Holiday travel and quarantine rules

[Anonymous]

I expect my kids will be vaccinated by then so I am not worrying about it now.

[Anonymous]

That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I would lie.

[Anonymous]

Our private school also said unvaccinated people have to quarantine after air travel. I have no air travel trips planned anyway.

[Anonymous]

If this remains the rule this winter, my plan is to lie. Because that rule is dumb AF.

[Anonymous]

Can't you take a shorter trip?

[Anonymous]

And suggesting "a week of remote learning for all" is pretty self centered of you.
Many kids do not do well with remote learning and really suffered last year with it.
You really want an entire school to go through that again just so you can take a longer vacation?

[Anonymous]

One of our schools is really strict with a 7-day quarantine and negative test before returning, the other has relaxed to the point of requesting folks limit unnecessary travel and then the nurse evaluating any travel travel on an case-by-case basis.

The former school just annoys me, because all of our family is outside the DMV. So us going to visit a vaccinated grandparent who is taking precautions is verboten, but we could wander the Smithsonians all day with people from all over the country, many of whom are likely unvaccinated and don’t mask regularly. Dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your kids are in pre-K and second grade. Go see family. It's important. Missing one week of second grade is not a big deal.

I agree with this. You can almost certainly teach your kid anything that they would miss on those days yourself with only a very small time commitment, and the teachers will probably be anticipating large numbers of absences in the week following break anyway, so probably will not introduce much new material.

We will likely structure our holiday travel to minimize the days missed (so leaving DC the day school is out so that we can have a full week with the grandparents and still be back five days before break ends so the kids only have to miss a couple days of school). But we spent two full weeks with that set of grandparents over the summer, so we were only planning on a one week visit anyway. But if we felt like we needed/wanted more GP time, we would just take the full vacation and have them miss some school. They are so young, it will not be a problem.

[Anonymous]

Do they also require parents to be vaccinated?

Our private did a week of virtual after the December/January break last year but they are not doing virtual of any kind this year (unless they change their minds).

To me, implementing this rule but not others (that parents have to be vaccinated, that you can't do contact sports, that you can't do indoor activities like other mentioned) is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Curious what your school is requiring and how it will impact your plans this year.

I don’t know and I don’t care. We are fully vaccinated and not sheep. It’s none of the schools damn business what my kid or I do outside of the classroom.

And this is why the pandemic rages on ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this remains the rule this winter, my plan is to lie. Because that rule is dumb AF.

No one looks out for others. Just 'me, myself, and I'...

[Anonymous]

It's a stupid rule because you have to quarantine after travel, but can go running around, unmasked, on weekends like it's no big deal. I can't go to grandma's without a quarantine, but I can spend all weekend all pumpkin patches where half the kids have covid.

[Anonymous]

Because if they extended the break or allowed extra time for remote learning, people would just come back a week later and the same thing would happen.

I get your frustration, OP, but your kids are going to go on a trip, and not all kids will. If you are going to take them on a trip, then they have to follow the rules and wait, even if that is annoying. It's the "price" to pay for going on a trip, and they will surely be fine if they miss a few days of school to help ensure their fun doesn't result in a classroom outbreak. There might be another family that has immunocompromised members and won't be traveling due to being extra cautious, and your wanting to travel and send your kids back to school right away would be an extra risk they should not have to take.

[Anonymous]

You can also have 30 family members from across the US all come to stay in your house for a week, but apparently that's safer than going to stay with your household in a cabin in the woods of Maine.

[Anonymous]

Travel quarantines aren’t evidenced based at any rate. It’s so tiring that parent are using this as a reason to judge others, when it literally makes no sense.