Opening schools

[Fretful_Porpentine]

@TriPolar

I’d love to hear a reason why schools should re-open when there is any risk at all. Other than parents wanting to be relieved of the burden of raising their kids anyway. What is the horrible problem that must be avoided by sending kids to school during a pandemic?

Kids not getting educated? You do realize that, while online teaching can work OK for older students who have a home computer, a decent Internet connection, and parental support, it doesn’t work well for the very young, the families whose only online access is through a smartphone and a cellular connection, and those whose parents can’t supervise their education effectively (for reasons that may be no fault of their own – for example, if the parents can’t read or write well, there’s basically no chance that the child will learn to read or write well outside of a school setting). Shutting down schools for an extended period of time widens the educational gap between the haves and have-nots, which was already massive.

Besides, there are kids who depend on school breakfasts and lunches to get enough to eat, and there are kids in abusive or neglectful homes whose only connection with a dependable adult is through school.

[Magiver]

@HMS_Irruncible

This is poor reasoning unimproved by any evidence whatsoever.

We know children are less affected by the virus. But there’s no solid evidence that they don’t spread the virus. And schools are not hermetically sealed capsules; …

I would say schools ARE hermetically sealed capsules in the sense that the building themselves become enclosed locations of concentrated aerosol medium.

New York is seeing theirlargest increase in hospital patients from people sheltering in place. A large proportion of their deaths were from nursing homes which were also enclosed locations.

I think it was wise to close school buildings both in retrospect of limited knowledge of how it spread and also in the current state of knowledge of how it’s spread.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@Fretful_Porpentine

Kids not getting educated? You do realize that, while online teaching can work OK for older students who have a home computer, a decent Internet connection, and parental support, it doesn’t work well for the very young, the families whose only online access is through a smartphone and a cellular connection, and those whose parents can’t supervise their education effectively (for reasons that may be no fault of their own – for example, if the parents can’t read or write well, there’s basically no chance that the child will learn to read or write well outside of a school setting). Shutting down schools for an extended period of time widens the educational gap between the haves and have-nots, which was already massive.

As you say, there’s already a wide gap between the haves and the have-nots. School absenteeism is a huge problem in many places. Based on this article, in many poor neighborhoods, over 50% of kids in impoverished districts don’t show up for a lot of school.
The Long-Term Consequences of Missing School
Six million children are chronically absent, half of whom are enrolled at just 4 percent of the nation’s school districts.

They’re being left behind the other kids who are in school. But if everyone is not in school, then the people who are ahead are the people who can afford tutors over the internet or have the temperament to teach them themselves, which isn’t everyone. Are they getting more left behind? Maybe. But maybe not that much worse than it was.

@Fretful_Porpentine

Besides, there are kids who depend on school breakfasts and lunches to get enough to eat, and there are kids in abusive or neglectful homes whose only connection with a dependable adult is through school.

Those two things should get fixed, with or without school. If there are ways to get meals to seniors, there should be a way to get meals to kids. Early in the lockdown, I had heard of schools that were still preparing meals for the kids to pick up. Or maybe giving money directly to parents who can then afford to buy food for their kids.

Leaving a kid in an abusive home because they can get away for a few hours a day doesn’t sound ideal.

In many areas, the lockdown is highlighting structural problems with how things are done. Maybe there are other ways to fix some of the dysfunction.

[TriPolar]

@Fretful_Porpentine

Kids not getting educated? You do realize that, while online teaching can work OK for older students who have a home computer, a decent Internet connection, and parental support, it doesn’t work well for the very young, the families whose only online access is through a smartphone and a cellular connection, and those whose parents can’t supervise their education effectively (for reasons that may be no fault of their own – for example, if the parents can’t read or write well, there’s basically no chance that the child will learn to read or write well outside of a school setting). Shutting down schools for an extended period of time widens the educational gap between the haves and have-nots, which was already massive.

Besides, there are kids who depend on school breakfasts and lunches to get enough to eat, and there are kids in abusive or neglectful homes whose only connection with a dependable adult is through school.

Assuming even home education is necessary then the deficiencies can be taken care of. In the worst cases buses could pick up the few kids who can’t be provided with the proper technology or home environment.

