Should we prepare for virtual schooling starting in January?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PG County going virtual is a problem. Many MCPS teachers live in PG county. What will they do for childcare. There will be a domino effect

I thought school wasn't child care? Isn't that what the MCEA posters kept saying last year?

Aww, it's so cute how you thought that was a gotcha. Bless your heart.

So other than any low income single mom teachers with no options, that means those teachers won't be coming to class to teach your precious, precious bebes.

There is an emergency meeting tomorrow (BOE) on a contracting/procurement bid. It’s a closed session. $100 bucks it’s for childcare for MCPs teachers who live in pg county. Sorry MCEA you are going to work in January.

Dumb comment- teaching virtually is more work for teachers.

What's so wrong with virtual if it keeps people safe during a pandemic? Seriously, it wasn't that big a deal. Everyone who tried to get the most of out of it did perfectly fine. Just a few kids whose parents were out to lunch struggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is serious as it is highly contagious. How do you know those infected are not seriously sick? What will it take to get you to take Covid seriously? If you want schools to stay open, you need to be part of the solution.

I am part of the solution. Specifically:

1. I am vaccinated + boostered. So is every other person in my family who is eligible for vaccination + booster.
2. I have worn masks in indoor public places since the spring of 2020. So has every other person in my family.
3. I am contacting my elected officials to tell them that schools need to stay open, and I am asking everyone I know to do the same.

You forgot 4.

4. Get an education degree so I can teach in January when teachers are out sick with COVID.

There's no school without teachers.

I'm the PP you're responding to. I have an education degree. I will understand if my kid's individual teachers are out sick and no sub is available. But closing schools wholesale will not stop the spread of the virus or the disease; it will only further harm all of the children who have already been greatly harmed by the previous school closure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What's so wrong with virtual if it keeps people safe during a pandemic? Seriously, it wasn't that big a deal. Everyone who tried to get the most of out of it did perfectly fine. Just a few kids whose parents were out to lunch struggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is serious as it is highly contagious. How do you know those infected are not seriously sick? What will it take to get you to take Covid seriously? If you want schools to stay open, you need to be part of the solution.

I am part of the solution. Specifically:

1. I am vaccinated + boostered. So is every other person in my family who is eligible for vaccination + booster.
2. I have worn masks in indoor public places since the spring of 2020. So has every other person in my family.
3. I am contacting my elected officials to tell them that schools need to stay open, and I am asking everyone I know to do the same.

You forgot 4.

4. Get an education degree so I can teach in January when teachers are out sick with COVID.

There's no school without teachers.

I'm the PP you're responding to. I have an education degree. I will understand if my kid's individual teachers are out sick and no sub is available. But closing schools wholesale will not stop the spread of the virus or the disease; it will only further harm all of the children who have already been greatly harmed by the previous school closure.

I think we're all in agreement on this, actually. It's just that some of us believe staff shortages will come sooner, rather than later, and that some school districts who see the daily numbers will opt to close even when some parents, whose children have not been affected by absent teachers, scream "but my child's elementary teacher wasn't out!!!". And some districts will opt to have rolling closures, which will greatly annoy other parents, since those are unpredictable, and some parents will scream "go virtual already! My teen will fail his AP exams in May if the syllabus isn't taught in its entirety! None of his 5 AP teachers are present!".

So. But in the main, I think we all understand that when teacher aren't there to teach, schools must go virtual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is serious as it is highly contagious. How do you know those infected are not seriously sick? What will it take to get you to take Covid seriously? If you want schools to stay open, you need to be part of the solution.

I am part of the solution. Specifically:

1. I am vaccinated + boostered. So is every other person in my family who is eligible for vaccination + booster.
2. I have worn masks in indoor public places since the spring of 2020. So has every other person in my family.
3. I am contacting my elected officials to tell them that schools need to stay open, and I am asking everyone I know to do the same.

You forgot 4.

4. Get an education degree so I can teach in January when teachers are out sick with COVID.

There's no school without teachers.

