McKnight's discussion with health officer about in-person learning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great news. I could get 100% behind McKnight in general if this is the plan.

Winner winner. She is doing this to win over parents she doesnt care about student or staff safety

Yes she has caved to the far-right anti-science anti-vax crowd that wishes to remain open at any cost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is amazing how many people are in denial. You are all getting COVID whether you like it or now. Just go to school and ditch the testing. If your kid is sick, keep them home.

We might all get infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus), but we're not all going to get covid (the disease).

Just a bunch of us who are unlucky and that couldn't possibly happen to us right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is amazing how many people are in denial. You are all getting COVID whether you like it or now. Just go to school and ditch the testing. If your kid is sick, keep them home.

We might all get infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus), but we're not all going to get covid (the disease).

Just a bunch of us who are unlucky and that couldn't possibly happen to us right?

I don't know why you're arguing with epidemiological data?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great news. I could get 100% behind McKnight in general if this is the plan.

Winner winner. She is doing this to win over parents she doesnt care about student or staff safety

Yes she has caved to the far-right anti-science anti-vax crowd that wishes to remain open at any cost.

And to the far-left pro-education crowd. Great policy by her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: All students will not be exposed to COVID during Winter Break.

LOL

I mean, we aren’t traveling, hosting anyone, or eating at restaurants, so I would not expect my kids to be exposed during winter break. I of course expect them to be exposed afterwards when everyone else returns and that seems unavoidable. Still hope schools stay open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In short, they've put metrics around when an individual school may move to 14 days of virtual, but no system wide closure.

Now the health dept guys is lecturing about hand-washing.

Thank you for the summary, PP, which I really really hope is accurate!

The metrics are 5% or more unrelated cases within 14 days, or minimum of 10 in a classroom. Pretty reasonable I think.

5% is huge. My son’s school has 2200 kids so they wait until they have 110 cases confirmed before doing anything. We know lots of kids at that point are carriers and a symptomatic so the number is really higher. I bet they’ll be at the 5% after the holidays but have no idea because the reporting system is flawed.

They are basically saying that they are willing to sacrifice a certain number of lives before doing anything. It’s crazy. Our teacher shortages is about to get a lot worse too.

MCPS is acting like we live in some backward districts in Florida or Texas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great news. I could get 100% behind McKnight in general if this is the plan.

Winner winner. She is doing this to win over parents she doesnt care about student or staff safety

Yes she has caved to the far-right anti-science anti-vax crowd that wishes to remain open at any cost.

Absolutely right. The poorly educated Trumpanzees won and our kids are screwed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS has now extended winter break by 2 days to allow time for schools to load up on Covid testing supplies or something like that. Seems weird that MCPS is acting like they don’t have to make any adjustments

DCPS teacher here. It has nothing to do with getting testing supplies. They can’t staff the classrooms & are anticipating many more people resigning after the break. Please be aware when districts use covid as an excuse to cover the fact that they are losing staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In short, they've put metrics around when an individual school may move to 14 days of virtual, but no system wide closure.

Now the health dept guys is lecturing about hand-washing.

Thank you for the summary, PP, which I really really hope is accurate!

The metrics are 5% or more unrelated cases within 14 days, or minimum of 10 in a classroom. Pretty reasonable I think.

5% is huge. My son’s school has 2200 kids so they wait until they have 110 cases confirmed before doing anything. We know lots of kids at that point are carriers and a symptomatic so the number is really higher. I bet they’ll be at the 5% after the holidays but have no idea because the reporting system is flawed.

They are basically saying that they are willing to sacrifice a certain number of lives before doing anything. It’s crazy. Our teacher shortages is about to get a lot worse too.

MCPS is acting like we live in some backward districts in Florida or Texas.

I think a threshold of 110 cases in a 2,200 student high school is completely reasonable.