But I argue that it is still unnecessary, kids can take a break from school, maybe even miss a while school year if need be. They’ll go back to school, they’ll get right back in the swing of things, they’ll even be a year older and do better. There’s nothing magic about school years, starting in September, or any other problem. Just keep paying teachers and staff if you want, the budget requirements won’t change when school picks up again.

[MandaJo]

@TriPolar

I’d love to hear a reason why schools should re-open when there is any risk at all. Other than parents wanting to be relieved of the burden of raising their kids anyway. What is the horrible problem that must be avoided by sending kids to school during a pandemic?

I don’t think you can dismiss the economic impact as “parents wanting to be relieved of the burden”. People need to WORK. On a macro level, we need people back at work. We need them making stuff, earning money, spending money. There’s a lot of people who can’t work if there’s no where to send their kids. And if stay closed for another extended period, we are either paying tons of people for doing nothing, or laying off even more (lots of people, like teachers, are still working from home, but others are really having to scramble to appear busy (bus drivers, cafeteria workers, learning specialists, etc.)

The educational impact is also no joke. There’s a lot of slack in the system, and I honestly believe that we can “catch up” from having lost half a semester. But I think it will take two full years for most cohorts to do so: today’s 3rd graders will be testing behind until at least the end of their 5th grade year. Another semester and we are reaching the end of that slack.

Finally, as mentioned by Fretful Porpentine, public schools have long taken on the job of front-line social work: we monitor kids for abuse, provide meals, etc. We put kids and families in touch with other social services. Fuck, every high school I know these days has a “closet” somewhere for kids to pick up food and clothes and toiletries if needed. As the social safety net has stretched thinner, schools have taken on this role.

That said, before we open schools, I think there are some realities that need to be dealt with.

If it’s only safe with strict social distancing, it’s not safe. Masks could probably be enforced, but not distancing. LOOSE social distancing is probably an achievable goal, IMHO. But there would be lots and lots of lapses --which still is better than nothing.

There’s a real problem with existing illnesses and allergies. If every teacher or student who has any sort of cold or allergies has to stay home until they are symptom free, it’s going to be a mess. It’s easy to say “stay home if you are sick”, but I have a few kids every year that are literally snotty every day, because they have allergies. I have at least one mild cold a year, and from “first trace of a sore throat” to “no symptoms at all” is seven days.

What’s the plan if someone does test positive? Close the school? Send home contacts for a two week quarantine? In high school, at least, a kid may share classes with 100 other kids. A teacher probably sees 150.

If we decide surface transmission is a thing, it’s a huge problem. We don’t have the staff to clean the building thoroughly; we don’t have enough books for kids not to share. We don’t have enough working sinks.

[DSeid]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

… I’m not sure why the cabinet member says that any school is “exremely unlikely” to be the source of an outbreak. I would think it would be as likely as any activity where people get together indoors.

There’s a lot of emphasis on children not getting Covid-19, which is good. But less attention is paid to the teachers and staff who may be at risk. I can understand why they wouldn’t want to become the next round of (generally low-paid) front line workers who are risking their lives on little known information.

The “extremely unlikely” is based on the complete lack of evidence to date that children are major contributors to the spread of this germ. Now to be sure “lack of evidence” ≠ “evidence of lack” … but there is more and more for latter position and none for the former. IF it continues to become increasingly clearer that children are much less contagious than are adults, than are children with influenza, then a forward facing job in a school setting would clearly be less risky than a forward facing job dealing with other adults in other workplace and social circumstances. Teachers might want to limit their contact with other staff to a greater degree than to the students.

It is already extremely well established that children are at very little risk of getting seriously ill with COVID-19, non-zero, serious cases, inclusive of the multisystem inflammatory cases, happen, but to a small fraction if the number of serious cases that happen to kids from influenza every year. So indeed the only defense in the keep closed schools side of the discussion is the possibility kids should go without in-school education and school-based services because it has not yet been completely proven that they would not be major sources the germ to school staff or to their families.

@TriPolar

I’d love to hear a reason why schools should re-open when there is any risk at all. …

By this logic there should never be any in-school education. Going to school, going outside, staying inside … breathing … all have risks under in all times.

