So, how do you reopen schools? (Preschool to High School & even College)

[GoCommiesGo]

1 hour ago, purbeast said:

My son's last 2.5 months of preschool were canceled and he's (hopefully) going into kindergarden this fall.

 

Are you guys serious that you think remote learning can work for 5 year olds?  Or are you all just assuming that this conversation is talking about highschool kids and older?

 

There is no way in hell that a 5 year old is going to learn as effectively in a virtual classroom than they are in a physical classroom.  I'm a bit concerned about what is going to happen because I don't think they are going to have "fulltime" school in person and I am concerned about how it can affect my son longterm since he's so young and at a critical development stage.

 

My sons pre-k class did virtual classrooms coupled with the Seesaw program. It worked about as well as you would expect. Out son didn't enjoy the Zoom classes as it was just overwhelming, he mainly watched it on speaker view and not gallery. They did two Zoom calls a day and we were happy if he participated in one. 

 

The Seesaw app worked well, the teaches created content each day and he had actual work to reinforce his writing, reading, counting and other skills. Was it ideal, it was not. But for the situations we were very pleased. I'm not sure how sustainable it would be for a full year but for a stop gap it was good. 

[The Evil Genius]

5 hours ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

Govt really needs to step in and direct a stimulus toward parents with kids in the house. They’re the most likely to not be able to work. $2-4K/mo if you have at least one kid in the house, the upper range of that being for single parents.  That should get most people through this. 

 

Or pay them not to have kids. Thus less strain on limited resources down the line. 😁

[Springfield]

4 hours ago, purbeast said:

My son's last 2.5 months of preschool were canceled and he's (hopefully) going into kindergarden this fall.

 

Are you guys serious that you think remote learning can work for 5 year olds?  Or are you all just assuming that this conversation is talking about highschool kids and older?

 

There is no way in hell that a 5 year old is going to learn as effectively in a virtual classroom than they are in a physical classroom.  I'm a bit concerned about what is going to happen because I don't think they are going to have "fulltime" school in person and I am concerned about how it can affect my son longterm since he's so young and at a critical development stage.

Im in the same boat as you. My 5 year old is a rising kindergartener. After preschool was cancelled, the class tried to do a zoom meeting. I wasn’t there for it but my wife said it was awkward. My kid was fidgeting and trying to stop watching and when it was his turn to talk, it was very unnatural.

 

I just ordered a bunch of kid sized surgical masks in preparation.

[dfitzo53]

Our distance learning for our 5-yo was better than that, but it's still not ideal obviously. I was actually pretty happy with the experience for our 2nd grader all things considered.

 

As my friend likes to say, no matter how you slice it, it's still a **** sandwich.

[Mooka]

Apparently the plan to reopen schools consists of telling Trump how awesome he is and how important learning is.

 

Kinda missing an actual plan in there.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[Bacon]

8 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I was talking with my neighbors about all of the issues with sending our kids back to a public school.  Not sure if you could actually do this, but if I were a teacher, I would take a year off and home-school the kids of 3-4 affluent families.  They would get child care and know their kids aren't falling behind in school, but not have to risk them getting Covid, you could probably charge $500-1000 per month per kid and not expose yourself to nearly the risk of going back to actual public school.   If you did it for 4 families with 2 kids each and charged $1000/mo, that works out to $96k per year.  

 

It's probably the only realistic option for now. I'm technically an employee of the district, as I have made myself available to substitute teach and that takes higher priority because of the long-term connections I can make, but I have to fill the gaps somehow. 

 

I have a friend who charged $40 an hour to tutor in Beverly Hills. $1000 a month wouldn't be difficult to swing. It's just a matter of the demand being there and I'm not sure what LAUSD's plans are. Something to think about for sure. 

[JCB]

Political reasons = health reasons. Death cult.

[88Comrade2000]

So, a-hole in chief plans to withhold federal funds; to any school district that refuses to open.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Rdskns2000

[Elessar78]

I'm pretty progressive, but so far things that I have read and gathered from friends and family abroad that kid-to-kid, kid-to-adult, adult-to-child transmission has been really low. Teacher-to-teacher yes it's a concern.

