Parents— Act Now to Prevent Daycare/PreK closures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for a child development center that has several locations in the DMV. I can tell you that DC is not going to be lightening up on masking or quarantining any time soon. Keep in mind, we work with the only population that still cannot get vaccinated.

We have been open and operating all of our centers since June 2020. From June 2020 until the past couple of months, we had ZERO children (infants through Kindergarten) that we know of that had Covid. We had a few teachers who mostly got it from relatives, and had to only close a class here and there when a teacher tested positive. We did not have to close an entire center at all. The protocols we had put in place were working and prevented outbreaks in our centers.

This all changed starting this fall and with the onset of Omicron. We have had several children with Covid and have closed classes several times, and one instance where we closed an entire center for a few days because four classes were impacted and we had to stop the spread. We had not changed our protocols at all so this variant is obviously a lot more contagious.

Childcare workers and leadership are very worried about this rapid spread and keeping everyone safe. No matter how loud parents complain, I just don't see the guidance changing any time soon. And if we did ease up on these requirements, you're going to see a lot more classrooms and whole centers closing more frequently.

Oh - and you'd be surprised how well the children actually do with the masks. They do remove them to eat and nap, so there are many periods throughout the day where they are unmasked.

But we're all worried that January is going to be a shit show when all the centers that have been closed for the holidays reopen and everyone who travelled comes back. We're all testing, but that is not reliable either. Ugh. Let's hope this variant fizzles out as fast as it blew in.

Stay healthy everone!

So, let’s get this straight— kids are going well with masks because they don’t have to wear masks for much of the day. Yet somehow you seem to think they help. Is that right?

I don't really care that much about masks. I mean, I think they're dumb for little kids, as does nearly every public health organization outside the US, but I think there are bigger problems to focus on. However, I do find it frustrating that people aren't willing to look at what is actually going on and acknowledge those masks aren't doing much.

She just showed you evidence of success and you say masks don't work.

A sleeping person isn't talking. Their exhalations arent traveling very far. An eating person can be somewhat distanced. But yes, it remains a risk. The thing about risk is we mitigate for it. The daycare will be using measures to make risky activities less risky. Like when you use condoms.

Thats not how science works but okay. There is not just one variable at play for their success: masks or no masks. If masks didnt work you would see larger number of children testing positive or getting sick in European countries that dont require masks for kids.

Its correlation not causation. Likely people let up on visiting family/friends indoors or traveled during the Thanksgiving holidays or had family visit or their parents went back into the office/traveling for sales jobs, etc. I love how my daycare mentions that traveling outside the DMV requires a negative PCR test to return but doesnt mention that a negative PCR test is required IF people OUTSIDE of the DMV come into your home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for a child development center that has several locations in the DMV. I can tell you that DC is not going to be lightening up on masking or quarantining any time soon. Keep in mind, we work with the only population that still cannot get vaccinated.

We have been open and operating all of our centers since June 2020. From June 2020 until the past couple of months, we had ZERO children (infants through Kindergarten) that we know of that had Covid. We had a few teachers who mostly got it from relatives, and had to only close a class here and there when a teacher tested positive. We did not have to close an entire center at all. The protocols we had put in place were working and prevented outbreaks in our centers.

This all changed starting this fall and with the onset of Omicron. We have had several children with Covid and have closed classes several times, and one instance where we closed an entire center for a few days because four classes were impacted and we had to stop the spread. We had not changed our protocols at all so this variant is obviously a lot more contagious.

Childcare workers and leadership are very worried about this rapid spread and keeping everyone safe. No matter how loud parents complain, I just don't see the guidance changing any time soon. And if we did ease up on these requirements, you're going to see a lot more classrooms and whole centers closing more frequently.

Oh - and you'd be surprised how well the children actually do with the masks. They do remove them to eat and nap, so there are many periods throughout the day where they are unmasked.

But we're all worried that January is going to be a shit show when all the centers that have been closed for the holidays reopen and everyone who travelled comes back. We're all testing, but that is not reliable either. Ugh. Let's hope this variant fizzles out as fast as it blew in.

Stay healthy everone!

So, let’s get this straight— kids are going well with masks because they don’t have to wear masks for much of the day. Yet somehow you seem to think they help. Is that right?

I don't really care that much about masks. I mean, I think they're dumb for little kids, as does nearly every public health organization outside the US, but I think there are bigger problems to focus on. However, I do find it frustrating that people aren't willing to look at what is actually going on and acknowledge those masks aren't doing much.

She just showed you evidence of success and you say masks don't work.

