If your school tested everyone, and shared the percent positive, what is it and what are they doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m PP. Who’s doctor is having child quarantine from the rest of the house after a close contact. The doctor did the same for her own child who had a close contact. Based on her having us do this, do you think close contacts should be back in school? Again, my child is vaccinated as was doctor’s child.

I believe CDC guidelines is vaccinated close contacts who are children have no restrictions besides masking like everyone else, and schools are following this. They are also, in our schools case at least, making a point of not providing virtual learning or makeup work to close contact children who don't report to school. They will only provide work to children at home with Covid. So if you feel like your close contact child might develop Covid I guess it's on you to test them daily in this scenario n order to protect the community.

So, if you've already got virtual programming going, you have to either have Covid or be an unvaccinated close-contact to learn virtually? It's it's already happening, why not invite anyone to participate? What does it matter? What does "making a point" actually accomplish?

Because teaching kids in the classroom while also teaching kids virtually is incredibly for the teacher and has a negative impact on the quality all of the students are receiving. Makes sense to keep it to a minimum by restricting it to only kids who actually need to be out. By doing that, it’s not an every day thing.

So we have to endanger kids to make the environment better for others?

An older relative lives with us (vaxxed and boosted), and was is the hospital with Covid pneumonia over the holiday (he's on the mend, but it was scary). Our vaxxed child caught it at school the last week before the break. Our school didn't offer the class a virtual option because while they were all close-contacts to the initial positive case, they were vaccinated and didn't qualify for online. We asked for KN94/95s to be implemented, they declined. We sent our kid in a high-performance mask anyway. It still spread. I would have appreciated the ability to make that call for our family, vs. the protecting vibe of that classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All DMV Schools should close next week, week and a half and let this burn out. You cannot tell me that there won't be students/teachers who become contagious BETWEEN tests (no matter how frequent) - creating an overlapping chain. Previous iterations of Covid were "containable" with testing and quarantine of close contacts. If schools stay open through the Omnicron surge count on many students and their families catching it. We are talking a couple of weeks to let it burn through the region - don't understand the thinking here.

Agree with this. Let’s go back the week of the 31st.

I also agree. The problem is that some people can’t stand to be home with their kids so will be gathering without masks and/or traveling defeating the whole purpose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All DMV Schools should close next week, week and a half and let this burn out. You cannot tell me that there won't be students/teachers who become contagious BETWEEN tests (no matter how frequent) - creating an overlapping chain. Previous iterations of Covid were "containable" with testing and quarantine of close contacts. If schools stay open through the Omnicron surge count on many students and their families catching it. We are talking a couple of weeks to let it burn through the region - don't understand the thinking here.

Agree with this. Let’s go back the week of the 31st.

I also agree. The problem is that some people can’t stand to be home with their kids so will be gathering without masks and/or traveling defeating the whole purpose.

You guys clearly don't have high school students taking AP classes and trying to get into college. A month off when you are taking 5 AP classes is academic suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All DMV Schools should close next week, week and a half and let this burn out. You cannot tell me that there won't be students/teachers who become contagious BETWEEN tests (no matter how frequent) - creating an overlapping chain. Previous iterations of Covid were "containable" with testing and quarantine of close contacts. If schools stay open through the Omnicron surge count on many students and their families catching it. We are talking a couple of weeks to let it burn through the region - don't understand the thinking here.

Agree with this. Let’s go back the week of the 31st.

I also agree. The problem is that some people can’t stand to be home with their kids so will be gathering without masks and/or traveling defeating the whole purpose.

You guys clearly don't have high school students taking AP classes and trying to get into college. A month off when you are taking 5 AP classes is academic suicide.

Then go to hybrid and let families decide. Our school was hybrid all last year and families got to make the call. And if you’re already doing virtual for the sick kids, it’s sort of already happening. Just let families opt in and make the call for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Hybrid -if it’s not conducted with separate teachers- will reduce class quality for all. As long as you accept this, fine. Don’t call the teachers at the end of the day to berate them for your kid not seeing the chemistry lab on live feed or feeling bad they can’t participate in ceramics.

[Anonymous]

St. Andrew's tested 739 on Saturday and six positive, so they will be open as normal tomorrow and test weekly for a while.

My other child is in MCPS and that is a hellish nightmare. I would gladly pay more in taxes if MCPS also tested everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Langley is only testing via PCR every other week, which is insane. No additional mitigation. I miss our old HOS.

Langley tests older grades weekly and just set up a covid dashboard that outlines the number of active cases school wide as well as by division and grade. Michele Claeys has made amazing improvements in just a short time in middle school. She’s been very responsive to parents (adjusted the schedule to increase frequency of core classes which is a major undertaking once the school year has started, improved the HS outplacement process, hired strong new teachers, created the positions of assistant division heads—things are running much more smoothly than last year). I would just ask if the frequency of testing for younger kids can be increased during this peak time. Don’t assume they will say no. Langley has handled covid incredibly well for the duration of the pandemic and is responsive to parents.

