How to push back against people who want to close schools AGAIN

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, here’s what everyone flipping out about delta doesn’t want to admit: we now have no choice but to send kids to school.

It’s no longer an option. We cannot ask families to stick it out for a month or two to see if we can get numbers down. It’s too late. Kids have to go back to school, and it’s at a critical breaking point.

If we had actually provided something resembling in person school last year, maybe we wouldn’t be in this spot. But we didn’t. Not only did we not offer most kids in the district IPL at any point last year, but we kept telling families that it was coming. For a whole year! So now we have to do it.

If you are freaking out about delta now but did not push for in person last fall, when cases were low, or in the spring, when teachers were getting priority vaccines, then you should know you created this situation. Now we HAVE to send kids back to school in the middle of delta and hope for the best, because we refused to do it under better conditions sooner. If we’d prioritized IPL last year, we’d have good will to spend. We don’t.

ita. last year was totally squandared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We aren’t in DCPS but I feel your pain. We are already seeing well off parents freaking out and requesting to quarantine everyone if there’s a case in a classroom. There is panic created and ultimately it may lead to school closures.
I feel like all these nervous people should put their kids in remote and shut up.

+1000
Except they should not get remote for free from public schools. The teachers cant divide their attention between teaching remote kids and kids in a classroom, and schools are not staffed to accommodate that. Plus it further set back equity in schools. They can go to a private virtual option or homeschool.

[Anonymous]

Contact your elected representative. There's an election coming up. There's way more parents who want schools open than teachers who want them closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, here’s what everyone flipping out about delta doesn’t want to admit: we now have no choice but to send kids to school.

It’s no longer an option. We cannot ask families to stick it out for a month or two to see if we can get numbers down. It’s too late. Kids have to go back to school, and it’s at a critical breaking point.

If we had actually provided something resembling in person school last year, maybe we wouldn’t be in this spot. But we didn’t. Not only did we not offer most kids in the district IPL at any point last year, but we kept telling families that it was coming. For a whole year! So now we have to do it.

If you are freaking out about delta now but did not push for in person last fall, when cases were low, or in the spring, when teachers were getting priority vaccines, then you should know you created this situation. Now we HAVE to send kids back to school in the middle of delta and hope for the best, because we refused to do it under better conditions sooner. If we’d prioritized IPL last year, we’d have good will to spend. We don’t.

It is disgraceful that schools didn't open last August when coronavirus rates were so low they were a rounding error.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I have heard that at one DC charter that already started back this week...25% of classes are now quarantining at home due to confirmed COVID cases in the room.

What a mess this will be. I think people have no idea how much of a disaster this fall will be.

What they need to do is stop quarantining everybody. If this will be a mess, it will be a mess of our own making.

You forgot the entire plot here. COVID is real. The mess of our own making is what would happen if we pretend it isn't in the classroom, and let it spread.

You forgot that the plot originally was that we need to protect the vulnerable and slow the spread so as not to overwhelm hospitals. Then the plot evolved to we need to wait for vaccines so the vulnerable can be protected. Nobody ever worried about kids until those things were achieved, and some people had now shifted their perspective to the idea that nobody must ever be put at risk of catching Covid, even if their risk of severe illness is close to zero (not zero).

Look, I’d rather my kids don’t catch Covid either. I don’t let them be unmasked in indoor public places. But schools need to function, and at some point we need to wonder if constant quarantine disruptions are worse than getting a probably mild case of Covid. Especially after they have already lost over a year of school, and given that it looks like the vaccines don’t prevent all infections either. Daily antigen testing of the whole exposed class, as was done in Britain, seems like a better approach.

I have a lot of compassion for you, your kids, and mine.

You misunderstand, or misrepresent for the sake of your point, how the plot has changed with respect to protecting children. The delta variant changed the plot. You make it sound like we are looking for excuses to disrupt normal life. That is not true. You sound like you're intentionally obscuring parts of the plot so you can pretend you can go back to an undisrupted normal life. That is not true either.