We do not keep schools closed for the risk of pediatric severe disease and deaths from influenza (176 deaths last season). There have been in comparison a handful of pediatric deaths associated with COVID-19. Tragic each one to be sure, and “only” is an inappropriate word if considering even a single child death, but in comparison to seasonal influenza and the number of children in this country, a very small number.

We do not keep schools closed because of how much kids spread seasonal influenza around: they are documented major vectors for community spread there. It appears that if children spread SARS-CoV-2 they do so fractionally as much as they do influenza.

We send kids to school despite these risks every fall, winter, and spring, because education by trained teachers in person with peers is of major value across many levels.

[TriPolar]

@MandaJo

I don’t think you can dismiss the economic impact as “parents wanting to be relieved of the burden”. People need to WORK. On a macro level, we need people back at work. …

I don’t disagree. This is just another problem that should be addressed. This and the social work aspect you mention later are unfortunately the only real reasons I see for a rush to return children to school, not educational reasons.

The educational impact is also no joke. There’s a lot of slack in the system, and I honestly believe that we can “catch up” from having lost half a semester. But I think it will take two full years for most cohorts to do so: today’s 3rd graders will be testing behind until at least the end of their 5th grade year. Another semester and we are reaching the end of that slack.

I don’t think so. Everybody will just finish up their education a little later than they would otherwise. There will be some problems getting the system back up and running again, but it shouldn’t be hard to focus on that by setting realistic priorities.

The idea of ‘testing behind’ is artificial. There are no magic age for when children can learn, they won’t be testing behind their fellow classmates who have also been on hiatus. There’s no catch up to do. They will test just fine for the level of education they’ve had. They don’t have to catch up to anything, they’ll stay in school a little longer than they would have prior to this event. It won’t hurt anybody to start college or working a little later.

Finally, as mentioned by Fretful Porpentine, public schools have long taken on the job of front-line social work: we monitor kids for abuse, provide meals, etc. We put kids and families in touch with other social services. Fuck, every high school I know these days has a “closet” somewhere for kids to pick up food and clothes and toiletries if needed. As the social safety net has stretched thinner, schools have taken on this role.

Like the burden on parents this is a separate problem that we should be dealing with.

That said, before we open schools, I think there are some realities that need to be dealt with.

…

All great issues you stated here. I don’t see good answers yet. If I had young kids now I’d home school them if at all possible before rushing them back to the school environment. And I think we should be doing more to make remote education possible with the school resources we have. There’s no reason we can’t make sure nearly every student has a computer with reasonable online access along with enough to eat, and as I mentioned before, the few exceptions can be handled by taking those students into schools which would have plenty of space for social distancing.

[TriPolar]

@DSeid

By this logic there should never be any in-school education. Going to school, going outside, staying inside … breathing … all have risks under in all times.

Ok, I didn’t specify the unknown risk level for COVID-19. Now looking at this reasonably, what is the need to rush kids back to school? I contend it’s not educational. The kids lives will be just fine if they graduate from high school a year later than they would have in the past.

If we have no way to deal with the other issues, parents who can’t otherwise take care of their children when they are working and using schools as the social safety net for underprivileged children then we should be addressing those actual issues and trying to do something about them. Pretending that education is the major problem here is just another way to ignore these problems. And these are problems that themselves are a major hindrance to education for many.

[MandaJo]

I honestly cannot imagine what would happen if we delayed graduation for a year. Colleges and universities would go bankrupt, for one thing. Do we furlough all the teachers and other workers? And if we took a whole year off, they’d lose more than a year, for sure. And of course there is no central authority:states and local school boards have the finally say. The system just doesn’t have the flexibility for that so of bold stroke. And what if there isn’t a vaccine in a year? We delay again?

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@DSeid

The “extremely unlikely” is based on the complete lack of evidence to date that children are major contributors to the spread of this germ. Now to be sure “lack of evidence” ≠ “evidence of lack” … but there is more and more for latter position and none for the former.

I disagree. Based on this article dated May 17, 2020, there are conflicting studies. You may have discounted or discredited these studies, but there’s not a complete lack of evidence. I guess you could define “major contributor” as more than just as likely to spread the disease as an adult, although there would be no reason to do that.

