Thread by @theatomicmom

1/ I feel a thread coming on. @NMPED pull up a chair ... this concerns you.

This op-ed was published in the @ABQJournal yesterday about kids not losing academic progress over the course of this year.

Go ahead read it, then we'll come back and talk:

2/ As a mother and former school teacher, I call bull on this. Absolute and total bull.

Case in point. My 2 sons are special needs. They are on IEPs for developmental delays. Both were improving & meeting their IEP goals last spring when @GovMLG mistakenly shut down schools.

3/ They were both only a year to six months behind their peers as far as academics were concerned. Son #1 was also improving on his social goals, which were also part of his IEP.

4/ Both of them have regressed this last year, despite all of our efforts.

Son #1: is now in a full SpEd class instead of in a regular class. He'll be that way next year as well. He is ~2 grade levels behind his peers & has yet to meet face to face with his SpEd teacher this yr

5/ Son #2: had to be withdrawn from school b/c remote school almost destroyed him & me. He also regressed 2 grade levels from Spring 2020 to start of school 2020. I now homeschool him. He's doing well, but it is a daily struggle.

6/ If Son #2 can go back to school next year, he will still be far behind his peers. I'm mostly upset because his teacher this year, had he stayed, was a god-send, angle of a teacher, who said, she couldn't even make remote school work.

7/ So, @NMPED, if you want to sit in your ivory towers & tell us there has been no learning lost, go ahead. But you are dead wrong abt it. There has been lost opportunity, progress, socialization, loss of life (youth suicide, 2nd in the nation). So. Much. Lost.

8/ I've never lived in a place so mismanaged & so corrupt as #NewMexico. The @NMPED @GovMLG & @NMDEMS are to blame for the colossal failure of #covid19 response & policy in this state. All of them have blood on their hands.

End/ I don't know what the future holds for my family. But I do know this. If people in #NewMexico keep voting for Democrats this state will continue to fail its citizens, and that is the true crime ... so much wasted potential & opportunity. It's the Land of Misery.

9/ My kids will make it because we have resources, & we create our own opportunity. But many kids will not, because they do not have resources & opportunity. In "keeping us safe from #covid19" you've actually destroyed us & a generation of kids.