No, it really really has not changed the plot. There is NO EVIDENCE that delta causes more severe outcomes in kids. I’m so done humoring all you overly anxious control freaks who are physically incapable of properly evaluating risk.

Actually doctors in hard hit states are screaming right now that they are seeing much much sicker kids.

Please head over to the health forum and see what some doctors from Childrens in Atlanta are saying, and also read about the many instances of misrepresentation of the situation in the service of fear mongering by the media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, here’s what everyone flipping out about delta doesn’t want to admit: we now have no choice but to send kids to school.

It’s no longer an option. We cannot ask families to stick it out for a month or two to see if we can get numbers down. It’s too late. Kids have to go back to school, and it’s at a critical breaking point.

If we had actually provided something resembling in person school last year, maybe we wouldn’t be in this spot. But we didn’t. Not only did we not offer most kids in the district IPL at any point last year, but we kept telling families that it was coming. For a whole year! So now we have to do it.

If you are freaking out about delta now but did not push for in person last fall, when cases were low, or in the spring, when teachers were getting priority vaccines, then you should know you created this situation. Now we HAVE to send kids back to school in the middle of delta and hope for the best, because we refused to do it under better conditions sooner. If we’d prioritized IPL last year, we’d have good will to spend. We don’t.

This. And I bet the people who are now freaked out about delta and claiming it is a game changer for kids are the same ones who thought we should schools closed last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I have heard that at one DC charter that already started back this week...25% of classes are now quarantining at home due to confirmed COVID cases in the room.

What a mess this will be. I think people have no idea how much of a disaster this fall will be.

What they need to do is stop quarantining everybody. If this will be a mess, it will be a mess of our own making.

You forgot the entire plot here. COVID is real. The mess of our own making is what would happen if we pretend it isn't in the classroom, and let it spread.

You forgot that the plot originally was that we need to protect the vulnerable and slow the spread so as not to overwhelm hospitals. Then the plot evolved to we need to wait for vaccines so the vulnerable can be protected. Nobody ever worried about kids until those things were achieved, and some people had now shifted their perspective to the idea that nobody must ever be put at risk of catching Covid, even if their risk of severe illness is close to zero (not zero).

Look, I’d rather my kids don’t catch Covid either. I don’t let them be unmasked in indoor public places. But schools need to function, and at some point we need to wonder if constant quarantine disruptions are worse than getting a probably mild case of Covid. Especially after they have already lost over a year of school, and given that it looks like the vaccines don’t prevent all infections either. Daily antigen testing of the whole exposed class, as was done in Britain, seems like a better approach.

I have a lot of compassion for you, your kids, and mine.

You misunderstand, or misrepresent for the sake of your point, how the plot has changed with respect to protecting children. The delta variant changed the plot. You make it sound like we are looking for excuses to disrupt normal life. That is not true. You sound like you're intentionally obscuring parts of the plot so you can pretend you can go back to an undisrupted normal life. That is not true either.

No, it really really has not changed the plot. There is NO EVIDENCE that delta causes more severe outcomes in kids. I’m so done humoring all you overly anxious control freaks who are physically incapable of properly evaluating risk.

+1

[Anonymous]

To the OP: Support a vax drive for parents at your school, and if your school has kids 12+ then support a vax drive at the school for them. I believe that schools can get grants to fund one of the mobile vax sites.

Maybe that will help allay some parents' fears. (I doubt it but I can dream.)

I think you should also write to your admin and say you very strongly support IPL, basically saying what you said already here.

[Anonymous]

Schools will close again though, at least for a little while. DCPS has no plan and took away things that could help mitigate spread. DC is currently a high transmission area, if we want full in person school they need to not just jump in the deep end when we cannot swim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I have heard that at one DC charter that already started back this week...25% of classes are now quarantining at home due to confirmed COVID cases in the room.

