City council voting today on bill to force school closings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

This. The solution is to move. PS, you get a huge tax break, too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

This. The solution is to move. PS, you get a huge tax break, too!

Soooo…. If one were to move for schools, what’s the best bet for good education that remains in person? I was thinking MoCo, but they seem pretty deranged about school closures as well. It’s Virginia, isn’t it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

Doesn’t matter that they don’t prevent covid, what they do is reduce the symptoms significantly. In fact to your point, they reduce it to a mild cold for most people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

This. The solution is to move. PS, you get a huge tax break, too!

Soooo…. If one were to move for schools, what’s the best bet for good education that remains in person? I was thinking MoCo, but they seem pretty deranged about school closures as well. It’s Virginia, isn’t it. [/quote

Why would it be safe to open schools in Virginia but not DC? Also vaccination is important because it severely limits severe disease. I've known lots of people with omicron from age 1 to 74, many od the older people with comorbidities I using heart disease and obesity. Symptoms ranged from almost nothing to a very bad cold. So if thr goal is to reduce illness and hospitalizations, vaccines are the best tool. Mandating the vaccine will limit (though not eliminate) covid and reduce stress on hospitals. School never closed for chicken pox, which can be very dangerous for adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

This. The solution is to move. PS, you get a huge tax break, too!

And where else is it normal? Exchanging the overly cautious political shenanigans for the outright insane intentionally risky political shenanigans with violence attached is not a step towards the better.

The Wednesday data shows that it isn't nearly as bad as everyone feared. We can handle this. Twitter isn't real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they want to make school safer they need to have a student vaccine mandate and enforce boosters for adults and eligible kids. That would make schools, teachers, and the community safer and limit hospit admissions. Vaccines are not perfect against omicron, but for kids and many adults it makes covid manageable with at home care.

No it won’t. Vaccines don’t prevent covid. How many people do you know recently who have been vaccinated and have covid? Until covid is considered like a cold, schools will not be functioning normally.

A place like DC has 3-5 years to go before normalcy, if ever. We are almost 2 years into this, omicron is mostly mild and you have a city council trying to force closures. I cannot emphasize enough that education will not be normal for a very long time. Open your eyes and get out while you still can.

This. The solution is to move. PS, you get a huge tax break, too!

And where else is it normal? Exchanging the overly cautious political shenanigans for the outright insane intentionally risky political shenanigans with violence attached is not a step towards the better.

The Wednesday data shows that it isn't nearly as bad as everyone feared. We can handle this. Twitter isn't real.

I’m not advocating for it all, but this is happening all over.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2022/01/08/adams-county-adams-14-covid-cases-virtual-learning/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/46-philadelphia-schools-switch-virtual-learning/story?id=82149872

https://katv.com/news/local/lrsd-teacher-praises-districts-decision-to-move-to-virtual-learning

https://mynbc15.com/news/local/clarke-county-schools-move-to-virtual-learning-for-a-week-due-to-covid-absences

https://www.wbrz.com/news/some-capital-area-schools-move-to-virtual-learning-over-covid-concerns/

https://kfor.com/news/coronavirus/omicron-surge-continues-as-some-schools-in-oklahoma-switch-to-virtual-learning-doctors-say-cases-hospitalizations-and-deaths-are-rising/

Hardly exclusive to the DC area. In fact, I think DCPS is doing a pretty good job resisting virtual despite the circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Those school districts are outliers. Many others have already adopted updated CDC guidelines meant to keep schools open. Maryland, for example, adopted the shortened isolation/quarantine guidance. The CDC guidance gives me hope. If parents can make their voices heard i think that there is still a pretty good chance that schools will remain open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those school districts are outliers. Many others have already adopted updated CDC guidelines meant to keep schools open. Maryland, for example, adopted the shortened isolation/quarantine guidance. The CDC guidance gives me hope. If parents can make their voices heard i think that there is still a pretty good chance that schools will remain open.

Write to your council members, then.

