Last minute plan B if schools don’t open?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LUNCH IN THE CAFETERIA IS THE PROBLEM

I see this has become the new drumbeat. It’s always something.

Some of us have had no choice but to send our kids to school or daycare of done kind during the pandemic. Those of us with younger kids may have tried to tough it out at home for a bit, but you cannot keep a 5 yr old at home full time while also working full time, especially if you have to be in person for any of that time. Many people don’t have room or money for a nanny, and some kids need to be in a classroom environment for socio-emotional reasons.

Point is, many of our kids have been in school environments where they wear masks except for meals for months and months. And what we’ve learned is that it’s fine. Meals are a time when it’s relatively easy to keep kids social distanced, and with proper ventilation, the risk really doesn’t seem to be high. Could a child come in shedding virus and transmit it during lunch? Yes, but it’s as if not more likely to happen at a time when the kids are close to each other and interacting. Combined with other precautions (temp checks, strict rules about kids staying home with ANY symptom, and quarantine rules for travel, plus masks and good HVAC) it’s okay and outbreaks are minimized. My kid’s PK has not had a single positive case all year, and kids had to be tested after any travel even if asymptomatic.


You need to stop getting hung up on what you perceived as individual flask points of risk. Outdoor lunch every day is not feasible because of weather and the limited outdoor space at many schools. So let’s look for other ways to mitigate and not obsess over this one thing. Big picture.

exactly. I think this fixation also comes from an unfortunate overestimation of the protection afforded by cloth masks.

And from a fixation on the perceived risk free environment of school and cafeterias the entire time they have had children prior to Covid.

+1 It is an uncomfortable but inevitable truth of parenting that there are lots of threats to your kid at any given time even without a pandemic. So many parents (and people in general) are basing risk assessments based exclusively on the novelty of risk instead of the actual threat posed. Covid is novel and thus VERY SCARY and cars are mundane and thus an acceptable risk. But your child is far more likely to be injured or die in a car accident than to get sick or die from Covid. And yet you have people screaming about outdoor lunch and then packing the kids up the SUV and driving 5 hours on highways to grandmas house twice a month. It's exhausting.

Folks at many schools last year lunch was handled by small class a eating in their classrooms or outdoors. They were six feet apart. Typically there are between 5-8 classes eating together in the cafeteria at a time, often squashed together and, obviously, unmasked. That is anywhere from 125-200 students together in a small room. I’m not suggesting they’ll all die. But the likelihood of catching Covid is certainly higher in this situation. I think it needs to be addressed. Strategies like eating in rooms or outside were feasible with a very limited number of students in the building but become more complicated with all students back.

Why would it be more complicated? There are enough classrooms for all the kids to be in class at the same time, so kids can still eat in classrooms, and everything I've heard from our school is that they will continue to do so. I don't understand where this fear is even coming from. Have you talked to your school, and have they said they are going to lunch in the lunchroom just like pre-Covid? The only place I've even heard this suggested is on DCUM.

Stop just making stuff up in an effort to scare people out of IPL. If you don't want to send your kids to school, don't. You can homeschool. But I cannot homeschool, it's not even on the table for me.

The DCPD policy on reopen dc is that pre-K and K will eat in the classrooms. Everyone else will use the cafeteria. It’s a problem. It should not keep schools closed but that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LUNCH IN THE CAFETERIA IS THE PROBLEM

I see this has become the new drumbeat. It’s always something.

Some of us have had no choice but to send our kids to school or daycare of done kind during the pandemic. Those of us with younger kids may have tried to tough it out at home for a bit, but you cannot keep a 5 yr old at home full time while also working full time, especially if you have to be in person for any of that time. Many people don’t have room or money for a nanny, and some kids need to be in a classroom environment for socio-emotional reasons.

Point is, many of our kids have been in school environments where they wear masks except for meals for months and months. And what we’ve learned is that it’s fine. Meals are a time when it’s relatively easy to keep kids social distanced, and with proper ventilation, the risk really doesn’t seem to be high. Could a child come in shedding virus and transmit it during lunch? Yes, but it’s as if not more likely to happen at a time when the kids are close to each other and interacting. Combined with other precautions (temp checks, strict rules about kids staying home with ANY symptom, and quarantine rules for travel, plus masks and good HVAC) it’s okay and outbreaks are minimized. My kid’s PK has not had a single positive case all year, and kids had to be tested after any travel even if asymptomatic.


You need to stop getting hung up on what you perceived as individual flask points of risk. Outdoor lunch every day is not feasible because of weather and the limited outdoor space at many schools. So let’s look for other ways to mitigate and not obsess over this one thing. Big picture.

exactly. I think this fixation also comes from an unfortunate overestimation of the protection afforded by cloth masks.

And from a fixation on the perceived risk free environment of school and cafeterias the entire time they have had children prior to Covid.

