Charters: When is yours dropping the outdoor mask mandate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they want to give a little time to see if the unmasking (combined with regular testing) leads to a lot of positives, which would keep a lot of kids out of school. What’s a couple weeks? Let the rest of DC experiment first.

You're saying that each individual charter leader is going to conduct a study that will quell the fears of the anxious parents in two weeks? Because charter leaders are epidemiologists or public health experts?

It gives those parents time to calm down. I am not one of them but I could have been.

Its not killing your kid to wear a mask for two more weeks. Also, its a charter. You are choosing to be there and now you are pissed they don't do what you say. Its not a private school. You can go IB but then gasp you will be around people in your neighborhood.

If national public health guidance, local public health guidance, the behavior of nearly all schools globally and nationally, and the behavior of most schools locally isn't enough to make them calm, what's two weeks going to do?

I wonder if there are parents that just believe that their charters will...uh....not lift the indoor mask mandates, particularly for 3-4 YOs. That's what parents in my charter are advocating for.

Parents at our charter do not seem to want PK3-4 to lift indoor mask mandates until a vaccine is available - which seems reasonable.

How is that reasonable when masks in that age group do approximately nothing, these kids are extremely low risk from Covid, we have no idea if the vaccine will be effective against transmission for more than a month? This is purely based on feelings.

Because these are YOUR feelings, not facts. The science says that masks do filter and prevent some transmission. These kids are at risk (hospitalizations, death, etc.). The science of Pfizer augured for higher dosing - not dozing a six month old like 4.6 year old and Moderna has higher dosages, vaccines are pegged to particular strains, so vaccine is quite effective at Delta, less effective as to omicron, could be effective against deltacron -which is not yet here. PK3-4 are not required grades so if the antivax/mask crowd can home-school, etc. if they feel so strongly about it.

It's hard to comb through your gibberish, but no, these are not feelings, these are facts:

1. The best study we have on the effectiveness of in-school masking (I'm not talking about studies of masks in a lab, which tell us more about fabric quality than real life application) is the recent large one out of Spain, which showed that in-school transmission was actually higher in the mask cohort (age 6+) than in the unmasked cohort (age 5 and younger) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4046809
2. This recent study out of Germany, which is one of the best we have because it actually determines a true denominator based on seroprevalence, shows indeed an "extremely low risk" of severe outcomes in healthy children: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.30.21267048v1.full.pdf
3. At this point in the approval process, we have indeed no idea if we will ever have a vaccine for that age group that will be more effective than the one we have for the 5-11 year olds. We actually have no idea if we will ever have one at all, although I suspect we will, and I hope it will be be better. But your speculation about what we MIGHT get in the future doesn't refute the fact that at this point, WE HAVE NO IDEA, and given points 1 and 2, it doesn't seem reasonable to wait for it, considering the costs of masking for the youngest children in particular.

Hard to read through your word salad - you seem to cling to partial studies. That said, there is no actual study that says that there is a cost of masking for young children - but you, narcissism on fleek, FEEL there is. Even the CDC (whose vaccine recommendations you discount) has repeatedly stated that there is zero evidence that masking impairs emotional or language development in children.

DP, but I think that the prior poster's post is completely understandable and makes a good case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they want to give a little time to see if the unmasking (combined with regular testing) leads to a lot of positives, which would keep a lot of kids out of school. What’s a couple weeks? Let the rest of DC experiment first.

You're saying that each individual charter leader is going to conduct a study that will quell the fears of the anxious parents in two weeks? Because charter leaders are epidemiologists or public health experts?

It gives those parents time to calm down. I am not one of them but I could have been.

Its not killing your kid to wear a mask for two more weeks. Also, its a charter. You are choosing to be there and now you are pissed they don't do what you say. Its not a private school. You can go IB but then gasp you will be around people in your neighborhood.

If national public health guidance, local public health guidance, the behavior of nearly all schools globally and nationally, and the behavior of most schools locally isn't enough to make them calm, what's two weeks going to do?

I wonder if there are parents that just believe that their charters will...uh....not lift the indoor mask mandates, particularly for 3-4 YOs. That's what parents in my charter are advocating for.

Parents at our charter do not seem to want PK3-4 to lift indoor mask mandates until a vaccine is available - which seems reasonable.

How is that reasonable when masks in that age group do approximately nothing, these kids are extremely low risk from Covid, we have no idea if the vaccine will be effective against transmission for more than a month? This is purely based on feelings.

Because these are YOUR feelings, not facts. The science says that masks do filter and prevent some transmission. These kids are at risk (hospitalizations, death, etc.). The science of Pfizer augured for higher dosing - not dozing a six month old like 4.6 year old and Moderna has higher dosages, vaccines are pegged to particular strains, so vaccine is quite effective at Delta, less effective as to omicron, could be effective against deltacron -which is not yet here. PK3-4 are not required grades so if the antivax/mask crowd can home-school, etc. if they feel so strongly about it.

