Can Lafayette with 1,000 kids re-open in the Fall?

[Anonymous]

Don’t forget - teachers live in different parts of the city in addition to MD and VA.

Let’s hope DC coordinates with VA and MD on school schedules

[Anonymous]

Many are predicting DCPS open with a staggered schedule. That way the classes will only be half full.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

A few years?! I doubt that the country can stay closed that long. People will be killing themselves from bankruptcies, losing their homes etc... All for a disease that is only killing 0.5% of the American People.

Ain’t gonna happen!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

A few years?! I doubt that the country can stay closed that long. People will be killing themselves from bankruptcies, losing their homes etc... All for a disease that is only killing 0.5% of the American People.

Ain’t gonna happen!

Businesses may reopen but schools won’t be the same for a few years at least. Too much liability if kids and teachers start dying. Settle In folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

They need to make morning shifts and afternoon shifts. No recess. breakfast for the morning shift, lunch for the afternoon shift. No group more than 15.
Group A goes to school for 3 hours, teachers get a 45-minute lunch, then comes group B. Parents need to find a way to get some type of childcare and pick up their kids from school on time.
No in-school afternoon activities for kids, no need for long daily meetings for teachers.
It's being done in a few countries overseas. Why can't it be done here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

They need to make morning shifts and afternoon shifts. No recess. breakfast for the morning shift, lunch for the afternoon shift. No group more than 15.
Group A goes to school for 3 hours, teachers get a 45-minute lunch, then comes group B. Parents need to find a way to get some type of childcare and pick up their kids from school on time.
No in-school afternoon activities for kids, no need for long daily meetings for teachers.
It's being done in a few countries overseas. Why can't it be done here?

Which countries are you thinking of? Denmark is managing by only inviting the very youngest kids to school, and many families are keeping their kids home. They also have about 20% of the deaths/million (the only way to measure because we aren't testing enough) of DC. So, our situation is 5 times worse than theirs.

If we did a Danish style opening, with only the kids under 10, I could see that working. Move the 2nd to 4th graders to Deal or Wilson, 5th graders don't go to school, provide options for everyone who wants to keep their kids home to keep their home, and you could probably manage social distancing similar to Denmark. But is that what we actually want? Not bringing back 5th grade and up seems like a difficult choice.

Australia is having kids come one day a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

They need to make morning shifts and afternoon shifts. No recess. breakfast for the morning shift, lunch for the afternoon shift. No group more than 15.
Group A goes to school for 3 hours, teachers get a 45-minute lunch, then comes group B. Parents need to find a way to get some type of childcare and pick up their kids from school on time.
No in-school afternoon activities for kids, no need for long daily meetings for teachers.
It's being done in a few countries overseas. Why can't it be done here?

Which countries are you thinking of? Denmark is managing by only inviting the very youngest kids to school, and many families are keeping their kids home. They also have about 20% of the deaths/million (the only way to measure because we aren't testing enough) of DC. So, our situation is 5 times worse than theirs.

If we did a Danish style opening, with only the kids under 10, I could see that working. Move the 2nd to 4th graders to Deal or Wilson, 5th graders don't go to school, provide options for everyone who wants to keep their kids home to keep their home, and you could probably manage social distancing similar to Denmark. But is that what we actually want? Not bringing back 5th grade and up seems like a difficult choice.

Australia is having kids come one day a week.

The probalem isn't primarily buildings - it's staffing. There aren't enough good teachers for every 1-4th grader to have 15 student classrooms. That's about double the teachers. And it would cost a fortune. I could see classes of 10-13 on staggered days MW TR with online/home work on the off days and friday a day of online specials at home. This wouldn't require additional buildings or classrooms and size of school wouldn't matter except in proceedures to get the kids saftely to their classrooms at drop off and out of teh building at pick up. Bathroom passes might also be harder at bigger schools. Ditto cleaning. But big schoosl will have more resoruces for these things so it's a wash.

There is no recess - students are in the classroom the whole time - eat lunch there. But with 11-13 students in a classroom, it would be managebale. The teaching/learning might even be better. What we woudl be giving up on is the idea of school as daycare. I personally would be OK with this for a year if it means 1) my kids are learning and 2) they get another 10-15 years with their grandparents.

[Anonymous]

DCPS should allow figure out a way to use classroom space in under-enrolled schools in order to follow social distancing guidelines.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure how that would work with younger kids not getting recess. I could see the afternoons being really hard. I think it’s gonna be M/T, Th/F with Wednesday being distance learning for everyone to clean between kids. I think kids with ieps will be allowed to come 4 days a week, but that just exposes those families to all the kids. I think no recess is going to be a real problem in the younger grades, but I don’t know how you solve that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS should allow figure out a way to use classroom space in under-enrolled schools in order to follow social distancing guidelines.

I keep seeing this posted here, but I don't understand how classroom space is the issue. The issue is the extra teachers needed, right? We'd need to almost double our teaching force to be able to shrink classroom size to from 22-26 to 11-13. Even at 15 student classrooms, that is a huge number of additional teachers. First, DC couldn't afford it. Second the teacher quality would be an issue.

Explain what I am missing - I don't see that classroom space is a problem. Underenrolled schools are facing the same issue as over enrolled - they need staggered days or twice as many teachers. Under-enrolled schools *might* have the space for twice as many teachers, but I don't see that happening there or anywhere for the reasons posted above

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why you people are even discussing this. No one knows what DCPS is going to do. You can’t change the decisions that are made so why discuss something you have no control over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Sorry people. Now is the new normal for a few years at least. I know people don’t want to hear it but I think false hope is not helpful. This is a paradigm change across the globe. Better to have time to plan for how things will be then to waste time hoping things will go back to how they were.

A few years?! I doubt that the country can stay closed that long. People will be killing themselves from bankruptcies, losing their homes etc... All for a disease that is only killing 0.5% of the American People.

Ain’t gonna happen!

If you exclude people over 65 the fatality rate is much lower. Schools need to open with an option for kids who have medical issues to continue distance learning. They can be taught by teachers who have chronic health conditions.

[Anonymous]

School goes 6 days a week. Split kids into two groups. Either Group A and Group B go every other day or Group A goes 3 days then Group B goes three days with one day between the three days for cleaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School goes 6 days a week. Split kids into two groups. Either Group A and Group B go every other day or Group A goes 3 days then Group B goes three days with one day between the three days for cleaning.

Too expensive. Utilities, staffing, salary from newborn on up.