APS Level 2 Return to school

[Anonymous]

Look, the whole point of hybrid was to make sure the buildings aren't more than half full. I don't care if some schools opted back 80%. That's totally fine, why are we worried about this? Also I don't care about testing. I care about masks and ventilation. That's the recipe that is working for local private schools.

The Catholic school near me has 100% of students in 5 days a week. Kids are 3 ft apart not 6 ft (they got a waiver). There have been cases in the school but no spread in the school. Kids wear masks, classrooms have HEPA filters, and the split the kids at lunch time to have fewer in the classroom while eating. Again, no school spread. School has to quarantine classrooms a few times and even shut the whole school down for a week twice, but those kids have been in school 90% of the days of this school year so far, vs. APS kids who have been in school 0%.

And as someone above said, why would I believe APS will open 5 days a week in the fall? I hope they do, but I don't believe it at this point. I don't even think they will get my HS kid back anytime soon.

But I will take it. Any amount of time they are open, my kid will be there.

[Anonymous]

No. Certainly not kids over 10 who are not immunized and can get sick like adults from the virus. They need to maintain 6 feet distance per CDC recommendations. Hopefully they can get kids 12+ vaccinated over the summer. Not sure what you do with the younger set on distancing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, the whole point of hybrid was to make sure the buildings aren't more than half full. I don't care if some schools opted back 80%. That's totally fine, why are we worried about this? Also I don't care about testing. I care about masks and ventilation. That's the recipe that is working for local private schools.

The Catholic school near me has 100% of students in 5 days a week. Kids are 3 ft apart not 6 ft (they got a waiver). There have been cases in the school but no spread in the school. Kids wear masks, classrooms have HEPA filters, and the split the kids at lunch time to have fewer in the classroom while eating. Again, no school spread. School has to quarantine classrooms a few times and even shut the whole school down for a week twice, but those kids have been in school 90% of the days of this school year so far, vs. APS kids who have been in school 0%.

And as someone above said, why would I believe APS will open 5 days a week in the fall? I hope they do, but I don't believe it at this point. I don't even think they will get my HS kid back anytime soon.

But I will take it. Any amount of time they are open, my kid will be there.

How do they know there hasn't been spread? Was the whole school tested before returning?

We have friends at multiple private schools - testing has been key.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Community rates are so high now that ensuring teacher vaccinations before return is the only responsible option. So just hang on for a few more weeks and APS will start opening next month! You’ve come this far. Let your teachers get fully immunized.

NO. This not true. The data from VDH clearly confirms that cases and positivity rates have been declining for weeks and positivity rates alone have been dropping for over a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers aren't vaccinated, the buildings aren't ventilated, it's 32 degrees outside and not very conducive to outside lunch or outside anything else, and nobody is even trying to put kids into cohorts. All or most of these problems could be mostly solved in a month or two but never mind that we want what we want NOW.

And the variants are just getting started. I’m grateful APS is protecting its teachers in light of what many think will be an increase in hyper contagious strains of the virus. I hope the other area that have been open get their teachers vaccinated ASAP.

+1000

+1

It's very telling that the areas that DGAF about teachers opened already AND aren't giving teachers priority for vaccinations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No 62 percent includes NJ, NYC, Ny state, Connecticut, Rhode lsland, Dallas and Charlotte. Today it includes DC public schools and Chicago and Nashville. You can’t lie your way out of this. There’s no excuse to not open schools in APS with the amount of risk mitigation and resources in place. Again, 3000 kids in Catholic school have been back in Arlington. Can you tell me how many teachers and kids have died... thought so.

NYC is elementary only. And very small percentages opted in. DC is INVITATION ONLY for high risk students. Which is what APS could have done if the entitled in N Arl didn’t insist it is their right to attend in person in the middle of a pandemic. Many of the system you cite above are open under much narrower circumstances. Jamestown’s demand for 80% hybrid is a bit harder to accommodate.

That is a soundbite that doesn't take into account the actual population of schools and seats requested. Even though by percentage, North Arlington schools were higher, the actual seats requested from all schools is not all that dissimilar with a few outliers.

School Hybrid Seats
Carlin Springs 87
Randolph 154
Campbell 185
Drew 188
Montessori 212
Long Branch 215
Barcroft 241
Hoffman Boston 253
Glebe 257
Nottingham 306
Oakridge 318
Barrett 329
ATS 329
Tuckahoe 332
ASF 333
Ashlawn 334
Fleet 338
Taylor 370
Claremont 371
Abingdon 380
Jamestown 386
McKinley 394
Discovery 403
Key 409

So tired of this "entitled N Arlington white parents" argument. Parents and families all over the country of various socio-economic status want their kids in school. This is just another play to attack N Arlington and it's so old.

I think it keeps coming up because entitled, white North Arlington parents keep saying "open for the kids from low-SES families" when they clearly do NOT speak for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Community rates are so high now that ensuring teacher vaccinations before return is the only responsible option. So just hang on for a few more weeks and APS will start opening next month! You’ve come this far. Let your teachers get fully immunized.

NO. This not true. The data from VDH clearly confirms that cases and positivity rates have been declining for weeks and positivity rates alone have been dropping for over a month.

