Also . . .
Those are very sensible recommendations. There are LOTS of sensible recommendations we haven’t been able to follow because 5-day a week school for all has to be the priority for all. Just in the last few days, it’s starting to occur to the powers that be that Texas is on fire and maybe that’s a bad idea. So we are scrambling.
I am so burned out about “sensible plans for how to react if the data hits key points”. Texas did that. Then totally ignored it. So it’s hard to trust anything.
Agree with both posts.
There is a selection bias that these are the kids who are most likely to not be mitigating well, and then putting them together more … like putting those who want to get drunk together in a bar. Yeah they might behave badly without a bar open but the harms are amplified if it is.
It is undeniable that rational plans won’t work if no one actually implements the rational plans.
Also like a bar, some people that might have behaved more sensibly will be under pressure to come out, now that there is a thing to go to. You don’t miss football practice in Texas. If you do, you don’t play.
This, really, is why teachers are so resistant. It’s not that they don’t trust the science, they don’t trust the system. And it’s not unfounded.
We could design a system where under 12s had something approaching normal school, with small classes. We could have redesigned distance learning to be more automated, need fewer teachers. It would have suffered in quality, but it would have been okay. And the other teachers could have been reassigned to teach littles, with a experienced elementary teacher mentor next store, allowing smaller classes. I have long thought this would solve the largest set of problems. Maybe add open work areas where bigger kids could get computers and food and work on distance learning. (And escape abuse).
But that would have involved making decisions that would have made people unhappy. We’ve avoided all of those. I am so disgusted.
That’s exactly the type of setup I was thinking would be a fairly decent quick fix. It’s nuts that partisan politics has fucked you people up right down to the damn county school board level.
Honestly, local school boards have generally been sensible and on point. Dallas has made the right moves consistently. But the state has undermined every effort.
Several articles have mentioned how some health organizations are worried about children’s mental health if they don’t go back to school. But they don’t mention how children’s mental health might be affected if they did go back to school during a pandemic.
According to this study out of Sweden, where schools haven’t closed, children are worried about the coronavirus. Children as young as 4 years old participated and had thoughts about the situation.
Going to school hasn’t alleviated children’s worry.
For any schools still attempting to open in mid-August, this isn’t helpful. CDC School Guidance Won't Be Released This Week, NPR Has Learned : Coronavirus Updates : NPR
Uh, ok. You really think “worried about covid” is the mental health concern pediatricians are worried about or think they can solve at all? Kids are going to worry about covid because it’s on TV all the time and their parents are worried. It has nothing to do with school.
Not entirely. Being at home and knowing you can’t go to places because of COVID is really different than being at school where COVID awareness is hammered endlessly all day: teachers acting as mask police, constant reminders to stay six feet apart, teachers visibly scared to come within six feet of you or anyone else. School periodically cancelled because “someone” has it. Teachers out for weeks at a time. A basic tone that following the rules is literally a matter of life or death.
School is going to be rough.
I don’t think it’s obviously true that being forced to stay home and seeing mom and dad forced to stay home is a less worry inducing situation.
I don’t think staying home feels “forced” to a kid. It feels normal, just a lot more of it than usual. At home, there are long stretches of time where you can forget about COVID. When it’s just not relevant. At school, in a mask, constantly monitoring your six foot bubble, you’ll never be able to forget about it. It will be a constant stress.
In the big picture, it’s a small element, but for kids who have a safe home, school is going to be much more stressful.
Well, I don’t think children should be masked and six foot bubbled in school. Not under ten years old. Most certainly not the four year olds in the linked article.
My son is PUMPED for the virtual school to start. He’s looking at it like an adventure he can experience in his PJs. The kids he hangs out with at school have been doing ZOOM since school let out back in March. He is looking forward to going back when it’s safe and he’s smart enough to know right now it’s not. We’ve had over a thousand positive cases reported, 12% have been minors, in the past four days. He is rationally afraid of this virus, especially knowing the people closest to him are higher risk for severe complications. Considering the school can’t guarantee social distancing and won’t be requiring masks and will continue contact sports he knows it’s best to stay home for now. At his school they are starting August 10th. They can do virtual school if they choose and they will do this nine weeks, then they will decide if they should continue it. I’m afraid they won’t and it will cause another surge. For some reason people have it in their heads that kids can’t catch this or transmit it. I know it’s low but FFS if you have a school full of kids how many are you willing to risk and hope they just get the asymptomatic or low symptom cases?
I can’t help but think we’re putting politics and money over people’s health and it’s just not right. Endangering teachers and support staff like this doesn’t seem like a really bright idea either.
Did your son do remote school end of last year? How was that?
Our elementary school district just sent us email saying that their plan (subject to how the numbers look… we were doing pretty well with not too many new cases and then we just literally had a jump yesterday… we’ll see if the numbers start growing again) was to do 5 days a week with smaller classroom sizes (<20/class) because the board of trustees has allowed them to hire more teachers (they described briefly where the funding was going to come from – a combo of getting rid of “specialist” teachers (who couldn’t do the modified day anyway because they’d mix between different cohorts of kids) and state/federal aid, it looks like, though I don’t have any numbers so I don’t know how realistic this is). I’m rather impressed, it sounds like people have been working really hard on this. I also don’t know where they are going to have all these classes.
My younger child was set to go to K in this district but now I’m also applying to the same private school my older one goes to, which is super small (the entire school is 40 kids), as I think it would limit exposure if both kids were at one very small school, and they’re also more amenable to things like having classes outside (which wouldn’t work so well for a public school, I am guessing).
Unlike all the other kids in her class, who all had a really hard time with it, my older child loved remote school and would probably rather do that than in-person school. She is ASD though, so, as the school director remarked when we had a zoom meeting, remote school has all the good things about school for her (math!) without all the things that annoy her (other kids).But she does need to be with other kids, and I have noticed that when she does a lot of screen time (like all her zoom classes) she gets super grumpy.
Governor Newsom just announced that all schools in California counties on the “watch list” must open with distance learning. That’s about half the counties in the state, and all the urban and suburban ones.
According to this article, some medical experts say that kids can spread the coronavirus, and there’s not enough evidence about the difference in ages that kids can get it and spread it. Some surmise that children might be more dangerous to the spread of the disease since they are often asymptomatic but may still be able to transmit the disease.
Children as young as 2 months old can get coronavirus, something this mother wasn’t prepared for.
Two stories of parents struggling with the decision about sending their kids back to school. The first one is a personal story. The second is a bit of a snarky take on the predicament, admitting they are in a privileged position that leaves them more options.
Well, that’ll shut up all those people saying kids are 100% immune and 100% not contagious.
Oh. Hm. I’m in one of those counties, so I guess disregard my entire last post.
Oh, that doesn’t look good.