The teachers should be vaccinated and boostered. Everyone aged 16+ in high school should be vaccinated and either boostered or at low risk of severe disease. Everyone aged 5-11 should have just gotten vaccinated. Everyone aged 12-15 should be vaccinated and can be boostered if at high risk. So why are you talking about "sacrificing lives"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great news. I could get 100% behind McKnight in general if this is the plan.

Winner winner. She is doing this to win over parents she doesnt care about student or staff safety

Yes she has caved to the far-right anti-science anti-vax crowd that wishes to remain open at any cost.

Absolutely right. The poorly educated Trumpanzees won and our kids are screwed.

In Montgomery County, Maryland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great news. I could get 100% behind McKnight in general if this is the plan.

Winner winner. She is doing this to win over parents she doesnt care about student or staff safety

Yes she has caved to the far-right anti-science anti-vax crowd that wishes to remain open at any cost.

Absolutely right. The poorly educated Trumpanzees won and our kids are screwed.

You've gone incoherent in your whining hysteria. The Trumpanzees won in MoCo...yeah, that's it. What did win is education.

[Anonymous]

IDK... I'm a fully vaxxed democrat and it seems like cases are rising but the cases are mild in the school-aged population. Why should schools fully go remote? Have there been pediatric deaths or hospitalizations in MoCo? I'm curious... not sarcastic.

I don't want my child to get sick. But nor do I want to over-react.

I think the issue on this forum is that most of you think your opinions are going to sway someone else or that you have more control over the situation than you do.

We're all just in a holding pattern hoping this won't get worse. Til then, I'm sending my kid to school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In short, they've put metrics around when an individual school may move to 14 days of virtual, but no system wide closure.

Now the health dept guys is lecturing about hand-washing.

Thank you for the summary, PP, which I really really hope is accurate!

The metrics are 5% or more unrelated cases within 14 days, or minimum of 10 in a classroom. Pretty reasonable I think.

5% is huge. My son’s school has 2200 kids so they wait until they have 110 cases confirmed before doing anything. We know lots of kids at that point are carriers and a symptomatic so the number is really higher. I bet they’ll be at the 5% after the holidays but have no idea because the reporting system is flawed.

They are basically saying that they are willing to sacrifice a certain number of lives before doing anything. It’s crazy. Our teacher shortages is about to get a lot worse too.

MCPS is acting like we live in some backward districts in Florida or Texas.

Sacrifice lives? Everyone at risk of anything even remotely serious should be vaccinated and boosted. No excuses at this point. The rate of hospitalization for people under 65 who are fully vaxxed is extremely low. The rate of death for the fully vaxxed is virtually nil. You need to be clinically neurotic and/or innumerate to be so scared of this that you are willing to shut down schools again. And if you really are that concerned, it's probably best you home school your kids, which is always an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realize they just ended the presser, but where is the information in writing? Seems like they should get that out ASAP to avoid misinterpretation and rumor mill confusion....

They just put out this press release:

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=12567&type=&startYear=&pageNumber=&mode=

Here is the key paragraph:

The following parameter will require the consideration of individual school closures.
To ensure the safety of students and staff, MCPS will be following DHHS guidance around individual school outbreaks as defined by the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) and the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). Beginning in January, if 5 percent or more of unrelated students/teachers/staff (minimum of 10 unrelated students/teachers/staff) test positive in a 14-day period, then DHHS and MCPS will work together to determine if the school should be closed for 14 days and the students would transition to virtual learning.

As always there is something unclear in what MCPS says. What exactly does unrelated mean? That they are not biologically related or live in the same household? Or that they are in different classrooms? Such a shame these are the people teaching our children to think and express themselves clearly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

5% is huge. My son’s school has 2200 kids so they wait until they have 110 cases confirmed before doing anything. We know lots of kids at that point are carriers and a symptomatic so the number is really higher. I bet they’ll be at the 5% after the holidays but have no idea because the reporting system is flawed.

Over the course of 14 days, 110 kids isn't a huge number. I'm in PGCPS and at our elementary school we went from 2 kids reported positive to 15 and then 42 in just three days. Personally I think it spread on a bus. Once it starts to spread the cases will be there quickly.