It's hard to comb through your gibberish, but no, these are not feelings, these are facts:

1. The best study we have on the effectiveness of in-school masking (I'm not talking about studies of masks in a lab, which tell us more about fabric quality than real life application) is the recent large one out of Spain, which showed that in-school transmission was actually higher in the mask cohort (age 6+) than in the unmasked cohort (age 5 and younger) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4046809
2. This recent study out of Germany, which is one of the best we have because it actually determines a true denominator based on seroprevalence, shows indeed an "extremely low risk" of severe outcomes in healthy children: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.30.21267048v1.full.pdf
3. At this point in the approval process, we have indeed no idea if we will ever have a vaccine for that age group that will be more effective than the one we have for the 5-11 year olds. We actually have no idea if we will ever have one at all, although I suspect we will, and I hope it will be be better. But your speculation about what we MIGHT get in the future doesn't refute the fact that at this point, WE HAVE NO IDEA, and given points 1 and 2, it doesn't seem reasonable to wait for it, considering the costs of masking for the youngest children in particular.

Hard to read through your word salad - you seem to cling to partial studies. That said, there is no actual study that says that there is a cost of masking for young children - but you, narcissism on fleek, FEEL there is. Even the CDC (whose vaccine recommendations you discount) has repeatedly stated that there is zero evidence that masking impairs emotional or language development in children.

DP, but I think that the prior poster's post is completely understandable and makes a good case.

Agreed. Calling something a "word salad" doesn't make it so. Why not engage the substance and the noted studies? (I understand they make PP angry and s/he likely has nothing to counter them, and thus must resort to name calling . . . ).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they want to give a little time to see if the unmasking (combined with regular testing) leads to a lot of positives, which would keep a lot of kids out of school. What’s a couple weeks? Let the rest of DC experiment first.

You're saying that each individual charter leader is going to conduct a study that will quell the fears of the anxious parents in two weeks? Because charter leaders are epidemiologists or public health experts?

It gives those parents time to calm down. I am not one of them but I could have been.

Its not killing your kid to wear a mask for two more weeks. Also, its a charter. You are choosing to be there and now you are pissed they don't do what you say. Its not a private school. You can go IB but then gasp you will be around people in your neighborhood.

If national public health guidance, local public health guidance, the behavior of nearly all schools globally and nationally, and the behavior of most schools locally isn't enough to make them calm, what's two weeks going to do?

I wonder if there are parents that just believe that their charters will...uh....not lift the indoor mask mandates, particularly for 3-4 YOs. That's what parents in my charter are advocating for.

Parents at our charter do not seem to want PK3-4 to lift indoor mask mandates until a vaccine is available - which seems reasonable.

How is that reasonable when masks in that age group do approximately nothing, these kids are extremely low risk from Covid, we have no idea if the vaccine will be effective against transmission for more than a month? This is purely based on feelings.

Because these are YOUR feelings, not facts. The science says that masks do filter and prevent some transmission. These kids are at risk (hospitalizations, death, etc.). The science of Pfizer augured for higher dosing - not dozing a six month old like 4.6 year old and Moderna has higher dosages, vaccines are pegged to particular strains, so vaccine is quite effective at Delta, less effective as to omicron, could be effective against deltacron -which is not yet here. PK3-4 are not required grades so if the antivax/mask crowd can home-school, etc. if they feel so strongly about it.

It's hard to comb through your gibberish, but no, these are not feelings, these are facts:

1. The best study we have on the effectiveness of in-school masking (I'm not talking about studies of masks in a lab, which tell us more about fabric quality than real life application) is the recent large one out of Spain, which showed that in-school transmission was actually higher in the mask cohort (age 6+) than in the unmasked cohort (age 5 and younger) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4046809
2. This recent study out of Germany, which is one of the best we have because it actually determines a true denominator based on seroprevalence, shows indeed an "extremely low risk" of severe outcomes in healthy children: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.30.21267048v1.full.pdf
3. At this point in the approval process, we have indeed no idea if we will ever have a vaccine for that age group that will be more effective than the one we have for the 5-11 year olds. We actually have no idea if we will ever have one at all, although I suspect we will, and I hope it will be be better. But your speculation about what we MIGHT get in the future doesn't refute the fact that at this point, WE HAVE NO IDEA, and given points 1 and 2, it doesn't seem reasonable to wait for it, considering the costs of masking for the youngest children in particular.

Hard to read through your word salad - you seem to cling to partial studies. That said, there is no actual study that says that there is a cost of masking for young children - but you, narcissism on fleek, FEEL there is. Even the CDC (whose vaccine recommendations you discount) has repeatedly stated that there is zero evidence that masking impairs emotional or language development in children.