[Anonymous]

Why are so many of you fighting to keep status quo? Supposedly to avoid learning loss, right? But do you really think they’re learning much with constant quarantines and teachers out?

I cannot keep doing this back and forth with kids back for a day then out for a week because of exposure of insufficient number healthy teachers. This is not working because there’s too much COVID going on right now.

We know this surge will go away faster than others. I wish cooler heads could prevail and realize it would be easier and more sustainable to go virtual for two weeks with economic support for families (and coupled with the limitations on public gatherings and two week pause on bars/in person dining that Bowser is too chicken sh*t to reactivate) than this hellscape. This path will just make it linger longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many of you fighting to keep status quo? Supposedly to avoid learning loss, right? But do you really think they’re learning much with constant quarantines and teachers out?

I cannot keep doing this back and forth with kids back for a day then out for a week because of exposure of insufficient number healthy teachers. This is not working because there’s too much COVID going on right now.

We know this surge will go away faster than others. I wish cooler heads could prevail and realize it would be easier and more sustainable to go virtual for two weeks with economic support for families (and coupled with the limitations on public gatherings and two week pause on bars/in person dining that Bowser is too chicken sh*t to reactivate) than this hellscape. This path will just make it linger longer.

Are you imagining this? I know there have been cases and quarantines, but it’s a smattering compared to DCPS as a whole. My own kids have missed zero days because of Covid this year, other than the testing days last week.

Keep school open!

[Anonymous]

My kid has also missed zero days (in DCPS) due to covid, nor have many to most in her class. I used to be a strong Robert White supporter and up until this year a WTU supporter. I can no longer support either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid has also missed zero days (in DCPS) due to covid, nor have many to most in her class. I used to be a strong Robert White supporter and up until this year a WTU supporter. I can no longer support either.

DP: you and PP have such a blissful ignorance to the realities of what is going on in a majority of the city. I’m glad your experience has been normal this year. That’s not the case district wide and those furthest from opportunity are continuing to pay the bill for your privilege

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many of you fighting to keep status quo? Supposedly to avoid learning loss, right? But do you really think they’re learning much with constant quarantines and teachers out?

I cannot keep doing this back and forth with kids back for a day then out for a week because of exposure of insufficient number healthy teachers. This is not working because there’s too much COVID going on right now.

We know this surge will go away faster than others. I wish cooler heads could prevail and realize it would be easier and more sustainable to go virtual for two weeks with economic support for families (and coupled with the limitations on public gatherings and two week pause on bars/in person dining that Bowser is too chicken sh*t to reactivate) than this hellscape. This path will just make it linger longer.

You know it won't be two weeks. It's entirely disingenuous to claim it would be.

I think people get that this is rough all around -- in and out of school, staff shortages, etc.. But the baseline should be in-person school. Let's pretend it'll be done in two weeks.

My kid has missed a single day of school bc of being a close contact (it was right before the break, plus kid was just inside the "full immunity" window for vax). My uncertainty about school is largely driven by DC Council trying to mess with public health policy based on no science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are so many of you fighting to keep status quo? Supposedly to avoid learning loss, right? But do you really think they’re learning much with constant quarantines and teachers out?

I cannot keep doing this back and forth with kids back for a day then out for a week because of exposure of insufficient number healthy teachers. This is not working because there’s too much COVID going on right now.

We know this surge will go away faster than others. I wish cooler heads could prevail and realize it would be easier and more sustainable to go virtual for two weeks with economic support for families (and coupled with the limitations on public gatherings and two week pause on bars/in person dining that Bowser is too chicken sh*t to reactivate) than this hellscape. This path will just make it linger longer.

Are you imagining this? I know there have been cases and quarantines, but it’s a smattering compared to DCPS as a whole. My own kids have missed zero days because of Covid this year, other than the testing days last week.

Keep school open!

Same here! Also, now that kids are vaccinated, they won't have to quarantine anymore! We dodged quarantines in the fall (were never identified as a close contact), and now that threat is off the table. Our school only had 2% of the staff test positive last week, so I'm hopeful there won't be a deluge the next weeks either.