Langley covid policy has been a joke. You either work for the school or have addt'l incentives to spin this. There are many cases where the "administration" is relenting to certain parent pressure to keep kids and making up close contact policy eeven though there are clear cases of covid in the classroom. Many parents with active covid cases have sent their kids to school because the previous test was "negative".

In which state? Even public schools in MD have to allow excused absences during a state of emergency and it’s in writing that it’s the principal’s responsibility to “restore a student’s failing grade” after extended excused absences.

Yeah, their close contact policy is a joke. And I know I’m not in the minority who thinks that.

Nope I don’t work there. Have a kid in middle and feel like the covid safety has been strong, minimized within community spread, and resulted in mostly in-person school which is the goal.

Yeah, it worked well with a handful of cases last year and the early part of this year, truly. But with 40+ cases this week, they gotta step it up a notch.

Another Langley parent here. We have actually been very happy with the covid protocols. Covid changes quickly and I have been happy to see how quickly Langley has adjusted. Testing every other week in the lower school was reasonable when there were so few cases - in fact, I hoped they would stop that testing for vaccinated students. But, then omicron came and Langley has to adopt again. They expanded testing to the Primary school (did you hear the number of 3 year olds crying hysterically?) and implemented a tracking dashboard. What else do you want from them? If you've got ideas, you should tell them.

They've heard the feedback. We can start a list here:

1. If there's active covid cases in your household, please keep your kids home from school and do virtual learning. Just because your child tested negative week and a half ago doesnt imply they're ok going to school
2. Test at least once a week.
3. If your family traveled out of the region (specifically to a hot bed), maybe require a 5 day period before testing to send kids back to school

but again thats moot when certain parents think they can game the system

Our DMV private won't excuse these kids or provide virtual learning. Unless the child has Covid, they have to be at school if vaccinated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious why we are testing at all? Evenness is vax”d at these schools. Most are boosted. Teachers. Kids. Administrators. We know the data from various countries as well as our own that kids aren’t at any real risk. Yet…we fall back to old policy/procedure. I think parents and administrators are letting our children down w the inability to,lead, think critically and comprehend all the data that is now available.

Because we care about the safety of the community, and the most vulnerable among us, and they're threatened right now. This is a concrete thing that we can do to help.

We moved to a private school primarily because of their covid protocols, because we have a high risk household member. We're grateful that the school community thinks he's worth protecting.

Well we moved OUT of private schools because of their COVID protocols (or lack thereof). They also weren’t willing to accommodate high risk kids that needed to stay home when their mitigation measures were non-existent. We realized what a crapshoot private schools in Md are because of the lack of oversight by the state BOE and health departments and chose to homeschool this year instead. And yes, during flu season we have also been extra cautious. Our kid has heart issues and even with all of us vaxxed they got both strains of the flu in 2019/20 winter about 2 months apart. So we knew all through this pandemic that breakthrough infections can happen and what flu like symptoms actually does to our child’s little body.

What private school were you at?

Our private is in DAILY communication with the health department. They absolutely do supervise private schools.
FWIW I have kids in public and private. The private school child was quarantined far more because the private does surveillance testing and got non-symptomatic positives. The public schools rely on self reported tests.

We were at a school in MD. I know they talked to the health department because I called in several complaints only for admin to lie when they came to inspect. These privates in Montgomery County are doing whatever they want unless enough parents complain for safety. We were not the only family to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious why we are testing at all? Evenness is vax”d at these schools. Most are boosted. Teachers. Kids. Administrators. We know the data from various countries as well as our own that kids aren’t at any real risk. Yet…we fall back to old policy/procedure. I think parents and administrators are letting our children down w the inability to,lead, think critically and comprehend all the data that is now available.

Because we care about the safety of the community, and the most vulnerable among us, and they're threatened right now. This is a concrete thing that we can do to help.

We moved to a private school primarily because of their covid protocols, because we have a high risk household member. We're grateful that the school community thinks he's worth protecting.

All of this, so much. 100%. To previous commenters: You know when you say that only immune-compromised people will die with this surge, we immune-compromised people can hear you. Our kids also go to school with your kids. I’m sorry that you think testing your kids and asking them to wear decent makes is too much of an inconvenience and it’s not worth those minor inconveniences to literally save our lives.

The point is, they don’t know. Research just published showing a possible link between diabetes in children and prior Covid diagnosis.

Honest question here - isn’t omicron the equivalent of the flu for immune-compromised, in terms of its health risk? So people who are a immune-compromised are no more at risk from omicron as they are every other year from getting the flu? And we don’t normally shut down schools or take other drastic measures to prevent the flu spread. Why is this different?

[Anonymous]

1,367 students, faculty, and staff tested. 130 positive cases.