Scientists divided over coronavirus risk to children if schools reopen
Some studies show pupils are less likely to become ill if infected, while others show they are as infectious as adults

The most striking feature about the impact of Covid-19 on children is how little research has been conducted in the field. Only a handful of studies have been carried out across the world, and scientists are divided over their interpretation.
. . .
It is known that children are less likely to become ill if infected with the coronavirus but researchers are still unsure how easily they can infect others. Some research indicates that children are far less likely to become infected compared with adults but other studies suggest that when they do become infected, they carry as much viral load as an adult, and therefore pose a real risk of passing the virus on to others.

Some studies show a low infection rate among children. One study has shown no difference among age groups.

Dr Alasdair Munro, a paediatric infectious disease expert at University Hospital Southampton, also favours an early return to school. To support the idea, he highlighted a key study carried out in the Italian town of Vò, where there was a major Covid-19 outbreak in February.
. . .
Other studies in Iceland, Norway and South Korea have also found very low rates of infected children in communities. However, these findings contrast with last week’s Office of National Statistics’ disclosure that in its testing of 10,000 individuals in the UK, it found “no evidence” of differences between age groups in the proportions of those testing positive.

Additionally, while some people argue that children are less able to infect others since they often are not exhibiting symptoms, one study showed that the viral load that children are carrying is no different than other age groups.

In addition, there is the question of the amount of virus that a child might carry, which would indicate how easily he or she could go on to infect others. If children have lower viral loads than those typically carried by an adult, children would pose less of a risk in boosting infections rate.
. . .
However, research carried out by a team led by German coronavirus expert Christian Drosten at the Charité hospital in Berlin found no significant difference between any age categories, including children. “Viral loads in the very young do not differ significantly from those of adults. Based on these results, we have to caution against an unlimited re-opening of schools and kindergartens in the present situation. Children may be as infectious as adults.”
. . .
By contrast, a study – by Kirsty Short at the University of Queensland – has found that children are rarely the first to bring an infection into a household.

From the German study: [pdf file]

Analysis of variance of viral loads in patients of different age categories
found no significant difference between any pair of age categories including children. In
particular, these data indicate that viral loads in the very young do not differ significantly from
those of adults. Based on these results, we have to caution against an unlimited re-opening of
schools and kindergartens in the present situation. Children may be as infectious as adults.

There is some evidence that children are just as infectious as adults. While children don’t generally become as ill as adults, there is a study that shows that they are infected at the same rate. IF that’s true, they can become the source of the spread of the disease.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@DSeid

The “extremely unlikely” is based on the complete lack of evidence to date that children are major contributors to the spread of this germ. Now to be sure “lack of evidence” ≠ “evidence of lack” … but there is more and more for latter position and none for the former. IF it continues to become increasingly clearer that children are much less contagious than are adults, than are children with influenza, then a forward facing job in a school setting would clearly be less risky than a forward facing job dealing with other adults in other workplace and social circumstances.

Oh wait. . . . I just realized your OP says the same thing I just posted above. But it doesn’t seem to be consistent with your current claim.

@DSeid

Science article.

… The evidence from studies done so far is not consistent. Researchers in Iceland, one of the few countries to conduct mass screening, turned up no infections in 848 children under the age of 10 without significant symptoms, compared with an infection rate of nearly 1% in ages 10 and older. A U.S. analysis of nearly 150,000 infected people found that just 1.7% were under age 18. But a study of 391 cases and almost 1300 close contacts in Shenzhen, China, reported that children were just as likely to be infected as adults. Eckerle cautions that some of these data come from surveys done after shutdowns were put in place. “They were collected in an artificial situation,” she says. Children “weren’t going to the playground and were not going to school.”

Several studies suggest children who get sick with COVID-19 are just as infectious as ailing adults. Researchers have detected the same amounts of viral RNA in nose or throat swabs from sick children as in those from older patients. Finding RNA does not always mean a person is infectious; it can also come from noninfectious viral remnants. But in a 1 May preprint, Eckerle’s team reported that 12 out of 23 children sick with COVID-19 had the virus in their nose or throat able to attack and infect human cells in the lab, a rate similar to adults.

Far less is known about the risk posed by infected children with few or no symptoms. But there’s at least one example of a child who didn’t appear sick and was nevertheless a virus factory: In February, doctors in Singapore described a 6-month-old baby, infected without apparent symptoms, whose coronavirus levels were on par with sick adults.

