working in VT schools for the last 10 as a 1:1 behavioral support interventionist (middle and elementary).

What I’m seeing now is that students are on a whole less socialized as they come into public schools. I attribute it to COVID and more kids who aren’t as socialized as a result of not doing preschool and spending more time at home. The last few years, I’ve seen our school’s kindergarten classrooms struggle with larger numbers of students who have very little sense of behavioral or emotional regulation. They had little to no routine or schedule at home, were often given free reign to do what they wanted, and lacked many of the skills required to follow directions, compromise, share, etc. that kindergarten typically requires to be smooth. (I very much do NOT blame parents; COVID, sickness, quarantining, closed daycares and preschools and financial constraints have made it incredibly difficult to raise a child at home with consistency, understandings of consequences, and certain social skills. When you’re burnt out, it becomes super hard to hold your kids accountable).

As far as how schools manage behaviors, it varies wildly by school and by district. The school I work at has lots of talented behavioral specialists and special educators and are working their butts off to make our current cohort of kindergarteners ready for 1st grade, and things have definitely been getting smoother.

Before I was a teacher I worked for CYFS out the HowardCenter and worked in schools across Chittenden county as a behavioral interventionist. I always saw the manner in which schools address and respond to student behaviors as a pretty wide spectrum.

Some rely heavily on outside organizations like Howard Center to pick up the slack, but some districts like South Burlington employ their own board certified Applied Behavioral Analysts to write behavior plans for students that need it.

Some are incredibly proactive and spend a lot of time making sure staff are using the same short hand language, focusing on the same behavioral/social skills, and following the same expectations school wide. Others just let teachers handle it in their own way as they see fit.

Ultimately, my biggest concern is how parents are able to support their children in the years leading up to public school, especially for oldest or only children. Lack of structure and consistency is causing our kindergarten teachers to have to play catch up in order to have a classroom in which learning can happen safely and calmly. (Definitely not for all families/students, but for more than usual).

Feel free to AMA.

I'm most concerned about my trans and fat students.

My mother was a public school teacher, mine for many years. She always ended up spending her own money on class supplies. There is a lack of money and eventually they told her to stop writing her own curriculum and teach what was in the packet. That and no child left behind made her decide she had enough teaching.

The whole "no recourse for bad behavior" is what scares me about the most about coming back to the US to teach (currently teaching at an Int'll school in Malaysia).

I'm totally on board with guiding kids through their problems, but there are limits to that. Some kids need to be read the riot and act and forced to do something unpleasant in order to correct their behavior.

Obligatory not a teacher. That said, this is how I see it and what I've gathered based on my info gathering.

Schools/admin aren't able (or willing in most cases) to address student behavior at all. The local school has a HUGE bullying problem even starting at the 3rd grade. It's "left to the parents" and if a kid is bullying they are obviously learning it somewhere.

So you end up in this...awful downward spiral. The behavior issues makes teachers leave/move but the position doesn't pay enough and isn't in line with the current rental/housing market so we aren't bringing in any qualified teachers or support staff.

No support staff means more work for teachers so more teachers leave and in the end we've got people with poor classroom management skills (because we aren't hiring "highly qualified" anymore, we are hiring "whomever will take it"). And then things get even worse and just keep spiraling.

Add to this the shit being taught (per state or federal standards) that's super not developmentally appropriate making kids feel either stupid or bored and it makes it even WORSE. Like, K kiddos are being taught how to write persuasive essays. Half the kids can't even READ yet.

Are there still some amazing teachers here? Absolutely. But it boggles my mind that anyone is sticking around honestly. It's gotta be impossible, demoralizing, and just straight up awful.

It was really really cold like 2 weeks ago so idk what your point is

Not a teacher, but a SO of someone who recently left teaching. It’s brutal out there for teachers right now.

High expectations, high stress, low support, low respect. I’m not optimistic about the future of our country’s education.

How so?