 

A bunch of epidemiologists said that it should be on a case-by-case basis—if your area is low then it's probably okay to go back to school. But you have to meet certain metrics.

[Elessar78]

"In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS," -Trump

 

Yeah, but they are approaching the management of the virus completely differently. Germany, family there, hasn't reopened schools YET but will reopen fully in a few weeks. Sweden, also have family there, everything has been "normal". Despite the publicized herd immunity approach, but their death rates are 40x higher than the US. But also, less publicized is that they are asked to social distance, not gather in large groups, work from home, and minimize travel. High school and college in Sweden have remained closed. 

 

My stepsister in Sweden, was COVID+, and she worked at a nursing home there. Her employers had no problem with her having COVID and coming to work

Edited July 8, 2020 by Elessar78

[VeroViper]

We're in Indian River county Florida(Vero Beach). I have an 8 year old and a 12 year old. Our schools re-open August 10th. There are 3 options. In person at school, virtual learning from home, or 9 weeks of virtual learning followed by attending in person from there on out. Even though my wife could stay home with them, we are leaning towards sending them back right away. We have no confidence the virtual learning will be anywhere close to sufficient. And I've been going to work all along anyway. We've just had our first 2nd hand exposure(co-worker's wife just tested positive). With the direction our numbers are headed down here I feel it's only a matter of time(as in near future) that our household is infected anyhow. And we have been advised we need to make a choice and stick with it by this Friday. I think it is just awful that we have been put in a position to have to make this kind of decision. I wish we'd been given at least a couple more weeks to see where infection numbers go before we make a final decision.

[dfitzo53]

1 hour ago, Elessar78 said:

I'm pretty progressive, but so far things that I have read and gathered from friends and family abroad that kid-to-kid, kid-to-adult, adult-to-child transmission has been really low. Teacher-to-teacher yes it's a concern.

 

A bunch of epidemiologists said that it should be on a case-by-case basis—if your area is low then it's probably okay to go back to school. But you have to meet certain metrics.

Can you share some of the material you're reading?

[gbear]

I know I pissed off my significant other when I said MD should call for on-line only schools when we go back t school.  Her anger was thinking I don't understand everything the schools do for all the kids and parents because I am not the one going to school.

 

I told her my response is driven primarily from a project management perspective.  Ideally, we would go back to school with a rock solid fall back of going to on-line schooling if the virus ramps back up.  Her response was we don't have the resources to prepare both ways of teaching.  We don't even have enough to do one well.  I then asked a leading question, "How likely do you think a virus resurgence is during the coming school year?"  When she admitted very likely, I said the only responsible thing to do then is to prepare for all on-line.  Yes, you can have enough resources to open, but if you will be in a worse place when the expected happens, then you deliberately chose wrong because it was the answer you wanted.  I said it is not the popular choice, and our economy will struggle as parents deal with kids home 24/7.  Our kids won't get the social development we would wish...but it is the way through the situation with the expected least harm.

 

As it stand now, we will probably open.  Then teachers will get sick.  Our already inadequate sub teacher resources will get sick too and our special educators will be pressed into service.  After they start going down we will...At some point, we will likely be forced to shut down, but we will not have the month we have now to prepare for on-line schooling.  Nor will we have additional resources having spent them to reopen in person schooling.  As a result we will have another mis-mashed school year of lost opportunities.   

 

The responsible thing to do is remote schooling.  We wonder why the red states reopen their economies.  We bemoan our inability as a country to follow social distancing and mask wearing protocols.  We ask, "Can't they tell that is the only way to keep the transmission rates down?"  Well, now it's our sacred cow being called for sacrifice.  Can we not toe the line we chide them for not following? 

 

Yes, it sucks, and the longer we wait to suck it up, the longer it will last.

 

Yeah, that was not a popular response where the thought of another year of kids always around, listening less and less, is maddening.

[mistertim]

GOP in April: **** senior citizens. They've lived a long time and will die soon anyway. They can take one for the team so the stock market goes up.