This is not a complete lack of evidence. You must be using some qualifiers to discount this information.

Also from your source in the OP:

scientists disagree about the risks. Some worry that even if children transmit less efficiently than adults, they may make up for it by their far more expansive web of contacts, especially at school. “From the data we have so far, it is very dangerous to open schools and day cares at the moment,” says Marco Ajelli, an epidemiologist at the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Italy.
. . .
Ajelli, who thinks such moves are premature, teamed with colleagues in China to estimate the effects of school closures and other social distancing measures in Shanghai and Wuhan, China. Based on contact surveys, which ask subjects how many people they typically meet during school or workdays and on the weekend, the team found that children have approximately three times as many contacts as adults. Although they were only one-third as likely to be infected, keeping children at home helped curb the outbreak in China, the team concludes in a paper published online by Science on 29 April. Reopening schools will likely accelerate transmission, Ajelli cautions.

Because of this theory of a larger web of contacts of children mentioned in your source article, one scientist theorizes that children will accelerate transmission of the disease if schools reopen. Did that factor in your assessment that children are not “major contributors” in the spread of the disease?

[CarnalK]

@TriPolar

Ok, I didn’t specify the unknown risk level for COVID-19. Now looking at this reasonably, what is the need to rush kids back to school? I contend it’s not educational. The kids lives will be just fine if they graduate from high school a year later than they would have in the past.
.

Are you going with your gut here or do you have some childhood development research to back it up? Because I wouldn’t simply assume that, myself.

What the science suggests, is that opening schools is probably one of the safest things to reopen in a first stage of loosening lockdowns. Do you think everything should be opened at the same time, when there’s “no risk”, or just want schools opened last to protect the children the longest?

[DSeid]

The only “qualifier” is the evidence actually being evidence of school aged children spreading it to other humans in the real world to any significant degree. There are studies to suggest that it might be possible but none that actually provide evidence of it.
The German viral load study is worth looking at in some detail. Data in Table 1. Nasal viral load of over a million correlates with infectivity in cell culture. Assumption from there is that such correlates both with infectivity in real life and similarly in all age groups. Big jumps. Of the few children 0-10 y.o who tested + on PCR they found “the percentage of positively tested individuals with over one million viral copies” was 0.5% going up to 1.05% for the 11-20 y.o. group.

Finding viral RNA in the noses of some symptomatic children and diectly proving that it the virus found can infect tissue culture human cells in the lab comes a little closer. It DOES demonstrate transmission from symptomatic children (a fairly small number), as stated in the original source, “is plausible”. It does not provide any evidence that it even ever occurs, let alone to any significant degree.

The 4/29 article can be a bit confusing. The claim in the article is that children 0-14 are 0.34 as likely to become infected (based on limited data) and then applied a model that implicitly assumed those children were as effective at transmission as anyone else in the Infected bucket (explicitly that asymptomatic infections were as infectious as symptomatic ones) and concluded that schoolchildren’s increased social contacts would make up for the lesser likelihood of becoming infected.

A fine enough model, but based on key assumptions that go from having very sparse evidence to having absolutely none to support them. NOT itself any evidence of school aged children actually spreading it to other humans to real world any significant degree.
So indeed currently there is a “complete lack of evidence to date that children are major contributors to the spread of this germ.” The above all keeps open the theoretical possibility though.
Again there are two sets of experiments that can provide more solid evidence that they are or are not major drivers. One set is the ongoing studies tracking kids and their families in real time for transmission patterns. The other is the real world test in countries that have been opening to see if such is correlated with significant surges in case numbers, hospitalization rates etc. A lack of a consistent pattern of surges in the right temporal pattern following openings would would be decent evidence that such can be done safely. Those are uncontrolled “natural experiments” and indeed will need to interpreted cautiously. Other things change at the same time. But the apparent lack of major flares in those countries since beginning to open schools is at least some actual evidence against the position that keeping them closed is essential.
The first of your two posts does raise an interesting question: what counts as major? I’d say less contribution to overall morbidity and mortality numbers than being in school during seasonal influenza season would be clearly meeting “not major” enough to keep them out of school. Clearly meeting criteria to be “major” enough would be solid evidence of some level more than that.

