Schools with positive cases thread - post here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:agree on the PP on testing front - but Test Yourself DC is going to have to ramp up for demand that's clearly already picking up from school - tested my child at the end of last school week (Sat am when tests were available) - still no results back - assuming they are flooded with school start....

I would love to see info on testing capacity and if it would be possible to ramp it up. However, I do want to note we tested our kid on Thursday of last week and got results back Saturday. I have heard many people complain about "delays" in test results after testing Friday or Saturday. But it was a long weekend. So I highly recommend that anyone using Test Yourself for asymptomatic testing, try to do the test midweek and get it to the drop box by Thursday morning at the latest. If you wait until Friday or Saturday to test, it will push you into the following week, and they will have to clear the backlog.

But yes, they should ramp up testing capacity no matter what. I am guessing lack of capacity is why they aren't formally pushing DCPS families to use the program because this is the obvious solution for testing in schools. It's less disruptive of the school day if parents test kids at home, and if we use Test Yourself we could potential get even more than 10% of DCPS students tested regularly, which is the target for the in-school testing that they've never reached.

You're missing the point. The 10% testing was never intended to be a screening test -- it's a surveillance test, to monitor the overall rates. What we SHOULD be doing with testing (since resources are limited) is a "test to stay" policy where close contacts test every day.

But the Test Yourself program could do both. Schools could put the kits in backpacks once a week and request that families bring them back the next day for the on-campus drop box. Even if only 10% of families brought them back, that could be a powerful surveillance tool. No, it's not a perfect sample because there will be some bias in who brings back tests. But since the current testing program is getting far less than 10% anyway, it's not necessarily an inferior sample. Plus the Test Yourself kits are PCR tests with nasal swabs, whereas the school testing protocol is a saliva test, which is much harder to administer with small kids (and may be less accurate).

But you could also use the program to do what you are talking about. You send kits home with any kids in a "close contacts" list and ask parents to drop off their test each morning in order to drop off kids, to avoid quarantine. Significantly easier to implement than trying to get schools to test large groups of students daily (disruptive and logistically challenging, as we've seen with the amount of testing already undergone), but also much easier for families who will not need to obtain tests themselves. All they need to do is take a few moment to do a nasal swap before leaving for school. Fun? No. Better than quarantining, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:agree on the PP on testing front - but Test Yourself DC is going to have to ramp up for demand that's clearly already picking up from school - tested my child at the end of last school week (Sat am when tests were available) - still no results back - assuming they are flooded with school start....

I would love to see info on testing capacity and if it would be possible to ramp it up. However, I do want to note we tested our kid on Thursday of last week and got results back Saturday. I have heard many people complain about "delays" in test results after testing Friday or Saturday. But it was a long weekend. So I highly recommend that anyone using Test Yourself for asymptomatic testing, try to do the test midweek and get it to the drop box by Thursday morning at the latest. If you wait until Friday or Saturday to test, it will push you into the following week, and they will have to clear the backlog.

But yes, they should ramp up testing capacity no matter what. I am guessing lack of capacity is why they aren't formally pushing DCPS families to use the program because this is the obvious solution for testing in schools. It's less disruptive of the school day if parents test kids at home, and if we use Test Yourself we could potential get even more than 10% of DCPS students tested regularly, which is the target for the in-school testing that they've never reached.

You're missing the point. The 10% testing was never intended to be a screening test -- it's a surveillance test, to monitor the overall rates. What we SHOULD be doing with testing (since resources are limited) is a "test to stay" policy where close contacts test every day.

But the Test Yourself program could do both. Schools could put the kits in backpacks once a week and request that families bring them back the next day for the on-campus drop box. Even if only 10% of families brought them back, that could be a powerful surveillance tool. No, it's not a perfect sample because there will be some bias in who brings back tests. But since the current testing program is getting far less than 10% anyway, it's not necessarily an inferior sample. Plus the Test Yourself kits are PCR tests with nasal swabs, whereas the school testing protocol is a saliva test, which is much harder to administer with small kids (and may be less accurate).

But you could also use the program to do what you are talking about. You send kits home with any kids in a "close contacts" list and ask parents to drop off their test each morning in order to drop off kids, to avoid quarantine. Significantly easier to implement than trying to get schools to test large groups of students daily (disruptive and logistically challenging, as we've seen with the amount of testing already undergone), but also much easier for families who will not need to obtain tests themselves. All they need to do is take a few moment to do a nasal swap before leaving for school. Fun? No. Better than quarantining, though.

