MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only

[Anonymous]

Just a cough? My kids have often have coughs Nov-March, and other times as well - allergies, one chest illness will have a lingering cough for weeks.

If mcps wants to be this restrictive, they need to offer for kids who miss school the option to zoom in or watch a recording of missed classes. My kids will likely be out frequently under this guidance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

RIDICULOUS!!!! Why do we have such an utterly incompetent school board who are dead set on keeping our children out of school.

Because people voted them in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

Runny nose and sniffles are not on the list.

"symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting"

Isn't this were it gets crazy? trouble breathing could be asthma or even allergy attacks. Does not have to be COVID to ask for quarantine. I hope the health room is staffed with someone educated in medicine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are defining close contact again?

Regardless of the definition in practice it means the entire class in elementary.

What if the student is a bus rider? Does that mean everyone on the bus quarantine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:cough
difficulty breathing
new loss of taste or smell
fever ≥100.4°
sore throat
severe headache,
diarrhea
vomiting

Those seem perfectly reasonable.

Not really. difficulty breathing could be due to allergy attack, asthma etc. Why do you need to quarantine entire classroom for that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are defining close contact again?

being in the same room if you're in elementary school counts as close contact

[Anonymous]

I used to make up headaches all the time at school to get my mom to pick me up. Just saying …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good thing they waited until the last week of summer to approve a reopening plan that didn't make it a week into the new school year! MCPS never wanted to reopen, so they did the bare minimum so they'd force themselves to close.

Who knows.. may be your assumptions are wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

Runny nose and sniffles are not on the list.

"symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting"

Isn't this were it gets crazy? trouble breathing could be asthma or even allergy attacks. Does not have to be COVID to ask for quarantine. I hope the health room is staffed with someone educated in medicine.

Exactly. Headache? Really? And cough/sore throat as we're going into fall and a new allergy season? This is absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest policy in a long line of many. Allergies, asthma, chronic headaches, cold season coming up. It's utter nonsense. Seriously, how stupid can people be and feel like they need to one up the CDC and state officials?

+1 I feel for you ES parents.

my kids are in MS/HS, but DC gets migraines, have had them since 6 yrs old, DC also has asthma. Other DC has terrible allergies, including in the fall.

I have stated before.. MoCo leadership, including the BOE are waaaay too conservative and are driven by fear rather than science.

You mean MoCo leadership and MCPS BOE put children's safety first?

[Anonymous]

It'll be interesting (and probably sad) to see what the BoE says about this. Unfortunately, the whole BoE is old as dirt and isn't going to remember what young kids are like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

Interesting how some prempt their comment with Teacher here. MCPS leadership and parents will decide where the kids need to be considering the safety of everyone. Everyone has different circumstances and you fail to consider these very facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are elementary parents supposed to tell their little ones not to ask to go to the nurse now?

Unfortunately, yes. MCPS has created this perverse incentive.

I agree that it's a perverse incentive for parents to tell their kids, "Larlx, if you start to feel sick at school, DO NOT TELL ANYONE. Just finish the day and come home."

Yeah.. thus infect everyone that come in contact. Isn't it high time people take responsibility and behave responsibly to protect each other from this virus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

If you want kids at school, you need to curb your behavior at home to help stop the spread. 6th graders are generally not vaccinated and its very easy to spread it. But, keep denying covid and have a huge school outbreak that impacts others schools, families and our community. Great plans.

I would be extremely worried if this was my kid's teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest policy in a long line of many. Allergies, asthma, chronic headaches, cold season coming up. It's utter nonsense. Seriously, how stupid can people be and feel like they need to one up the CDC and state officials?

+1 I feel for you ES parents.

my kids are in MS/HS, but DC gets migraines, have had them since 6 yrs old, DC also has asthma. Other DC has terrible allergies, including in the fall.

I have stated before.. MoCo leadership, including the BOE are waaaay too conservative and are driven by fear rather than science.

You mean MoCo leadership and MCPS BOE put children's safety first?

If that were true wouldn't you guys be using the testing money you have?