Lack of a Plan Says It All

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so hard for some of you not to travel during the school year? I don’t get it. I could maybe understand it during the holidays, but that’s months away and the pandemic could look very different then. In normal times, are you really traveling that much during September, October? Is it that big of a deal to stay local on weekends? Jeez.

Agree. It’s just silly.

The other thing is that unvaccinated teachers can't travel over those long weekends. Are they going to do that? Or do they take leave for the quarantine or what?

Any unvaxxed adult who is unconcerned enough about exposure to travel is selfish enough to ignore the quarantine rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so hard for some of you not to travel during the school year? I don’t get it. I could maybe understand it during the holidays, but that’s months away and the pandemic could look very different then. In normal times, are you really traveling that much during September, October? Is it that big of a deal to stay local on weekends? Jeez.

Agree. It’s just silly.

The other thing is that unvaccinated teachers can't travel over those long weekends. Are they going to do that? Or do they take leave for the quarantine or what?

Any unvaxxed adult who is unconcerned enough about exposure to travel is selfish enough to ignore the quarantine rules.

Probably true. They will be better about lying about it, too.

[Anonymous]

Ok got it. Virtual instruction when the whole class is out (assuming dcps implements this, which is still a question).

No virtual instruction for individual students who need to be out because they were exposed, whether that is because of the (faulty) assumption that travel equals exposure, or otherwise. I assume this means kids who are at home because a household member is infected. So what we have is a policy that incentivizes people lying about actual exposures, and disincentivizes travel, which has no current link to exposure risk. Makes perfect sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok got it. Virtual instruction when the whole class is out (assuming dcps implements this, which is still a question).

No virtual instruction for individual students who need to be out because they were exposed, whether that is because of the (faulty) assumption that travel equals exposure, or otherwise. I assume this means kids who are at home because a household member is infected. So what we have is a policy that incentivizes people lying about actual exposures, and disincentivizes travel, which has no current link to exposure risk. Makes perfect sense.

Would you expect anything else from dcps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok got it. Virtual instruction when the whole class is out (assuming dcps implements this, which is still a question).

No virtual instruction for individual students who need to be out because they were exposed, whether that is because of the (faulty) assumption that travel equals exposure, or otherwise. I assume this means kids who are at home because a household member is infected. So what we have is a policy that incentivizes people lying about actual exposures, and disincentivizes travel, which has no current link to exposure risk. Makes perfect sense.

Well, at least this is a tacit admission that this is not about actual data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so hard for some of you not to travel during the school year? I don’t get it. I could maybe understand it during the holidays, but that’s months away and the pandemic could look very different then. In normal times, are you really traveling that much during September, October? Is it that big of a deal to stay local on weekends? Jeez.

The Jewish holidays (which dcps stands out among urban districts for not acknowledging) are in early September

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it so hard for some of you not to travel during the school year? I don’t get it. I could maybe understand it during the holidays, but that’s months away and the pandemic could look very different then. In normal times, are you really traveling that much during September, October? Is it that big of a deal to stay local on weekends? Jeez.

It's about the holidays and grandma being on the slippery slope of cognition. They didnt change the rule this summer when things were great so I assume they won't update until 2022 at the earliest.

But besides that, it pisses me off that this population is the ONLY group in the entire city that has any restrictions on living a somewhat normal life. I don't find masks either burdesome or limiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok got it. Virtual instruction when the whole class is out (assuming dcps implements this, which is still a question).

No virtual instruction for individual students who need to be out because they were exposed, whether that is because of the (faulty) assumption that travel equals exposure, or otherwise. I assume this means kids who are at home because a household member is infected. So what we have is a policy that incentivizes people lying about actual exposures, and disincentivizes travel, which has no current link to exposure risk. Makes perfect sense.

Truly it is a garbage plan.

It suggests the following to not have your kid missing weeks of school:
1) do not travel outside of DC/MD/VA unless you can be home 3 days before school. (Thanksgiving will be no travel for most of us with unvaccinated kids, then, if we follow this rule.)
2) Do not let your unvaccinated kid into places with possible exposure. What would that be during the school year? Sports? Indoor parties? Weddings? Or just keep them masked up everywhere so nothing 'counts' as an exposure? It seems like most exposures are going to be through family members, so obviously if you don't want your kid to miss school people should get vaccinated.

Also, the disincentives:
1) it encourages keeping kids' exposures quiet.
2) It discourages parents from doing asymptomatic testing on themselves or other family members.
3) it discourages parents from opting in to any school-based asymptomatic random testing

[Anonymous]

Also will all this quarantine time be an excused absence? I hope so, otherwise this is a further disincentive to choosing to quarantine for known exposures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Our ES said that there will be no virtual instruction for kids who are quarantined. I don't know if that's a district wide decision or just this school.

Which school

Lafayette

Really? From their website:
On Sunday, August 8th I will be sending out our official welcome back email with a full list of our COVID protocols, as well as class lists, signups for room parents, the school year calendar of events, and other exciting information! Be on the lookout for that email!

