Most people who regularly post on here know that I’ve been a strong advocate for opening most Colorado schools in-person this fall. I attended a meeting last night that has caused me to drastically shift my opinion on this matter. I still believe that in-person school is the most effective route of providing education and should be what we need to shoot for. I also still believe that a district, with proper planning and resources, can safely provide in-person education this fall. What I saw last night leads me to believe that in-person education is going to be incredibly ineffective, a complete clusterfuck, and will be discontinued weeks into the school year because district and school leadership have absolutely zero clue what they are doing and instead of having an actual plan with details and contingencies and specifics have an loosely organized system.

Questions that were unable to be answered include:

1. If test results take 8-10 days to return, when do members of a student’s cohort more to remote learning? Upon a classmate having COVID symptoms or upon test results?

2. Will proper medical PPE be provided to special ed teachers needing to feed, toilet, and transfer high needs students?

3. What happens if a student shows up without a mask?

4. Is there enough hand sanitizer and soap available?

5. Will school nurses be able to write orders for students and staff to receive COVID testing at local testing sites?

6. If a class of students needs to go remote during the middle of the school year, how will the school help transition them from in-person to remote? How will they get quick access to learning materials and tech during the transition?

7. (Current plan is to move a class to remote learning if a student in class tests positive) Do you have a plan to move students who have had contact with a positive student outside of class to remote learning? Actual answer: “I don’t see how they could have that contact” What about contact through sports or clubs or social interactions? No answer

8. (Current plan is to have janitorial staff clean rooms while teachers have plan periods) Have you hired additional janitors to provide this cleaning? Answer: No

9. Where will teachers go to conduct their planning period if their room is being deep cleaned during planning?

I’m sure I am missing a few. These are basic fucking logistical questions. I’m still in favor of districts with well-formulated plans and specific details moving forward. This nonsense of “We’re doing a cohort model!” Well how does that work? “Not a clue” is straight BS that leads me to believe that the plan for some districts was to hope it went away by fall and when it didn’t they threw out the first plan they thought of, left out the details, and called it a day. If districts and admin aren’t going to make sure that in-person school has the best chances possible of being effective given the circumstances, it’s not even worth bothering. Districts should follow BVSD and immediately begin formulating how to setup supervision plans for families without other options, because one way or another we are dead set on a path that will doom a generation of low income students to perpetual poverty and other negative outcomes.

Newly reported deaths
Today: 1
Yesterday: 6
One week ago (7/09): 2

Newly reported cases
T: 571
Y: 469
7/09: 409

Newly reported tests
T: 8126
Y: 6220
7/09: 6437

Current hospitalizations
T: 260 (+13)
Y: 247
7/09: 202

Hospitalizations PUI
T: 129 (+8)
Y: 121
7/09: 116

• Totals: 38,726 (cases); 1,745 (deaths among cases); 421,313 (tests)
  
• As per CDPHE’s website; “Data is updated daily by about 4 p.m. and includes cases reported through the previous day.”
  
• (Source) https://covid19.colorado.gov/data/case-data

The following article is only the result of the experiences from friends, colleagues, engineers and managers I've worked with. It has to be taken with a grain of salt.

My background: Tech Lead / Cloud Architect / Fullstack engineer (Europe / US)

Disclaimer: the following article deals with Agile but it can be applied to quite anything.

The real topic being "What we think of something becomes that something"

The bad side

Agile today is more than a set of methodologies and frameworks. It's a way to convince developers to come work for you. I see the word Agile in absolutely all the job descriptions recruiters send me.

And it's understandable. We can all agree that Agile is very attractive nowadays.

Therefore, it's in a company's interest to tell you how Agile it is.

Let's call this hypothetical company AgileCorpInc (tip: the best way to prove everyone that you are Agile is to add it in the company name)

I see three possibilities:

1. AgileCorpInc is actually Agile

2. AgileCorpInc is not Agile but believes it is

3. AgileCorpInc is not Agile and is trying to trick you into believing it is

Worst case

Let's talk about number 2 because I believe it is the worst case.

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You might be familiar with the No True Scotsman argument (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

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Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."

Person A: "But no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."

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In the case of Agile, you can have the following example

Person A: "Doing such thing is not Agile"

Person B: "My team was Agile and did such thing"

Person A: "Your team was not truly Agile"

Why do we have that sort of conversation? I believe the reasons to be:

* Few people know what Agile means

* Bad managers use the word Agile to mislead the team into doing what the manager wants (- Do that. - Why? - Because it's Agile)

* Many people think Agile means Flexible and don't look any further

A bit of sass

The following is an example of conversation that I have whenever a tech manager/leader mentions the word Agile:

Manager: We are Agile.

Me: Oh really, great. Do you like it?

Manager: Oh yeah we love it.

Me: What does it mean to be Agile?

Manager (most of the time): *doesn't know what to say + mentions scrum*

Hurtful for the beginners

Pretending to be Agile is messing with the beginners.

Take Alex. Alex got their first job. They are a software developper.

Interestingly enough, their team was falsely advertised as being Agile.

Alex spends 2 years in that company, thinking they are Agile.

Alex was given erroneous views of what Agile is.

Best case: Alex will correct their views when switching job.

Worst case: Alex will propagate their erroneous views when switching job.

What are the real causes

* bad managers using the concept of Agile to manipulate the team

* lack of research / following your colleagues blindly

* misunderstanding of what Agile is

Agile bingo

* We are Agile because we do standups/retros/reviews

* We are Agile because we use complexity points

* We are Agile because we use burdown charts / jira / such tool

Difference between Europe and the US (opinionated)

In Europe, the agility of your team is as good as the least Agile developers

* Agile only works if your team trully believes in it. The goal is to educate the team and let it self-organize.

In the US, the agility of your team is as good as the least Agile boss/leader

* Your boss has the final word (over generalization). Things go their way. If you disagree, well that's too bad

Personal point of view

I love the Agile methodologies because they create solutions and workarounds to a lot of problems.

I think it's a shame that false-Agile is used to manipulate developers into working in -sometimes- top/down paradigms (the do-as-I-say-because-it's-agile dogma).

I'm saddened that some developers think Agile sucks because of erroneous experiences that were not Agile

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Did you experienced the false-Agile fallacy?

When was your best / worst experience?