MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

Takes what test?

A COVID test - jeez. Read.

This assumes that the family of the kid in question has the motivation and access to testing. Otherwise they can hold the entire class to ransom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

Takes what test?

A COVID test - jeez. Read.

This assumes that the family of the kid in question has the motivation and access to testing. Otherwise they can hold the entire class to ransom.

Not unless the public school buys tests with its FEDERAL FUNDS and tests children like it should.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

“Yay”??? The entire class is needlessly worried and misses school. And 24 hours is best case scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

“Yay”??? The entire class is needlessly worried and misses school. And 24 hours is best case scenario.

DP. To avoid this, don’t send your kid to school sick. yay!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone actually heard anything from MCPS about this? I saw the tweet from Caitlynn Peetz, who is usually a reliable source, but we usually also get emails and texts from MCPS about this stuff and we haven't seen anything.

Huh? I’m not OP but I just pasted the two paragraphs on page 1 of this thread that I received from my elementary school principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretty easy to get the negative test and get everyone back within a day. Seems like NBD.

Sure. It’s easy for you. It’s easy for me too. But we’re not in charge here. The kid who was sent home is, or their family is. You have no idea who that family is and whether they have the money, time or resources to take their kids for a test. What if they just don’t care? Then the entire class is home for the full 10 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

Takes what test?

A COVID test - jeez. Read.

This assumes that the family of the kid in question has the motivation and access to testing. Otherwise they can hold the entire class to ransom.

They need to let the other kids test out of quarantine. Ridiculous that we need to be held hostage by careless parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We tried the free Covid testing through the County a couple of times. It took several days to get results back if at all.

With Kaiser we've always gotten results back within 24 hours if not within 12 hours. But you have to be a member and be willing to drive to the Gaithersburg center.

For those without access to quick turnaround testing this is going to be a nightmare.

Actually you don't.

Can you elaborate? How do you get a test at Kaiser if you are not a Kaiser member?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We tried the free Covid testing through the County a couple of times. It took several days to get results back if at all.

With Kaiser we've always gotten results back within 24 hours if not within 12 hours. But you have to be a member and be willing to drive to the Gaithersburg center.

For those without access to quick turnaround testing this is going to be a nightmare.

Very low income will have medicaid and can get private testing for free.

Not necessarily quickly or conveniently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

“Yay”??? The entire class is needlessly worried and misses school. And 24 hours is best case scenario.

DP. To avoid this, don’t send your kid to school sick. yay!

I don’t (yay!!) but unfortunately I haven’t yet found a way to control what other people do. If you have tips, do let me know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

“Yay”??? The entire class is needlessly worried and misses school. And 24 hours is best case scenario.

DP. To avoid this, don’t send your kid to school sick. yay!

I don’t (yay!!) but unfortunately I haven’t yet found a way to control what other people do. If you have tips, do let me know.

There may well be support and/or pressure from the school on the family in question to get the testing done. Our ES is having a parent meeting next Wed to discuss quarantine. I think that’s a much better way of conveying this information and discussing the various scenarios than via email or Twitter. Other schools may do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I give up. It's probably just easier to do virtual until our kids can get vaccinated than deal with the roadblocks this idiotic Board wants to throw up. At least there's stability with virtual.

They need to stop the spread. Some people are clearly ok with getting covid as they don't care about anyone but themselves, even their kids and send them to school sick and don't care the impact it has on others.

I don't get the complaining. It was clear this would happen, so deal with it. Just like the same families told those of us concerned to just deal with it. Your turn. Virtual has a waitlist and isn't taking new families but go ahead and apply.

Please. Stopping the spread is impossible now, we're never getting to zero Covid. MCPS seems to have some expectation of getting the risk level down to zero, instead of taking common sense mitigation measures(masks, outdoor lunch, quarantine cases, not kids on the other side of the cafeteria). If their aim is zero risk, they should've never opened for in-person.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a good policy and I support it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I give up. It's probably just easier to do virtual until our kids can get vaccinated than deal with the roadblocks this idiotic Board wants to throw up. At least there's stability with virtual.

They need to stop the spread. Some people are clearly ok with getting covid as they don't care about anyone but themselves, even their kids and send them to school sick and don't care the impact it has on others.

I don't get the complaining. It was clear this would happen, so deal with it. Just like the same families told those of us concerned to just deal with it. Your turn. Virtual has a waitlist and isn't taking new families but go ahead and apply.

Please. Stopping the spread is impossible now, we're never getting to zero Covid. MCPS seems to have some expectation of getting the risk level down to zero, instead of taking common sense mitigation measures(masks, outdoor lunch, quarantine cases, not kids on the other side of the cafeteria). If their aim is zero risk, they should've never opened for in-person.

Why has MCPS been so bad at this from the very beginning? They just can't seem to pull their head out of their butt at all.

[Anonymous]

So I class is sent home until getting a negative test on their own. Let's say that takes 2 days, comes back and 3 days later another kid has a "bad headache " back home again but there's a project at work so this time it takes 3 days to go get the test then back again until a week and a half later someone eats the cafeteria food and has diarrhea so now you're out again for another day.

What a sh"tshow