If you're positive, you stay home, time depends on symptoms and vaccination status (vaccination had to have been at school or card uploaded to the school's portal to count). Otherwise everyone else is coming to school. Masking, distancing, etc. still in place.

Our school was open all last year though (in Virginia but not NoVA), starting in August. There was no community spread last year or even last fall (testing has been done every week since August 2020). Now I'm not so sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All DMV Schools should close next week, week and a half and let this burn out. You cannot tell me that there won't be students/teachers who become contagious BETWEEN tests (no matter how frequent) - creating an overlapping chain. Previous iterations of Covid were "containable" with testing and quarantine of close contacts. If schools stay open through the Omnicron surge count on many students and their families catching it. We are talking a couple of weeks to let it burn through the region - don't understand the thinking here.

Agree with this. Let’s go back the week of the 31st.

I also agree. The problem is that some people can’t stand to be home with their kids so will be gathering without masks and/or traveling defeating the whole purpose.

Oh please. My husband and I both work from home in cushy jobs and we love spending time with our kids. But if you think that after two weeks of Christmas break we're going to keep our kids locked up inside for 30 days without seeing anyone or going anywhere, you're nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious why we are testing at all? Evenness is vax”d at these schools. Most are boosted. Teachers. Kids. Administrators. We know the data from various countries as well as our own that kids aren’t at any real risk. Yet…we fall back to old policy/procedure. I think parents and administrators are letting our children down w the inability to,lead, think critically and comprehend all the data that is now available.

Because we care about the safety of the community, and the most vulnerable among us, and they're threatened right now. This is a concrete thing that we can do to help.

We moved to a private school primarily because of their covid protocols, because we have a high risk household member. We're grateful that the school community thinks he's worth protecting.

All of this, so much. 100%. To previous commenters: You know when you say that only immune-compromised people will die with this surge, we immune-compromised people can hear you. Our kids also go to school with your kids. I’m sorry that you think testing your kids and asking them to wear decent makes is too much of an inconvenience and it’s not worth those minor inconveniences to literally save our lives.

The point is, they don’t know. Research just published showing a possible link between diabetes in children and prior Covid diagnosis.

Honest question here - isn’t omicron the equivalent of the flu for immune-compromised, in terms of its health risk? So people who are a immune-compromised are no more at risk from omicron as they are every other year from getting the flu? And we don’t normally shut down schools or take other drastic measures to prevent the flu spread. Why is this different?

No. This virus has more known risks than the flu and also has adapted so rapidly that we don't have data for a long-term perspective on the effects (such as long covid).

For example, there are a lot of documented cases of vaccinated people who initially had very mild acute symptoms (light cold-like) who then were subsequently hospitalized a month later with a blood clot. The inflammatory nature of this virus within the circulatory system seems to be part of the puzzle as to why there is such a variance of symptoms. There are also some well-known common symptoms that, if you think about it, are rather alarming neurological features, such as the loss of taste and smell for months. Some epidemiologists worry that we will have an epidemic of early onset dementia in the future.

The unfortunate reality is that data capture, messaging, policies, protocols, and testing are a huge mess and most of the public is really confused and semi-checked out at this point. There are many reasons to still be really concerned and careful but sadly we don't seem to have the will to be vigilant anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m PP. Who’s doctor is having child quarantine from the rest of the house after a close contact. The doctor did the same for her own child who had a close contact. Based on her having us do this, do you think close contacts should be back in school? Again, my child is vaccinated as was doctor’s child.

I believe CDC guidelines is vaccinated close contacts who are children have no restrictions besides masking like everyone else, and schools are following this. They are also, in our schools case at least, making a point of not providing virtual learning or makeup work to close contact children who don't report to school. They will only provide work to children at home with Covid. So if you feel like your close contact child might develop Covid I guess it's on you to test them daily in this scenario n order to protect the community.

So, if you've already got virtual programming going, you have to either have Covid or be an unvaccinated close-contact to learn virtually? It's it's already happening, why not invite anyone to participate? What does it matter? What does "making a point" actually accomplish?

Because teaching kids in the classroom while also teaching kids virtually is incredibly for the teacher and has a negative impact on the quality all of the students are receiving. Makes sense to keep it to a minimum by restricting it to only kids who actually need to be out. By doing that, it’s not an every day thing.

So we have to endanger kids to make the environment better for others?

An older relative lives with us (vaxxed and boosted), and was is the hospital with Covid pneumonia over the holiday (he's on the mend, but it was scary). Our vaxxed child caught it at school the last week before the break. Our school didn't offer the class a virtual option because while they were all close-contacts to the initial positive case, they were vaccinated and didn't qualify for online. We asked for KN94/95s to be implemented, they declined. We sent our kid in a high-performance mask anyway. It still spread. I would have appreciated the ability to make that call for our family, vs. the protecting vibe of that classroom.

Our school has been somewhat like this, kind of frowning on any absences of vaccinated close contacts and not providing DL. They have moved to better masks though and weekly testing (and are finding plenty of cases).