I know it’s the 8th….. but I didn’t get that email yet. I suspect trolling.

she sent a follow up that class lists are under construction. and to the PPs point. Dr B said there will be no virtual instruction for kids who quarantine for travel. she said nothing about what happens with a positive case.

No, she said no instruction whatsoever.

I'm not even a Lafayette parent, and I could see it :
https://www.lafayettehsa.org/mid-summer-updates/
"As a note, there is no virtual instruction available for students who are quarantining due to travel."

Right. The point is, "we're not going to make our teachers do backflips and do both online and in class teaching because you went to OBX."

This is not applicable to positive cases - still waiting on that....

But what if your kid was just exposed, even though you didn't travel? Teachers apparently aren't going to "do backflips" for those kids either, and they are just SOL.

We don't know yet, do we. The guidance above was just about travel.

Why make a distinction between the two?

Good grief, PP, you are struggling.

1) Because DCPS hasn't issued its instructions yet to schools about virtual learning for positive tests.
2) Because people can control their travel. For a school like Lafayette which is huge and has a demographic where people take nice vacations out of the area, they are saying they are not going to give your kid special schooling because you travelled the last week before school. The take away is: Follow the travel restrictions or expect your kid to miss school.

No, I am not. I do not know what the guidance will be, but I can't see why there would be a difference in the offering of virtual or other instruction between a child who was potentially exposed locally and a child who was potentially exposed during travel except for punitive reasons.

Let's assume there is some framework for providing instruction at all to a child that was exposed locally, when a whole class does not need to be quarantined. Two children are exposed on the same day.

Child A is exposed locally. This child is under 12 and unvaccinated. Presumably the child is not personally at fault for the exposure. The parents do the right thing and quarantine the child at home. Child receives some sort of instruction (virtual? packets? I do not know), because there is a framework to do so.

Child B is exposed during travel. This child is also under 12 and unvaccinated. As children this young typically do not make decisions to travel, the child is presumably not at fault for the exposure. The parents do the right thing and quarantine the child at home. Child does not receive any sort of instruction, despite the fact that there is a framework to do so.

Child B will be quarantined in any case; the parents will "have to" do child care whether or not the child receives instruction. In this scenario, not providing instruction hurts only the child and not the apparently bad and wrong parents who traveled.

Such a policy would not punish bad-behaving parents. It would punish children.

Don't be so obtuse. The point of this was to discourage travel. The end.

It's not obtuse at all. It is a question of how this would work. Is the intent simply to punish children for their parents' bad behavior?

[Anonymous]

The whole cohort and travel quarantines are out of step with other school districts.

Mandate all adults to vaccinate and move on with educating children.

But demanding a 7 or 10 quarantine or keeping a whole class out for an extended period makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

So will there be three different types of quarantines with three different responses?

Case 1. Student in class tests positive for COVID. Entire class quarantines at home, alongside the teacher, who pivots to virtual instruction.

Case 2. Student travels, reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class, and the student receives 0 instruction (of any type?).

Case 3. Student does not travel and has an exposure elsewhere in the DMV. Student reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class. Should this student receive any instruction or no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also will all this quarantine time be an excused absence? I hope so, otherwise this is a further disincentive to choosing to quarantine for known exposures.

While I agree with you, I think it is very unlikely that DCPS is going to make any real attempt to enforce anything around absences for most kids this year, again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So will there be three different types of quarantines with three different responses?

Case 1. Student in class tests positive for COVID. Entire class quarantines at home, alongside the teacher, who pivots to virtual instruction.

Case 2. Student travels, reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class, and the student receives 0 instruction (of any type?).

Case 3. Student does not travel and has an exposure elsewhere in the DMV. Student reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class. Should this student receive any instruction or no?

I think Case 3 sounds like they won't receive instruction, purely based on logistics.

Case 2 and 3 don't have to quarantine if student is vaccinated, I think. That's at least true for travel.

What's going to be interesting is Case 1 when there are vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in the classroom. So then potentially for Case 1 we get the unvaccinated kids getting no instruction because they have to go home, while the vaccinated kids stay in person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So will there be three different types of quarantines with three different responses?

Case 1. Student in class tests positive for COVID. Entire class quarantines at home, alongside the teacher, who pivots to virtual instruction.

Case 2. Student travels, reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class, and the student receives 0 instruction (of any type?).

Case 3. Student does not travel and has an exposure elsewhere in the DMV. Student reports it and quarantines. No other students stay home from class. Should this student receive any instruction or no?

I think Case 3 sounds like they won't receive instruction, purely based on logistics.

Case 2 and 3 don't have to quarantine if student is vaccinated, I think. That's at least true for travel.

What's going to be interesting is Case 1 when there are vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in the classroom. So then potentially for Case 1 we get the unvaccinated kids getting no instruction because they have to go home, while the vaccinated kids stay in person.

In case 3, isn't that a powerful incentive to not test/report exposure? A family could do everything right and still have an accidental minor exposure. Perhaps your child is accidentally exposed to an individual who coughs on them a few times. You don't know if this person has COVID or not. If you do the right thing and test, your child could end up with no instruction for two weeks, even if they do not actually have COVID.