Covid at SFS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My college kid is booked on a Wednesday flight that is 20% full. Think the other 80% of seats are going to sell out in 24 hours?

Genuinely interested in what your kid finds on Wed — was it full, did the airline merge flights, did they block out seats/rows, did people take masks off to eat, was the airport full, were airport toilets lidded, what measures were in place? 20% or less is what it should be, so great news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The specific reason expressed by Bryan about why there would not be HL between Thanksgiving and winter break was so families could travel for Thanksgiving. Now, basically no one is traveling. So why not resume HL? Sidwell is not prioritizing in-person learning.

Sadly, this is not true.

Actually it is.

While it was fun for mass media to cite AAA’s 5% haircut to travel from last year and claim 50M people are driving and going about instead of 54M, the TSA data shows the opposite. Significantly empty planes and traffic though airports, albeit a minor uptick from say last month.

Basically pretend you’re in Literature class again reading for facts versus opinion. Circle all the opinions and speculation and projections, then underline any facts. It’s eye opening. All guesses repackaged in headlines and OpEds.

Are you talking Qanon? I’m really sorry if offended you, it’s just that’s what this sounded like. I read the NEJM, Lancet, Science, Nature, NYT, BBC; not too much spin-doctoring. On Friday, 1M Americans passed through the airports. Fewer than last year, but way too many.

Plenty of families from Sidwell are traveling. Some are flying and some just driving. Even the last few weeks, there have been several families traveling on the weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My college kid is booked on a Wednesday flight that is 20% full. Think the other 80% of seats are going to sell out in 24 hours?

Genuinely interested in what your kid finds on Wed — was it full, did the airline merge flights, did they block out seats/rows, did people take masks off to eat, was the airport full, were airport toilets lidded, what measures were in place? 20% or less is what it should be, so great news.

DH flying home from business trip tomorrow morning. Plane has plenty of seats as of today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have been through this before on this message board. "Top schools" are distinguished by creative, engaged and proactive leadership. Why aren't there pictures from the amazing and large Sidwell US campus, similar to the pictures below, showing our kids having school in person for the past 3 months?

It's not steamrolling, or reflective of a "parent coop school," for parents to want, and demand more and better than what Sidwell has been providing. And given what the school has been providing, I would argue that the blind faith acceptance of parents such as PPs who are ready to trust the school no matter what, is actually highly problematic. It creates an echo chamber that since Sidwell has been anointed "the best school," whatever it is doing must be the best, and the Administration knows that most parents will lap up whatever it dishes out.

My kid would hate this.....too cold already dealing with imposed "must be outdoors" time on in-person hybrid days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The specific reason expressed by Bryan about why there would not be HL between Thanksgiving and winter break was so families could travel for Thanksgiving. Now, basically no one is traveling. So why not resume HL? Sidwell is not prioritizing in-person learning.

LOL - I'm pretty sure plenty of Sidwell families will be travelling, going against recommendations. One plus of being DL in Dec is that I won't have to worry about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who’s not traveling or socializing over the holidays? Many are in fact. I’m sure now there are many additional reasons such as the sustained community spread at record levels. The one constant is that time and time again the schools that reopened found that parents were dishonest and household behaviors a massive weak link in their safe campus policies. You know that.

Look at the dashboard. One fact that is readily apparent is that there has been no spread within the school. You know that.

Keep in mind, they are testing once a month.... If kids are likely to be asymptomatic, having low reports from community members and low positive-results from school doesn't mean there haven't been more cases. I assure you the numbers would have gone up in Dec, even with these factors accounted for.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’d love to hear more about the tent science? Because closed tents are like buildings but without ventilation

Tents don't need to be closed. Look at the picture that was shared. Go check out Landon's campus, or St Albans. Small colleges all over the country also have been using them.

Again, in December?! We live in the here and now

You are just moving the goalposts. There have been non-stop defenders of the school (presumably you are among them) who have shouted up and down that the school has been doing a great job. Emphasis on has been. Now, you want to move on because that's in the past. If you would admit that the school has handled this terribly for the past three months, then perhaps we could establish a consensus upon which we could discuss where things should go from here.

I don’t think it has. It focused on high quality DL like it said it would, and further accommodated the parents who wanted HL. We are quite pleased. If anything, we wish there were a care center on campus for whomever needs or wants to be in person to join the DL because I’m sure there are those that need it. I might think differently if Bowser put in place community policies that were then in fact enforced, thus flattening the curve, thus enabling the schools to open. Honestly, people do hold a very different set of views. Look at what the response was to the most recent attempt to pressure. At least the derogatory name-calling of teachers and students on these boards has stopped (that honestly shook me to the core and made me far less sympathetic to the pro-open group)

OK, then it's going to be difficult for us to have a conversation. I truly don't believe that Bryan, Min and the rest have ever prioritized a return to campus. You seem to agree with my assessment based on the language bolded above. But my sense is that you are fine with this, because you appear to believe that it should not be a priority. If we disagree on the priorities, then I don't see how we can discuss what solutions should happen in the here and now.

Please just answer this one question for me: why not tents for the past three months? Would you agree that that was a mistake?