Sigh. Declining and still being high we’re not mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous]

What Duran should have done was open schools in August, as originally planned, when rates were good. Then we could have reverted to virtual if needed, but at least kids would have gotten a couple of months in school, met their teachers snd classmates, etc. I have a first grader who has literally never seen her teachers (except specials) in real life. No meeting at the playground in masks, nothing.
I also have an older child, but for the younger one, we were told her grade would return in August/Sept, then late Oct, then Nov, then early Dec, now who knows. That’s a lot of dates to set and then cancel.
In July, when it was announced that everyone would “just start” virtually, I thought they would not go back this school year. I still think that’s quite likely, given the higher Covid rates now & the repeated habit of setting dates then cancelling the return (at least 4 times that’s already happened).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For reference

This clearly shows that 4 out of the 6 schools that have more than 50% FRL lunch had less than 50% of parents opting for hybrid whereas the 5 schools with lowest FRL rates have 60-almost 80% opting for hybrid.
There is a correlation between higher FRL rates and lower hybrid numbers. Doesn't mean every FRL family opted for virtual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, the whole point of hybrid was to make sure the buildings aren't more than half full. I don't care if some schools opted back 80%. That's totally fine, why are we worried about this? Also I don't care about testing. I care about masks and ventilation. That's the recipe that is working for local private schools.

The Catholic school near me has 100% of students in 5 days a week. Kids are 3 ft apart not 6 ft (they got a waiver). There have been cases in the school but no spread in the school. Kids wear masks, classrooms have HEPA filters, and the split the kids at lunch time to have fewer in the classroom while eating. Again, no school spread. School has to quarantine classrooms a few times and even shut the whole school down for a week twice, but those kids have been in school 90% of the days of this school year so far, vs. APS kids who have been in school 0%.

And as someone above said, why would I believe APS will open 5 days a week in the fall? I hope they do, but I don't believe it at this point. I don't even think they will get my HS kid back anytime soon.

But I will take it. Any amount of time they are open, my kid will be there.

How do they know there hasn't been spread? Was the whole school tested before returning?

We have friends at multiple private schools - testing has been key.

Because the school has been very transparent. When they have a case in a classroom, that whole classroom goes home for two weeks. And none of those other kids have gotten sick. This has happened 4-5 times now.

Not every kid has been tested, but I know many parents in affected classes did test their kid to be safe, and none of them have gotten sick.

To me, it stretches credibility to assume that it's silently spreading in open Catholic schools with no symptomatic kids. If it was spreading, there would be kids with symptoms. So no, I don't think you need to wait for universal testing to open. Most schools around the country that are open are not doing that.

I'm from a red state with open schools and all they are doing as far as I can tell is masks and there are still no huge outbreaks there, either. I know because my nieces and nephews are in these schools. In-person. Learning. And doing extra curricular activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What Duran should have done was open schools in August, as originally planned, when rates were good. Then we could have reverted to virtual if needed, but at least kids would have gotten a couple of months in school, met their teachers snd classmates, etc. I have a first grader who has literally never seen her teachers (except specials) in real life. No meeting at the playground in masks, nothing.
I also have an older child, but for the younger one, we were told her grade would return in August/Sept, then late Oct, then Nov, then early Dec, now who knows. That’s a lot of dates to set and then cancel.
In July, when it was announced that everyone would “just start” virtually, I thought they would not go back this school year. I still think that’s quite likely, given the higher Covid rates now & the repeated habit of setting dates then cancelling the return (at least 4 times that’s already happened).

Enough already with the Monday morning quarterbacking. I keep reading/hearing things like this and people need to look forward. Maybe he should have opened then, maybe not. But we should be focusing on the now and going forward, not looking backwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, the whole point of hybrid was to make sure the buildings aren't more than half full. I don't care if some schools opted back 80%. That's totally fine, why are we worried about this? Also I don't care about testing. I care about masks and ventilation. That's the recipe that is working for local private schools.

The Catholic school near me has 100% of students in 5 days a week. Kids are 3 ft apart not 6 ft (they got a waiver). There have been cases in the school but no spread in the school. Kids wear masks, classrooms have HEPA filters, and the split the kids at lunch time to have fewer in the classroom while eating. Again, no school spread. School has to quarantine classrooms a few times and even shut the whole school down for a week twice, but those kids have been in school 90% of the days of this school year so far, vs. APS kids who have been in school 0%.

And as someone above said, why would I believe APS will open 5 days a week in the fall? I hope they do, but I don't believe it at this point. I don't even think they will get my HS kid back anytime soon.

But I will take it. Any amount of time they are open, my kid will be there.

How do they know there hasn't been spread? Was the whole school tested before returning?

We have friends at multiple private schools - testing has been key.

Because the school has been very transparent. When they have a case in a classroom, that whole classroom goes home for two weeks. And none of those other kids have gotten sick. This has happened 4-5 times now.

Not every kid has been tested, but I know many parents in affected classes did test their kid to be safe, and none of them have gotten sick.

To me, it stretches credibility to assume that it's silently spreading in open Catholic schools with no symptomatic kids. If it was spreading, there would be kids with symptoms. So no, I don't think you need to wait for universal testing to open. Most schools around the country that are open are not doing that.

I'm from a red state with open schools and all they are doing as far as I can tell is masks and there are still no huge outbreaks there, either. I know because my nieces and nephews are in these schools. In-person. Learning. And doing extra curricular activities.

But they certainly can't claim "no school spread" if they aren't testing.

How many outbreaks? Which school systems are these?

[Anonymous]

Ok then stop supporting Duran. He didn’t handle it well and the school board just did nothing. No one is safer or better off with these school closures. Duran is to blame 100 percent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Certainly not kids over 10 who are not immunized and can get sick like adults from the virus. They need to maintain 6 feet distance per CDC recommendations. Hopefully they can get kids 12+ vaccinated over the summer. Not sure what you do with the younger set on distancing.

this should be at the discretion of the parents - we are finding much more risk in keeping our kids home from school for a year than the minute risk they catch covid in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok then stop supporting Duran. He didn’t handle it well and the school board just did nothing. No one is safer or better off with these school closures. Duran is to blame 100 percent.

exactly.. so lazy and not putting our kids first. I'm surprised we haven't heard rumbles of a class-action lawsuit