DP, but I think that the prior poster's post is completely understandable and makes a good case.

Uh-huh cause b/c you FEEL that masks are damaging but no evidence to support this feeling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they want to give a little time to see if the unmasking (combined with regular testing) leads to a lot of positives, which would keep a lot of kids out of school. What’s a couple weeks? Let the rest of DC experiment first.

You're saying that each individual charter leader is going to conduct a study that will quell the fears of the anxious parents in two weeks? Because charter leaders are epidemiologists or public health experts?

It gives those parents time to calm down. I am not one of them but I could have been.

Its not killing your kid to wear a mask for two more weeks. Also, its a charter. You are choosing to be there and now you are pissed they don't do what you say. Its not a private school. You can go IB but then gasp you will be around people in your neighborhood.

If national public health guidance, local public health guidance, the behavior of nearly all schools globally and nationally, and the behavior of most schools locally isn't enough to make them calm, what's two weeks going to do?

I wonder if there are parents that just believe that their charters will...uh....not lift the indoor mask mandates, particularly for 3-4 YOs. That's what parents in my charter are advocating for.

Parents at our charter do not seem to want PK3-4 to lift indoor mask mandates until a vaccine is available - which seems reasonable.

How is that reasonable when masks in that age group do approximately nothing, these kids are extremely low risk from Covid, we have no idea if the vaccine will be effective against transmission for more than a month? This is purely based on feelings.

Because these are YOUR feelings, not facts. The science says that masks do filter and prevent some transmission. These kids are at risk (hospitalizations, death, etc.). The science of Pfizer augured for higher dosing - not dozing a six month old like 4.6 year old and Moderna has higher dosages, vaccines are pegged to particular strains, so vaccine is quite effective at Delta, less effective as to omicron, could be effective against deltacron -which is not yet here. PK3-4 are not required grades so if the antivax/mask crowd can home-school, etc. if they feel so strongly about it.

It's hard to comb through your gibberish, but no, these are not feelings, these are facts:

1. The best study we have on the effectiveness of in-school masking (I'm not talking about studies of masks in a lab, which tell us more about fabric quality than real life application) is the recent large one out of Spain, which showed that in-school transmission was actually higher in the mask cohort (age 6+) than in the unmasked cohort (age 5 and younger) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4046809
2. This recent study out of Germany, which is one of the best we have because it actually determines a true denominator based on seroprevalence, shows indeed an "extremely low risk" of severe outcomes in healthy children: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.30.21267048v1.full.pdf
3. At this point in the approval process, we have indeed no idea if we will ever have a vaccine for that age group that will be more effective than the one we have for the 5-11 year olds. We actually have no idea if we will ever have one at all, although I suspect we will, and I hope it will be be better. But your speculation about what we MIGHT get in the future doesn't refute the fact that at this point, WE HAVE NO IDEA, and given points 1 and 2, it doesn't seem reasonable to wait for it, considering the costs of masking for the youngest children in particular.

Hard to read through your word salad - you seem to cling to partial studies. That said, there is no actual study that says that there is a cost of masking for young children - but you, narcissism on fleek, FEEL there is. Even the CDC (whose vaccine recommendations you discount) has repeatedly stated that there is zero evidence that masking impairs emotional or language development in children.

DP, but I think that the prior poster's post is completely understandable and makes a good case.

Uh-huh cause b/c you FEEL that masks are damaging but no evidence to support this feeling.

Three things:
1) you've ignored much of the original post, showing that masks nothing to impact spread in schools, there is very little risk to kids, and that we might not get an under 5 vaccine in the near future. You are ignoring those things, I suspect because you know they are accurate.
2) for me, reading about the evidence of masking and development/mental health/education, the findings really seem mixed. There aren't a lot of studies, and none of them look at the impacts of long-term masking (we don't have the data for that yet, since we haven't completed the experiment).
3) anecdotally, I know the mask causes a lot of issues for my child, and given how she wears them, there's only costs and no benefits (to her or anyone else). So that makes my choice easy.

Should I add an eyeroll emoji now to just be douchey?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What school?

Yu Ying

Jeeez. I won't complain about Lee making us wait another 5 weeks for indoor optional. That's rough.

That’s infuriating and so scientifically illiterate. I would lose faith in their ability to impart knowledge to my child, honestly. Sorry to hear that you and your family are subject to such irrationality.

NP. I wonder if this has something to do with the strong masking culture in Asia? Maybe Yu Ying wants to mask forever?

This is why this should never be left to individual schools, whose leaders are not public health experts.

Actually last year people were clamoring that decisions should be make by individual schools.


