Maryland Recovery Plan for Education has been posted

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

You hire a babysitter or use child care like most working parents. Seems simple to me.

[Anonymous]

Sooner or later the majority of population will be exposed, most probably before vaccine. As long as people are not dying because of overwhelmed hospitals like in Italy, there is little to gain, but a lot to lose by shutting down everything, schools included.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

+100000

Do the parents work in a room with 500 other people? Do they walk in halls touching other people, crammed together? Do they all take bathroom breaks together? Do they sit in an office with 30 other people?
What part of staying away from other people during this pandemic have you missed? When did the education system in this country fail so terribly that some people can not follow what it means to have a pandemic?

You can [phone] all you want. The coronavirus doesn't give a damn. It's looking for hosts to plant itself and spread and the more people crammed together the happier it is. A happy coronavirus is tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of sick people for Maryland. Public schools aren't set up for un-vaccinated students, remember? Every single child right now is un-vaccinated.

Actually many do as most companies and governments have gone to the open concept offices. Most people are crammed together, share bathrooms, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

+100000

Do the parents work in a room with 500 other people? Do they walk in halls touching other people, crammed together? Do they all take bathroom breaks together? Do they sit in an office with 30 other people?
What part of staying away from other people during this pandemic have you missed? When did the education system in this country fail so terribly that some people can not follow what it means to have a pandemic?

You can [phone] all you want. The coronavirus doesn't give a damn. It's looking for hosts to plant itself and spread and the more people crammed together the happier it is. A happy coronavirus is tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of sick people for Maryland. Public schools aren't set up for un-vaccinated students, remember? Every single child right now is un-vaccinated

Actually many do as most companies and governments have gone to the open concept offices. Most people are crammed together, share bathrooms, etc.

Open concept? Never been in an overcrowded public school have you? In what office do people work shoulder to shoulder? Your idea of crammed is spacious for public school children.

What office building has 500 people eating lunch in one room?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

You hire a babysitter or use child care like most working parents. Seems simple to me.

There's not enough childcare options as it is. There certainly won't be enough to cover the massive influx of children that this half time schooling plan would require.

I also take issue with any employer, education based or not, suddenly expecting their employees to find thousands of dollars in their monthly budget for childcare, particularly at a time when people are finding their pay being cut as a result of the economic crisis we're spiraling into. You want people back at work to get the economy moving but want to saddle working parents with childcare expenses in order to do so. Sounds counter intuitive. Then you have all the people who are unemployed who now won't even be able to return to work because now they can't afford it due to childcare expenses.

And you can spare me the "school is not childcare" bullshit. Of course it's not. We all know that. But our economy is designed to run in a way that children being at school allows both parents to work and if you remove that option, this whole house of cards comes crashing down.

The fact of the matter is, there are a lot of jobs that would be flexible enough to allow at least one parent to work from home one or two days a week on the days their child may not be at school. So they could probably make it work. But teaching isn't one of those jobs. So, once again, the financial burden of these stupid plans falls squarely on the teachers' shoulders and on those essential workers who cannot work from home (God bless them I don't even know how they're doing it now).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

You hire a babysitter or use child care like most working parents. Seems simple to me.

That's like answering the question "Where do I go to find disinfectant wipes (or toilet paper)?" with "You go to the store. Seems simple to me."

Where are all of these babysitters/child care providers going to suddenly appear from, and what money are people going to use to pay them? Keeping in mind that, even during normal times, child care is hard to find and expensive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

I assume teachers would be teaching remotely half time and in the classroom half time. Having the same teachers for both groups of kids would defeat the purpose, which would be avoiding sharing germs between the two halves.

Hopefully MCPS would prioritize placing kids on the same track as their parents.

Then you'll have to double the number of teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Do the parents work in a room with 500 other people? Do they walk in halls touching other people, crammed together? Do they all take bathroom breaks together? Do they sit in an office with 30 other people?
What part of staying away from other people during this pandemic have you missed? When did the education system in this country fail so terribly that some people can not follow what it means to have a pandemic?

You can [phone] all you want. The coronavirus doesn't give a damn. It's looking for hosts to plant itself and spread and the more people crammed together the happier it is. A happy coronavirus is tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of sick people for Maryland. Public schools aren't set up for un-vaccinated students, remember? Every single child right now is un-vaccinated.

I'm pretty sure that not all 2,000+ kids in my kid's high school all use the same bathroom at the same time.

Also, public schools absolutely are set up for unvaccinated students, every year during flu season.

[Anonymous]

Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

If schools and daycares can't open safely, then many parents who are currently staying at home will need to continue to stay at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

If schools and daycares can't open safely, then many parents who are currently staying at home will need to continue to stay at home.

And as long as schools and daycares are closed, employers are all but forced to work with their employees on these alternative work structures. If schools partially reopen, it’s much easier for employers to tell their employees to figure it out because they expect everyone back in the office as usual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

Yes, some teachers might need to figure out childcare for some parts of the day - just like tons of other people have being doing and will have to do. Let’s not pretend this is a unique hardship not borne by many other working parents right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

Yes, some teachers might need to figure out childcare for some parts of the day - just like tons of other people have being doing and will have to do. Let’s not pretend this is a unique hardship not borne by many other working parents right now.

It's already tough for lots of people, so let's make it tough for more people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working parents (including teachers) are screwed if these alternative plans are used.

That’s why they are not going to be used.
Too complicated. It’s going to be a phase 3 style back to school as normal or 100% virtual.
The problem for teachers is they will be expected to be online and working a
lot more for fall than right now, so the ones with younger kids might still need childcare. And if schools can’t open safely,
Neither can daycares.

Yes, some teachers might need to figure out childcare for some parts of the day - just like tons of other people have being doing and will have to do. Let’s not pretend this is a unique hardship not borne by many other working parents right now.

It's already tough for lots of people, so let's make it tough for more people!

So that kids are able to have a semblance of a real education, yes, we should do that.