+1 It is an uncomfortable but inevitable truth of parenting that there are lots of threats to your kid at any given time even without a pandemic. So many parents (and people in general) are basing risk assessments based exclusively on the novelty of risk instead of the actual threat posed. Covid is novel and thus VERY SCARY and cars are mundane and thus an acceptable risk. But your child is far more likely to be injured or die in a car accident than to get sick or die from Covid. And yet you have people screaming about outdoor lunch and then packing the kids up the SUV and driving 5 hours on highways to grandmas house twice a month. It's exhausting.

Folks at many schools last year lunch was handled by small class a eating in their classrooms or outdoors. They were six feet apart. Typically there are between 5-8 classes eating together in the cafeteria at a time, often squashed together and, obviously, unmasked. That is anywhere from 125-200 students together in a small room. I’m not suggesting they’ll all die. But the likelihood of catching Covid is certainly higher in this situation. I think it needs to be addressed. Strategies like eating in rooms or outside were feasible with a very limited number of students in the building but become more complicated with all students back.

Why would it be more complicated? There are enough classrooms for all the kids to be in class at the same time, so kids can still eat in classrooms, and everything I've heard from our school is that they will continue to do so. I don't understand where this fear is even coming from. Have you talked to your school, and have they said they are going to lunch in the lunchroom just like pre-Covid? The only place I've even heard this suggested is on DCUM.

Stop just making stuff up in an effort to scare people out of IPL. If you don't want to send your kids to school, don't. You can homeschool. But I cannot homeschool, it's not even on the table for me.

I’m not making anything up. And I most certainly don’t want to scare people. I firmly believe IPL is best, even with Delta. It becomes more complicated with more students in the buildings for several reasons. First, there aren’t enough staff members to cover individual class lunch duties (teachers need a lunch break too). Second, last year lunches were delivered to individual classrooms with many fewer students. This was sometimes difficult to achieve even then. Many more cafeteria staff will be needed to handle that with everyone back. Thirdly, sheltered outdoor space is very limited at most schools. You’d have to have some very early and very late lunch times to accommodate that. This is not rocket science and can be handled for every school, I think. But it needs to be addressed and planned for in advance or it will become a messy issue (pun intended).

[Anonymous]

Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LUNCH IN THE CAFETERIA IS THE PROBLEM

I see this has become the new drumbeat. It’s always something.

Some of us have had no choice but to send our kids to school or daycare of done kind during the pandemic. Those of us with younger kids may have tried to tough it out at home for a bit, but you cannot keep a 5 yr old at home full time while also working full time, especially if you have to be in person for any of that time. Many people don’t have room or money for a nanny, and some kids need to be in a classroom environment for socio-emotional reasons.

Point is, many of our kids have been in school environments where they wear masks except for meals for months and months. And what we’ve learned is that it’s fine. Meals are a time when it’s relatively easy to keep kids social distanced, and with proper ventilation, the risk really doesn’t seem to be high. Could a child come in shedding virus and transmit it during lunch? Yes, but it’s as if not more likely to happen at a time when the kids are close to each other and interacting. Combined with other precautions (temp checks, strict rules about kids staying home with ANY symptom, and quarantine rules for travel, plus masks and good HVAC) it’s okay and outbreaks are minimized. My kid’s PK has not had a single positive case all year, and kids had to be tested after any travel even if asymptomatic.


You need to stop getting hung up on what you perceived as individual flask points of risk. Outdoor lunch every day is not feasible because of weather and the limited outdoor space at many schools. So let’s look for other ways to mitigate and not obsess over this one thing. Big picture.

exactly. I think this fixation also comes from an unfortunate overestimation of the protection afforded by cloth masks.

And from a fixation on the perceived risk free environment of school and cafeterias the entire time they have had children prior to Covid.

+1 It is an uncomfortable but inevitable truth of parenting that there are lots of threats to your kid at any given time even without a pandemic. So many parents (and people in general) are basing risk assessments based exclusively on the novelty of risk instead of the actual threat posed. Covid is novel and thus VERY SCARY and cars are mundane and thus an acceptable risk. But your child is far more likely to be injured or die in a car accident than to get sick or die from Covid. And yet you have people screaming about outdoor lunch and then packing the kids up the SUV and driving 5 hours on highways to grandmas house twice a month. It's exhausting.

Folks at many schools last year lunch was handled by small class a eating in their classrooms or outdoors. They were six feet apart. Typically there are between 5-8 classes eating together in the cafeteria at a time, often squashed together and, obviously, unmasked. That is anywhere from 125-200 students together in a small room. I’m not suggesting they’ll all die. But the likelihood of catching Covid is certainly higher in this situation. I think it needs to be addressed. Strategies like eating in rooms or outside were feasible with a very limited number of students in the building but become more complicated with all students back.