[Magiver]

@suranyi

We got a message from my son’s superintendent. Pretty depressing. He flat out says they won’t be able to afford to implement the CDC recommendations. So whether school exists in the fall or not is questionable. May have to continue virtual learning indefinitely. Which is not good for my son.

We’re coming into summer. has the School Superintendent considered having classes outdoors using CDC standards? The School system can stagger hours and days to lower the number of children per class. They could use open walled tents to keep rain/sun off the students. It doesn’t have to be a one size fits all solution. some of the students who do well schooling at home could still be an option.

I spent all of 2 minutes throwing out some low budget ideas. A school Superintendent should be able to work this out with the human resources at hand. If it’s rocket science then invite the right people to lend a hand figuring it out. We have all manner of retired people with various skills who would love to volunteer their time putting together a viable solution.

[MandaJo]

How is any of that low budget? Tents and outdoor seating/tables aren’t cheap. Staggered, smaller classes means more busses, more teachers. You’d have to teach with no tech and not many texts (only those you can issue one of to each student, no sharing). In much of the country, it’s the high 90s well into September (and school starts mid August) and in other places it starts being too cold to be outside in October. Plus, do you cancel school on the threat of thunderstorms? What if an unexpected one blows in?

Is there any other profession you just knee jerk assume the problem must be that everyone is too stupid to figure it out?

[PoppaSan]

@Magiver

We’re coming into summer. has the School Superintendent considered having classes outdoors using CDC standards? The School system can stagger hours and days to lower the number of children per class. They could use open walled tents to keep rain/sun off the students. It doesn’t have to be a one size fits all solution. some of the students who do well schooling at home could still be an option.

I spent all of 2 minutes throwing out some low budget ideas. A school Superintendent should be able to work this out with the human resources at hand. If it’s rocket science then invite the right people to lend a hand figuring it out. We have all manner of retired people with various skills who would love to volunteer their time putting together a viable solution.

Unrealistic as there are areas of the US that won’t let people sit on a beach in the open air , or have 25 people in a room designed for 150 at the same time for a religious ceremony. Even my state’s parks that are open still have the restrooms closed. Answers to the issues raised are typically politically influenced not technological or societal infeasibilities.

To the OP, schools that weren’t closed by mandate would have closed anyway due to a dearth of students since the data didn’t (and doesn’t yet) exist to prove it was safe to send a child to the germ laden infectious swap meets at the time. Absenteeism during flu season closes schools already, this would have been worse.

[Magiver]

@PoppaSan

Unrealistic as there are areas of the US that won’t let people sit on a beach in the open air , or have 25 people in a room designed for 150 at the same time for a religious ceremony. Even my state’s parks that are open still have the restrooms closed. Answers to the issues raised are typically politically influenced not technological or societal infeasibilities.

To the OP, schools that weren’t closed by mandate would have closed anyway due to a dearth of students since the data didn’t (and doesn’t yet) exist to prove it was safe to send a child to the germ laden infectious swap meets at the time. Absenteeism during flu season closes schools already, this would have been worse.

You seemed to have missed the point. I wasn’t promoting my ideas. I was promoting the use of ideas. I don’t see a reason why a school district should accept a declaration from a Superintendent that it can’t be done.

[MandaJo]

Look, my superintendent has spent the last ten years supervising a >$1B budget, 25k employees, and 160k students on over 250 campuses. If, after a lot of deliberation and conferencing with the school board, they come out and say X is the best solution that we can actually afford, I’m not going to assume that they are just idiots and they should have asked all the retired dudes who worked in entirely different industries to solve the problem.

[CarnalK]

No, no. Using ideas is a great idea. I’m surprised no one has come up with it before.

[Magiver]

@MandaJo

Look, my superintendent has spent the last ten years supervising a >$1B budget, 25k employees, and 160k students on over 250 campuses. If, after a lot of deliberation and conferencing with the school board, they come out and say X is the best solution that we can actually afford, I’m not going to assume that they are just idiots and they should have asked all the retired dudes who worked in entirely different industries to solve the problem.

My previous Superintendent decided we needed all new school buildings so we passed a huge levy. He then went on to overspend by 100% and in the middle of it quite and took a job somewhere else making more money. We had to pass another levy. I’m confident great deliberation and consideration went into it.

Your confidence in people with titles is not unusual. I hope things go well in your school district.