What a mess this will be. I think people have no idea how much of a disaster this fall will be.

What they need to do is stop quarantining everybody. If this will be a mess, it will be a mess of our own making.

You forgot the entire plot here. COVID is real. The mess of our own making is what would happen if we pretend it isn't in the classroom, and let it spread.

You forgot that the plot originally was that we need to protect the vulnerable and slow the spread so as not to overwhelm hospitals. Then the plot evolved to we need to wait for vaccines so the vulnerable can be protected. Nobody ever worried about kids until those things were achieved, and some people had now shifted their perspective to the idea that nobody must ever be put at risk of catching Covid, even if their risk of severe illness is close to zero (not zero).

Look, I’d rather my kids don’t catch Covid either. I don’t let them be unmasked in indoor public places. But schools need to function, and at some point we need to wonder if constant quarantine disruptions are worse than getting a probably mild case of Covid. Especially after they have already lost over a year of school, and given that it looks like the vaccines don’t prevent all infections either. Daily antigen testing of the whole exposed class, as was done in Britain, seems like a better approach.

I have a lot of compassion for you, your kids, and mine.

You misunderstand, or misrepresent for the sake of your point, how the plot has changed with respect to protecting children. The delta variant changed the plot. You make it sound like we are looking for excuses to disrupt normal life. That is not true. You sound like you're intentionally obscuring parts of the plot so you can pretend you can go back to an undisrupted normal life. That is not true either.

You seem to have some reading comprehension issues. I’m not pretending we can go back to an undisrupted normal. Did you miss the part where I said I’m not letting my kids be unmasked in indoor public spaces? In fact, I’m keeping them out of those spaces as much as possible, even when it meant that on a recent trip to Delaware, we had extremely limited restaurant options and we can’t engage in our usual summer activities of visiting museums. I also said that exposed asymptomatic kids at school should undergo daily antigen testing for a period of time, which is an acknowledgment of the need to curb the spread. This approach has been used in the UK during delta. But no, the plot for kids hasn’t fundamentally changed with delta, because this virus, while presumably as contagious as chickenpox, is still extremely low risk for children of elementary school age. We never imposed lengthy quarantines on kids exposed to chickenpox or the flu or norovirus. All of this is only happening because so many parents have been whipped into a frenzy of fear by misleading media coverage, making them believe Covid is the biggest risk their kids have ever faced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not about pushing back against people who don't agree with what you want.
It's about making the wisest choice for the greatest number of people. Decisions must change as circumstances do.

FYI My school is offering in person AND virtual and I think that's the way to go.

No. You’re setting up a solution that will work for some rich kids snd punish everyone else.

I would SO take a virtual year at this point. It's not ideal. but its safest.

Safest for who? There are plenty of kids who are safer at school than being home all day; there are also plenty of kids who will be significantly happier at school even if they wind up getting covid and being sick briefly. Kids still, even with delta, are not getting as sick in as many numbers as adults (who can all be vaccinated) do. Personally, I'm willing to take the risk that my kids give me a breakthrough infection if it means they get to go to school in person.

[Anonymous]

They need to distribute packed lunches in classrooms. Let students eat in classrooms, in hallways, in playgrounds etc etc. We need to convert all outdoor spaces into areas that students can eat outdoors. Why cram everyone in the same cafeteria? Most students bring their own lunch.

[Anonymous]

The chicken pox thing is incorrect. Stop repeating that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to distribute packed lunches in classrooms. Let students eat in classrooms, in hallways, in playgrounds etc etc. We need to convert all outdoor spaces into areas that students can eat outdoors. Why cram everyone in the same cafeteria? Most students bring their own lunch.

You cram people into one large space because there are not unlimited people to supervise the kids. Teachers are entitled to their own lunch break.

[Anonymous]

The plan to reopen schools is foolish and it will collapse one outbreak, one ICU admission, one death at a time.