I haven't been part of this argument - but I agree with the above in bold. Min explicitly said they didn't expect kids to come back on a public call and Bryan announced it in the letter communicating the schools plans - it said that US wasn't coming back until Jan. The NAIS investigation/determination that private schools were not required to follow the city's "recommendation for separate, non-mixing cohorts" came out BEFORE Bryan's decision letter, so giving that NAIS information as one of the main reason to explain a change from the "DL til Jan" plan to "hybrid in Nov" was disingenuous at best. Sidwell had clearly made a choice to stay 100% DL for US and planned that way. When they got pushback from the community, they did a U-turn but they weren't fully prepared to move forward with the new plan (as was clear when teachers were blind-sided).

I'm not saying which side I prefer DL or Hybrid - but I definitely think they decided to invest mostly in DL for US (while doing some physical changes on campus) and did not invest much time on the logistics involved on how to transition back and forth between Hybrid and DL for US. The scramble as a result of the U-turn exposed that and I felt it was a "bad look" for the administration.

[Anonymous]

^^^^^
I"m the above - not sure where all that extra bold came out ---- I was referring to this: I truly don't believe that Bryan, Min and the rest have ever prioritized a return to campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^^^
I"m the above - not sure where all that extra bold came out ---- I was referring to this: I truly don't believe that Bryan, Min and the rest have ever prioritized a return to campus

Agree with you but, in fairness to them, I think they are now well aware of the importance of returning to campus ASAP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My college kid is booked on a Wednesday flight that is 20% full. Think the other 80% of seats are going to sell out in 24 hours?

Genuinely interested in what your kid finds on Wed — was it full, did the airline merge flights, did they block out seats/rows, did people take masks off to eat, was the airport full, were airport toilets lidded, what measures were in place? 20% or less is what it should be, so great news.

Homeland security and TSA report last night directly contradicts all of mass media saying everyone is traveling. But not a spicy enough headline for clicks so it will be buried and when the actual facts come out this Friday or after the weekend it won’t ever be published.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The specific reason expressed by Bryan about why there would not be HL between Thanksgiving and winter break was so families could travel for Thanksgiving. Now, basically no one is traveling. So why not resume HL? Sidwell is not prioritizing in-person learning.

LOL - I'm pretty sure plenty of Sidwell families will be travelling, going against recommendations. One plus of being DL in Dec is that I won't have to worry about that.

LOL

I’m pretty sure...

.. what everyone is doing...

... so listen to me keep repeating my speculation...

... and going crazy...

LOL is right.

[Anonymous]

This entire board seems artificially inflated with 2-3 people repeating the same negative, factless tropes over and over again. At least some of the others are trying to listen and be humorous. Yet in the school meetings, none of this is ever said when comments are invited.

There is a very difficult pandemic context. Our school and DL experience is excellent and the school needs the space to create the next possible educational experience for the context. We support everyone’s right to make their decisions accordingly as the situation evolves.

The school priority is safe education, not HL or DL. So I trust them to lead in lieu of a handful of parents who have prejudged the outcome. Please stop disparaging our joint school in public for no reason at all. Enough said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This entire board seems artificially inflated with 2-3 people repeating the same negative, factless tropes over and over again. At least some of the others are trying to listen and be humorous. Yet in the school meetings, none of this is ever said when comments are invited.

There is a very difficult pandemic context. Our school and DL experience is excellent and the school needs the space to create the next possible educational experience for the context. We support everyone’s right to make their decisions accordingly as the situation evolves.

The school priority is safe education, not HL or DL. So I trust them to lead in lieu of a handful of parents who have prejudged the outcome. Please stop disparaging our joint school in public for no reason at all. Enough said.

These same parents never comment in meeting because they are coward Karens. Only in anonymity do they thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The specific reason expressed by Bryan about why there would not be HL between Thanksgiving and winter break was so families could travel for Thanksgiving. Now, basically no one is traveling. So why not resume HL? Sidwell is not prioritizing in-person learning.

LOL - I'm pretty sure plenty of Sidwell families will be travelling, going against recommendations. One plus of being DL in Dec is that I won't have to worry about that.

LOL

I’m pretty sure...

.. what everyone is doing...

... so listen to me keep repeating my speculation...

... and going crazy...

LOL is right.

Must have been 5pm somewhere. Bottoms up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This entire board seems artificially inflated with 2-3 people repeating the same negative, factless tropes over and over again. At least some of the others are trying to listen and be humorous. Yet in the school meetings, none of this is ever said when comments are invited.

There is a very difficult pandemic context. Our school and DL experience is excellent and the school needs the space to create the next possible educational experience for the context. We support everyone’s right to make their decisions accordingly as the situation evolves.

The school priority is safe education, not HL or DL. So I trust them to lead in lieu of a handful of parents who have prejudged the outcome. Please stop disparaging our joint school in public for no reason at all. Enough said.

There is plenty reason to disparage the school in public, because they don’t listen in private. They have done such a terrible job managing this entire situation, as numerous comments have constructively explained. Parents like you say “trust them” and lap up whatever junk they feed you, because you don’t know any better and because you are so enamored with the concept of sending your kids to the Obamas’ school that you can’t begin to believe that the school might do better or differently. And the school knows that there are so many parents like you out there who will blindly “trust them” that they have no incentive to do anything that might ruffle teachers’ feathers, since the teachers are the ones who really run the school.