I'm the PP you're responding to. I have an education degree. I will understand if my kid's individual teachers are out sick and no sub is available. But closing schools wholesale will not stop the spread of the virus or the disease; it will only further harm all of the children who have already been greatly harmed by the previous school closure.

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

I'd like to introduce my the source of my reliable information on omicron specifically and SARS-CoV-2 generally: Dr. Random Anonymous Poster On An Internet Message Board.^^^

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

I'd like to introduce my the source of my reliable information on omicron specifically and SARS-CoV-2 generally: Dr. Random Anonymous Poster On An Internet Message Board.^^^

No, most of us agree that lunch is a super-spreading event. Many posters have pointed that out ever since the beginning of the school year. We've managed to keep schools open despite this only because cases were low and the previous variants weren't stratospherically contagious. Omicron changes the calculus here, so at some point, schools will have to close (either individual schools or grades, or the whole system - I think it will be the whole system).

None of us like it, PP, but it's not a reason to go all snarky and trolly. We need to face facts, however unpalatable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is serious as it is highly contagious. How do you know those infected are not seriously sick? What will it take to get you to take Covid seriously? If you want schools to stay open, you need to be part of the solution.

I am part of the solution. Specifically:

1. I am vaccinated + boostered. So is every other person in my family who is eligible for vaccination + booster.
2. I have worn masks in indoor public places since the spring of 2020. So has every other person in my family.
3. I am contacting my elected officials to tell them that schools need to stay open, and I am asking everyone I know to do the same.

You forgot 4.

4. Get an education degree so I can teach in January when teachers are out sick with COVID.

There's no school without teachers.

It is unfortunate that McKnight unilaterally removed the vaccine requirement in MCPS instead of adding a booster requirement. Responsible teachers are not going to get sick in large numbers.

Not at all. I know of so many people who got their booster and now have Covid. On triple-vaccinated person is currently in the hospital.

It’s possible that boosters could make things more complicated, actually. Some are arguing that people should wait for an Omicron specific booster.

From the article:
“The question is, if you keep priming and boosting with a strain, which is basically to make an immune response against the ancestral strain, will that limit your ability then to make an immune response to a virus, which is very much different than the ancestral?” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/omicron-variant-best-strategy-omicron-boost-original-vaccine-rcna7451

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

I'd like to introduce my the source of my reliable information on omicron specifically and SARS-CoV-2 generally: Dr. Random Anonymous Poster On An Internet Message Board.^^^

No, most of us agree that lunch is a super-spreading event. Many posters have pointed that out ever since the beginning of the school year. We've managed to keep schools open despite this only because cases were low and the previous variants weren't stratospherically contagious. Omicron changes the calculus here, so at some point, schools will have to close (either individual schools or grades, or the whole system - I think it will be the whole system).

None of us like it, PP, but it's not a reason to go all snarky and trolly. We need to face facts, however unpalatable.

And yet, ever since the beginning of the school year, lunch actually was NOT a super-spreading event...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

I'd like to introduce my the source of my reliable information on omicron specifically and SARS-CoV-2 generally: Dr. Random Anonymous Poster On An Internet Message Board.^^^

No, most of us agree that lunch is a super-spreading event. Many posters have pointed that out ever since the beginning of the school year. We've managed to keep schools open despite this only because cases were low and the previous variants weren't stratospherically contagious. Omicron changes the calculus here, so at some point, schools will have to close (either individual schools or grades, or the whole system - I think it will be the whole system).

None of us like it, PP, but it's not a reason to go all snarky and trolly. We need to face facts, however unpalatable.

And yet, ever since the beginning of the school year, lunch actually was NOT a super-spreading event...

I addressed that in my paragraph. When cases are low and variants are not highly contagious, it works.