The parents would still have to show the results to the school and take the test supervised so results aren't faked ...

At a certain point we have to use focused approaches, not just "throw a test in the backpack" approaches. Resources aren't unlimited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year there were cohort restrictions so staff members couldn't work with multiple classes (in person). Its the Wild West now with staff members in and out of classes and lunch rooms coming in contact with 100s of kids. Time to go back to cohorts so we don't have an entire grade quarantining!

Um ... how about mandatory vaccines? Support staff can't cohort, by definition. How is the security guard going to cohort? The school nurse? The push-in special ed teacher?

You realize those positions existed last year when cohorts were in place….don’t you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

most of the adults in schools are teachers, and most of the people interacting with kids are teachers. but the problem with adults in schools being unvaccinated goes beyond teachers, definitely. all adults in schools should be required to be vaccinated.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

most of the adults in schools are teachers, and most of the people interacting with kids are teachers. but the problem with adults in schools being unvaccinated goes beyond teachers, definitely. all adults in schools should be required to be vaccinated.

Current data at vaccinate.dc.gov for DCPS shows that 42.4% of covid cases involve students, 46.4% involvement non-teaching staff, and only 11.2% are teachers. I have felt for a while that the continued focus in this forum on teachers is not in good faith. Whether that is true or not, the focus is not supported by the data.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone seen a notification letter posted on the reopen strong website but NOT actually been notified by the school? Wondering what’s up with that.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

most of the adults in schools are teachers, and most of the people interacting with kids are teachers. but the problem with adults in schools being unvaccinated goes beyond teachers, definitely. all adults in schools should be required to be vaccinated.

Current data at vaccinate.dc.gov for DCPS shows that 42.4% of covid cases involve students, 46.4% involvement non-teaching staff, and only 11.2% are teachers. I have felt for a while that the continued focus in this forum on teachers is not in good faith. Whether that is true or not, the focus is not supported by the data.

You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

I am painfully aware.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

most of the adults in schools are teachers, and most of the people interacting with kids are teachers. but the problem with adults in schools being unvaccinated goes beyond teachers, definitely. all adults in schools should be required to be vaccinated.

Current data at vaccinate.dc.gov for DCPS shows that 42.4% of covid cases involve students, 46.4% involvement non-teaching staff, and only 11.2% are teachers. I have felt for a while that the continued focus in this forum on teachers is not in good faith. Whether that is true or not, the focus is not supported by the data.

Wow, that's not good at all.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

I am painfully aware.

Have you considered that they don’t have an ulterior motive and you just disagree with them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

I am painfully aware.

Have you considered that they don’t have an ulterior motive and you just disagree with them?

What could the ulterior motive possibly be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will be interesting to see how many outbreaks are caused by teachers vs. students

Why is the attack line always “teachers”. You do realize there are other people who work in school buildings and interact very closely with students don’t you?

Let’s talk about what percentage of DCPS adult Covid cases in the entirety of 2021 were caused by TEACHERS and not other support staff.
You can say you’re generalizing, but assumptions like yours are part of the problem

most of the adults in schools are teachers, and most of the people interacting with kids are teachers. but the problem with adults in schools being unvaccinated goes beyond teachers, definitely. all adults in schools should be required to be vaccinated.

Current data at vaccinate.dc.gov for DCPS shows that 42.4% of covid cases involve students, 46.4% involvement non-teaching staff, and only 11.2% are teachers. I have felt for a while that the continued focus in this forum on teachers is not in good faith. Whether that is true or not, the focus is not supported by the data.

Wow, that's not good at all.

Must be the Trump voters that POTUS mentioned in his speech tonight.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

I am painfully aware.

Have you considered that they don’t have an ulterior motive and you just disagree with them?

Of course I've considered it. Their own actions have convinced me that they irrationally blame teachers for everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You think it’s in bad faith? That’s a lot of your website constituency that you seem to think has an agenda.

I am painfully aware.

Have you considered that they don’t have an ulterior motive and you just disagree with them?

What could the ulterior motive possibly be?

That is sort of my point. I don’t think there is one.