Why would it be more complicated? There are enough classrooms for all the kids to be in class at the same time, so kids can still eat in classrooms, and everything I've heard from our school is that they will continue to do so. I don't understand where this fear is even coming from. Have you talked to your school, and have they said they are going to lunch in the lunchroom just like pre-Covid? The only place I've even heard this suggested is on DCUM.

Stop just making stuff up in an effort to scare people out of IPL. If you don't want to send your kids to school, don't. You can homeschool. But I cannot homeschool, it's not even on the table for me.

I’m not making anything up. And I most certainly don’t want to scare people. I firmly believe IPL is best, even with Delta. It becomes more complicated with more students in the buildings for several reasons. First, there aren’t enough staff members to cover individual class lunch duties (teachers need a lunch break too). Second, last year lunches were delivered to individual classrooms with many fewer students. This was sometimes difficult to achieve even then. Many more cafeteria staff will be needed to handle that with everyone back. Thirdly, sheltered outdoor space is very limited at most schools. You’d have to have some very early and very late lunch times to accommodate that. This is not rocket science and can be handled for every school, I think. But it needs to be addressed and planned for in advance or it will become a messy issue (pun intended).

Oh come on. It’s not complicated at all. You mandate that all students bring their own lunches except for those with need who qualify for free lunches. Those lunches are ones that don’t require heating and can last in room temperature for a few hours and you have personnel drop the needed number in all classes before school begins. Everyone eats in their classroom and no one leaves the classroom during school hours except to go outside. It’s really really not difficult

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

Lol DP but sick child doesn’t equal Covid. I sent my sick kids to school and camp over the past several months. The same way many parents do because jobs won’t tolerate having parents stay home that often. I never send them in with a fever or diarrhea or if vomiting, of course, and i also never send them in if they are truly feeling too sick to go and/or don’t want to go because they feel sick. But otherwise? They go in. Runny noses and lingering coughs do not keep my kids home. There were a couple recent threads on how teachers also go in sick all the time because they don’t have the sick days and/or it’s too difficult for them to get proper coverage. No difference. It’s unfortunate but a byproduct of our country’s inadequate employee protections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

Ahhh. Ok. Understood. I thought you were speaking about unvaxxed kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

My question was implicitly directed at the parents of kids too young for vaccines. Thanks for sharing, though. The age of your kids clarified what sounded like an extreme position, although I am concerned that some parents of younger kids would feel the same way, alas, from what I've read on this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

My question was implicitly directed at the parents of kids too young for vaccines. Thanks for sharing, though. The age of your kids clarified what sounded like an extreme position, although I am concerned that some parents of younger kids would feel the same way, alas, from what I've read on this board.

I’m the DP above who will send my kid in with runny noses and lingering coughs. They are 7 and 5...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

My question was implicitly directed at the parents of kids too young for vaccines. Thanks for sharing, though. The age of your kids clarified what sounded like an extreme position, although I am concerned that some parents of younger kids would feel the same way, alas, from what I've read on this board.

I’m the DP above who will send my kid in with runny noses and lingering coughs. They are 7 and 5...

But just to add, sick or not, i am extremely adamant about masks. They are not even allowed inside any public places other than school and camp, and so masks are unnegotiable for us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you angry about school closures or virtual learning, whose kids struggled so much last school year, will you do your part to make school safe and open by opting IN to in-school asymptomatic testing, respecting travel quarantine rules, avoiding indoor sports and unmasked indoor gatherings this winter? Will you make sure your kid stays home when sick, and provide them with a well-fitting quality mask?

No, but I will advocate for the thing that will ACTUALLY make it safer: mandatory vax for all adults in dcps schools.

NP. You won’t commit to any of those? Not even not sending your sick kid to school?

No, but NOPE. Onus should be on unvaxed adults. My kids have done enough.

So wait, you are saying you would send your kids to school WITH covid? Because your kids have done enough?

My kids are vaxxed and I would do a Covid test if they are symptomatic. But I am honestly pissed at the prospect of them having to wear masks and have another subpar year. They are in MS and HS. I want mandatory vaxes for 12 and up.

My question was implicitly directed at the parents of kids too young for vaccines. Thanks for sharing, though. The age of your kids clarified what sounded like an extreme position, although I am concerned that some parents of younger kids would feel the same way, alas, from what I've read on this board.

I’m the original incredulous poster, and I was also thinking about unvaccinated kids, but I wasn’t thinking only about Covid. I also don’t want my kids to catch your kids stomach viruses (scarier than Covid to me since I’m vaccinated), and especially during these times, I don’t want my kids to get sick with anything because then I will have to keep them home from school or camp. Your actions have ripple effects for others, even if your kids are vaccinated, and even if the other kids are too. And vaccinated kids are old enough to stay home by themselves, so your childcare argument doesn’t really apply there.

I’m totally with you on the notion that kids have sacrificed enough during this pandemic, but please think of other kids and not just your own. If your kid gives another vaccinated or too young to be vaccinated kid a non Covid virus, they will have to miss school, which they have already done enough of.