This just emphasizes the fact that even though kids will be definitely and significantly harmed if they don’t return to school, if the teachers aren’t convinced they’re safe, no plan matters. As we’ve already seen when discussing school shootings, even the most caring teachers have their limits, and dying for one’s students seems to be one, surprisingly enough.
Indeed, and this is direct quote from her: “I’m not paid enough to put my life on the line.”
Separately but related, we have a child that will be in 5th grade. He did very badly at distance learning this spring. Nevertheless we are close to deciding to put him in distance learning again. A safe child performing badly is better than a sick child performing well.
Unless there’s something serious, why would ou worry about your child getting sick? They have that risk every school year. More children have died from the flu than covid this year.
You are entitled to your own risk assessment, of course, but how far behind in school are you willing to let your child get for a pretty insignificant chance of serious illness?
Sophomores take 5 AP classes a year? That’s… intense. The most I ever took was 3, and that’s only because one of them was an automatic A for me.
Do these kids just roll into college with almost 2 years of credits under their belts, or have colleges done anything to compensate for this fact?
For me, at least, the concern is that school is going to be awful. My kid is fine academically, and I am confident we can keep him on track (we are a teacher family). But it’s looking like the logistics may be awful. Masks and plexiglass dividers and never leaving your classroom and none of the special stuff . . .field trips, assemblies. It sounds so stressful. Then there are logistics. My own school schedule is a complete unknown to me (different district). Two separate sets of totally unknown parameters we can’t plan for is very unsettling. What if I can’t drop him off until 8 but I have to be across town by 815 at the latest? What if he can’t rode the bus home? Do I want him riding the bus?
It just seems like what he gets out of wchool won’t be worth it, not for just a year.
We just don’t know enough. There are reports that COVID-19 causes mysterious, serious problems in some children. It’s just not a risk we want to take.
Well, I wouldn’t feel right trying to change your mind but if you look into it, you’ll find those mysterious things are also incredibly rare.
We don’t really know that they’re rare yet because kids haven’t had much exposure while in crowded school settings. When the schools all closed back in mid-March there were less than 25,000 cases in the US in total and most of those cases at that point were in just a handful of states that were hit hard and fast. Kids have been largely kept apart from kids outside their households since then. We don’t know what will happen if we send all the kids back with over twice as many cases being reported a day than to date when they were sent home.
Uh, yeah we do know they’re rare. What you’re saying is that we should worry there’s some quantitative amount of children interacting that will make it less rare.
While it’s true that they are rare, it’s also true that, near as I can tell, no one was holding school when the positivity rate was 15-20% and infections and hospitalizations were climbing every day–as it currently is in several large states. This is different.
Fuck, right now I’d be tempted to keep my son out just to make sure he doesn’t get flu–because flu is also a lot more dangerous when hospitals are approaching capacity, and I wouldn’t want to risk flu and COVID at the same time.
Well, cases are exploding in some places. I certainly can understand being freaked out, regardless of the exact odds.
Just on the news now was a story about immigrant children in ESL classes losing ground without in class work.
I really believe it’s important to get kids into class but I don’t envy you guys trying to plan that - while predicting the future with insanity all around.
We know minimally that lots of kids have been close contact exposed to lots of adults with COVID-19 just by way of being in households with them. There is no serious open question about kids getting seriously ill from SARS-CoV-2 and its post-infectious complications extremely rarely.
We humans are just very very bad at risk assessment.
Which do more kids die from every year?
- Drowning
- Influenza
0 voters
Drowning roughly six times more.
From gun deaths in
- Schools
- Their homes
0 voters
Deaths from
- shootings in schools in 2019
- COVID-19 all locations in the U.S.
0 voters
Shootings in school, but it is close. Both feared mightily but very rare events.
- Heat stroke deaths of children in cars
- COVID-19 pediatric deaths U.S. to date
0 voters
Heat stroke.
There is no reasonable expectation that the risk of kids catching infections in school, even young students, will be zero, and no reasonable expectation that the risk of spread from child to other child or to adult will be zero. But the many child motor vehicle accidents deaths (many hundreds more than COVID associated deaths) don’t stop parents from driving with their kids …
How are people supposed to prevent it from spreading to adults who, if lucky, are out of work for 2 weeks. If not so lucky, end up in the hospital or dead? That’s the problem. Not kids getting sick.
I wonder if any states will in the end just throw up their hands and say let’s take a year off – and off for everybody, to keep it fair. I’m guessing there is a next-to-zero chance any would, but I’d be curious to know if any would actually consider it.
Except you’d either have to pay people for doing nothing, or fire a significant part of the workforce. It’s not uncommon to have a sxhool district be the single largest employer in the area.
More reasonable would be to add an optional year at the end of elementary, middle and high schools for the next 5 years, for kids to catch up if they are behind.
A major point that has led pediatricians to advocate for school openings is that children do not seem to be very contagious.
Yes, I’m sure that employment would likely be among the largest reasons it would never be considered. But somehow that feels different to me than ‘lives versus money’, or however it’s characterized by many.
Of all the conclusions drawn, this is the one I am most unsure of, especially when there is a very high level of COVID in the community as a whole. Sure, each kid may be less likely to get it and spread it, but if every school perpetually has someone with COVID in the school, it seems like even very low transmission rates will still lead to a high absolute number of transmissions. And once an adult has it, it’s super contagious again and if R is over 1, well, there you go. Schools may not amplify, but they aren’t a firebreak, either.
Have any of the countries that have opened schools looked anything like TX, FL or AZ l9ok today? Honest question.
Less contagious is not zero. A study before lockdowns estimates that children under 10 were “half” as contagious. That’s not good enough. Also schools in places that performed much better than us had outbreaks such that they had to close down the school. Since the US is politically incapable of handling health policy, it will be a nightmare for us. Here’s an article from STAT with links to studies and outbreaks: How likely are kids to get Covid-19? Scientists see a ‘huge puzzle’
Yes, so bad that even when that point was granted already it has to be harped again as if that makes the concern of the older teachers, staff and other people that will increase contacts to help students to go away.