Seriously you like charter autonomy or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways

I did not clamor for individual schools to make any decisions, whether at charters or DCPS. I thought last year that reopening should have been mandated by the Mayor, and that it was a terrible idea to pass the buck to every principal to come up with their own model. In the case of masks, vaccine mandates, and other public health measures, the guidance should come from the health department, and apply to all schools public and private, like it does in other countries. The guidance could be structured in a way that tailors it to the situation of individual schools based on vaccination rates (although I don't think that makes sense anymore), but the metrics should be set by the health department and be mandatory for all schools.

I am agnostic on charter autonomy as my kids attend DCPS, but whatever autonomy they have should not extend to policies that require public health expertise.

Your child attends DCPS. Why are you waxing on about charters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What school?

Yu Ying

Jeeez. I won't complain about Lee making us wait another 5 weeks for indoor optional. That's rough.

That’s infuriating and so scientifically illiterate. I would lose faith in their ability to impart knowledge to my child, honestly. Sorry to hear that you and your family are subject to such irrationality.

NP. I wonder if this has something to do with the strong masking culture in Asia? Maybe Yu Ying wants to mask forever?

This is why this should never be left to individual schools, whose leaders are not public health experts.

Actually last year people were clamoring that decisions should be make by individual schools.


Seriously you like charter autonomy or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways

I did not clamor for individual schools to make any decisions, whether at charters or DCPS. I thought last year that reopening should have been mandated by the Mayor, and that it was a terrible idea to pass the buck to every principal to come up with their own model. In the case of masks, vaccine mandates, and other public health measures, the guidance should come from the health department, and apply to all schools public and private, like it does in other countries. The guidance could be structured in a way that tailors it to the situation of individual schools based on vaccination rates (although I don't think that makes sense anymore), but the metrics should be set by the health department and be mandatory for all schools.

I am agnostic on charter autonomy as my kids attend DCPS, but whatever autonomy they have should not extend to policies that require public health expertise.

Your child attends DCPS. Why are you waxing on about charters?

Because I care about this as a policy issue; surely you have met people in this town who care about policy? Also, if you had paid attention, you would have noticed that this matter did affect DCPS as well. The change in policy declared by the Mayor and the new guidance from DC DOH did not automatically result in the lifting of the mask mandate in public schools, because the decision was left to DCPS as an individual LEA. We could have ended up in a situation where private school students were allowed to unmask, but not children in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

I am pleased that they surveyed teachers/staff and shared information about staff responses. It's more important to ME that teachers feel supported and comfortable with the school policy than that my kid has the option to unmask indoors. I don't care in the slightest what other parents think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

I am pleased that they surveyed teachers/staff and shared information about staff responses. It's more important to ME that teachers feel supported and comfortable with the school policy than that my kid has the option to unmask indoors. I don't care in the slightest what other parents think.

So their mental health trumps the kids? All for irrational fears?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

+1 and we are probably at the same school. It's the first time the school has ever asked parents for their input and I think it's because they know they will get the response they want which is to keep masking for the rest of the year. The school has not followed science and acts like it is still March 2020. They excitedly announced that they were stopping temperature checks and taking down the plexiglass partitions which have done nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Regardless of all that it makes NO sense to keep kids masked while rest of the world and DC run around without masks. Choice is just that -- let the scared parents or the ones that haven't vaccinated their kids wear mask and let my vaccinated child follow the science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

I am pleased that they surveyed teachers/staff and shared information about staff responses. It's more important to ME that teachers feel supported and comfortable with the school policy than that my kid has the option to unmask indoors. I don't care in the slightest what other parents think.

So their mental health trumps the kids? All for irrational fears?

My kids have attended Inspired for years, and we are there for the long run. So yes, I prioritize teacher retention and feeling supported by their employer over a couple more months of indoor mask wearing for my kids. (The email from the school said that 56% of staff are very or somewhat uncomfortable with removing indoor masks.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter just announced mask optional outdoors starting Monday but masks still required indoors at least through spring break. I am 100% in agreement with this.

I am annoyed that they surveyed the school community. There are way too many uber anxious parents for this to have arrived at a rational result. The admin should have just been leaders and made an actual evidence based decision. If they don't make masks optional after spring break, we might be in the running for the last school in the country still masking...

+1 and we are probably at the same school. It's the first time the school has ever asked parents for their input and I think it's because they know they will get the response they want which is to keep masking for the rest of the year. The school has not followed science and acts like it is still March 2020. They excitedly announced that they were stopping temperature checks and taking down the plexiglass partitions which have done nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Regardless of all that it makes NO sense to keep kids masked while rest of the world and DC run around without masks. Choice is just that -- let the scared parents or the ones that haven't vaccinated their kids wear mask and let my vaccinated child follow the science.

Why not leave the school? It looks like you don't fit in the community?

[Anonymous]

There are apparently many, many charters that aren't lifting indoor mask mandates for a good while, if at all. i wonder if all of the DCPS people that are freaked about lifting mask mandates will lottery into the charters, or go to work for them.