If you look at the Covid cases since the start of the school year, September had a large spike in cases, because people brought Covid into school and spread it during lunch. And then things calmed down, with vaccinations in elementary. And then cases started spiking up again with our current Delta wave, triggered by waning immunity in the older teens and adults, and Thanksgiving travel. And now Omicron is going to throw the biggest spanner into the works because it's just so much more transmissible, and can infect everyone, even the recently triple-vaccinated - recent shots protect against severe disease, not against infection.

It's been said again and again: crowded maskless indoor conditions don't work in a serious Covid wave. They never have. Previously what protected us was relatively low Covid rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It stops the spread from teachers like the ones that were infected this week from their students. They are testing positive this weekend. School lunches are super spreader events and we are in a surge. If you think teachers and children don't breathe during lunch, think again.

I'd like to introduce my the source of my reliable information on omicron specifically and SARS-CoV-2 generally: Dr. Random Anonymous Poster On An Internet Message Board.^^^

No, most of us agree that lunch is a super-spreading event. Many posters have pointed that out ever since the beginning of the school year. We've managed to keep schools open despite this only because cases were low and the previous variants weren't stratospherically contagious. Omicron changes the calculus here, so at some point, schools will have to close (either individual schools or grades, or the whole system - I think it will be the whole system).

None of us like it, PP, but it's not a reason to go all snarky and trolly. We need to face facts, however unpalatable.

And yet, ever since the beginning of the school year, lunch actually was NOT a super-spreading event...

+1

It is NOT schools that are the superspreaders. It is the folks who refuse to be vaccinated. Add on to that the folks who are seriously ill from Covid because they have health issues and/or are fat.

Half of the positive folks - healthy folks - have no symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Another teacher here, in private school. We have been barely covering teacher absences as it is. We have so few subs. We are mostly all vaccinated and boosted, but even if a few of our teachers get covid, we would likely have to go virtual in those classes. I think we would stay open in the other classes. I think we are looking at a tough January/February.

[Anonymous]

People are gunshy about virtual because doing it for a year was terrible. I'm very pro-virtual, but a year had terrible implications for my kids.

But I'd be happy to do January, which is when they say Omicron will probably peak. As long as we have a clear exit ramp back to in-person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are gunshy about virtual because doing it for a year was terrible. I'm very pro-virtual, but a year had terrible implications for my kids.

But I'd be happy to do January, which is when they say Omicron will probably peak. As long as we have a clear exit ramp back to in-person.

Once you send teachers home it is nearly impossible to get them back. We know that now, and it is the biggest reason we shouldn't go virtual at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It is serious as it is highly contagious. How do you know those infected are not seriously sick? What will it take to get you to take Covid seriously? If you want schools to stay open, you need to be part of the solution.

I am part of the solution. Specifically:

1. I am vaccinated + boostered. So is every other person in my family who is eligible for vaccination + booster.
2. I have worn masks in indoor public places since the spring of 2020. So has every other person in my family.
3. I am contacting my elected officials to tell them that schools need to stay open, and I am asking everyone I know to do the same.

You forgot 4.

4. Get an education degree so I can teach in January when teachers are out sick with COVID.

There's no school without teachers.

It is unfortunate that McKnight unilaterally removed the vaccine requirement in MCPS instead of adding a booster requirement. Responsible teachers are not going to get sick in large numbers.

Not at all. I know of so many people who got their booster and now have Covid. On triple-vaccinated person is currently in the hospital.

It’s possible that boosters could make things more complicated, actually. Some are arguing that people should wait for an Omicron specific booster.

From the article:
“The question is, if you keep priming and boosting with a strain, which is basically to make an immune response against the ancestral strain, will that limit your ability then to make an immune response to a virus, which is very much different than the ancestral?” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/omicron-variant-best-strategy-omicron-boost-original-vaccine-rcna7451

Very, very few experts think that is a credible risk. The overwhelming majority of experts say to get booster as soon as possible. Not only do they reduce severity in medically frail individuals, they significantly reduce the risk of infection in healthier individuals. Teachers could avoid getting sick and could go on working through any potential Omicron surge.