GOP in July: **** little kids. They cry and whine all the time anyway, so who cares if we lose a few? They can take one for the team so the stock market goes up.

[SkinInsite]

 

I'm not going to let my child be some kind of guinea pig because assholes ****ed the pandemic response and refused change course.

 

Summer was suppose to give us time to get the virus under control so when fall comes we can be prepared for school. But nope assholes gotta be assholes.

[Springfield]

2 minutes ago, SkinInsite said:

 

I'm not going to let my child be some kind of guinea pig because assholes ****ed the pandemic response and refused change course.

 

Summer was suppose to give us time to get the virus under control so when fall comes we can be prepared for school. But nope assholes gotta be assholes.

Must be nice...

[Cooked Crack]

 

Cause that's how this is supposed to work.🙄

 

[techboy]

3 hours ago, Elessar78 said:

I'm pretty progressive, but so far things that I have read and gathered from friends and family abroad that kid-to-kid, kid-to-adult, adult-to-child transmission has been really low. Teacher-to-teacher yes it's a concern.

 

According to Dr. Gottlieb, the studies are very mixed on that point, and especially in this country, not extensive enough.

 

 

[SkinInsite]

Yeah not going to trust my families health to these ****ing assholes.

[Busch1724]

As a school administrator, the options are not good. Ideally, we go back like normal. We know it's not safe for students and staff. We know we'll shut down by winter at the latest. We'll either have a staff shortage or quite possibly a student shortage. 

 

Hybrid model. Maybe the best of the options, but one huge factor: the widening of the achievement gap. Students without supports at home typically are already behind. They will certainly fall further behind. 

 

All online. Achievement gap becomes even more severe than a hybrid model. I'm not including all the bullcrap students have to deal with at home on a personal level.

 

We all feel like there's this cost-benefit analysis we must do in the decision making. It sucks because the one thing that is most beneficial for 99% of the students is not ethical from a public health perspective. 

[Elessar78]

2 hours ago, dfitzo53 said:

Can you share some of the material you're reading?

Here is a good one I came across today. It's authored/edited by someone from Harvard Medical School and aggregates several studies from around the world. The MAIN RECURRING CAVEAT throughout it seems to be "while these studies show low transmission in children, these studies were done in areas where cases were low so apply the findings to high-prevalence areas with caution". Which seems very fair. I'll also issue my own caveat that I'm in the process of reading it fast—so it's not a close read of the material. I'll try to find studies and articles I have read and post later.

 

Also, actively trying to find counterpoints to the argument.

 

https://www.massgeneral.org/assets/MGH/pdf/medicine/infectious-diseases/COVID-19 School and Community Resource Library_July 6 2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3NVhs72VWhF1OvLIVXGbX_XC-4iP4-FGeDRd36YrsjbNLqPhdFVGsr-lM

 

By the way, this isn't a push for blanket reopening. It's on a regional or even school-by-school basis. The virus determines whether it's possible or not based on intensity in an area. Although, I will admit I would prefer to err on the side of reopening (gulp), because of kids' mental health and the benefits (citing Dr. Fauci) outweigh the negatives (as long as numbers say it's okay).

Edited July 8, 2020 by Elessar78

[TheGoodBits]

11 minutes ago, Busch1724 said:

As a school administrator, the options are not good. Ideally, we go back like normal. We know it's not safe for students and staff. We know we'll shut down by winter at the latest. We'll either have a staff shortage or quite possibly a student shortage. 

 

Hybrid model. Maybe the best of the options, but one huge factor: the widening of the achievement gap. Students without supports at home typically are already behind. They will certainly fall further behind. 

 

All online. Achievement gap becomes even more severe than a hybrid model. I'm not including all the bullcrap students have to deal with at home on a personal level.

 

We all feel like there's this cost-benefit analysis we must do in the decision making. It sucks because the one thing that is most beneficial for 99% of the students is not ethical from a public health perspective. 

Is it really beneficial to students to send them back though, when inevitably the in-person learning won’t last? 1-2 months maybe and then back online? Possibly some dead family members or teachers because of it?