A sleeping person isn't talking. Their exhalations arent traveling very far. An eating person can be somewhat distanced. But yes, it remains a risk. The thing about risk is we mitigate for it. The daycare will be using measures to make risky activities less risky. Like when you use condoms.

Thats not how science works but okay. There is not just one variable at play for their success: masks or no masks. If masks didnt work you would see larger number of children testing positive or getting sick in European countries that dont require masks for kids.

Its correlation not causation. Likely people let up on visiting family/friends indoors or traveled during the Thanksgiving holidays or had family visit or their parents went back into the office/traveling for sales jobs, etc. I love how my daycare mentions that traveling outside the DMV requires a negative PCR test to return but doesnt mention that a negative PCR test is required IF people OUTSIDE of the DMV come into your home.

DID WORK*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work for a child development center that has several locations in the DMV. I can tell you that DC is not going to be lightening up on masking or quarantining any time soon. Keep in mind, we work with the only population that still cannot get vaccinated.

We have been open and operating all of our centers since June 2020. From June 2020 until the past couple of months, we had ZERO children (infants through Kindergarten) that we know of that had Covid. We had a few teachers who mostly got it from relatives, and had to only close a class here and there when a teacher tested positive. We did not have to close an entire center at all. The protocols we had put in place were working and prevented outbreaks in our centers.

This all changed starting this fall and with the onset of Omicron. We have had several children with Covid and have closed classes several times, and one instance where we closed an entire center for a few days because four classes were impacted and we had to stop the spread. We had not changed our protocols at all so this variant is obviously a lot more contagious.

Childcare workers and leadership are very worried about this rapid spread and keeping everyone safe. No matter how loud parents complain, I just don't see the guidance changing any time soon. And if we did ease up on these requirements, you're going to see a lot more classrooms and whole centers closing more frequently.

Oh - and you'd be surprised how well the children actually do with the masks. They do remove them to eat and nap, so there are many periods throughout the day where they are unmasked.

But we're all worried that January is going to be a shit show when all the centers that have been closed for the holidays reopen and everyone who travelled comes back. We're all testing, but that is not reliable either. Ugh. Let's hope this variant fizzles out as fast as it blew in.

Stay healthy everone!

The objective wouldn't be to remove covid mitigations. It would be to align covid policies for prek with covid policies for k. There's no reason they should be more restrictive, and no reason following them would lead to classroom closures any more frequently than k classrooms are being closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent DCUM thread was from a preschool teacher that wants to quit in January because people keep sending their kids in sick during the pandemic and it is stressing her out. Daycares pay terribly. PP, you are lucky that anyone wants to work at/run these germ cesspools. Add more burden to them and see how it goes.

+1 to all this. Daycare workers are massively underpaid and have had a hard job during the pandemic. And you're demanding their employers remove protections for them?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent DCUM thread was from a preschool teacher that wants to quit in January because people keep sending their kids in sick during the pandemic and it is stressing her out. Daycares pay terribly. PP, you are lucky that anyone wants to work at/run these germ cesspools. Add more burden to them and see how it goes.

+1 to all this. Daycare workers are massively underpaid and have had a hard job during the pandemic. And you're demanding their employers remove protections for them?

+1

OP's post is tone-deaf, and I think she's wrong that shortened quarantines and test-to-stay are more politically charged than ending masking of young children. I will say that:

- There has not been enough attention paid to the issues faced by families with young children. While certainly most of the posters on DCUM that use daycare are probably UMC and lack sufficient empathy for child care workers, many low-income families use daycare (that's why there are subsidies for it) and desperately need it in order to stay employed. Currently, if a parent tests positive for Covid, an unvaccinated child needs to quarantine for 24 days (14 days past the parent's 10 days) unless the positive adult is able to isolate from the family, which requires having space and therefore money. That is a massive burden that's going to fall on a ton of families in the next couple of weeks. Can my family handle it - yes, we both WFH and have understanding employers. But for most families it's a massive, massive ask.

- You assume the only parties involved here are parents and teachers. But there are also the interests of the kids to think of. Their development matters. I find it extremely hard to believe that masking young children for half the day makes one bean of difference in preventing transmission of Covid. Why has this not been studied yet? Because parents have not wanted to rock the boat, most of us (unlike OP) respect our children's teachers and don't want to do anything to make them feel less safe. But it's time to step up for our kids.

[Anonymous]

I really don’t understand what you think demonizes childcare workers in the OP. All I said was childcare centers and prek settings don’t have an (financial) incentive to push for changes to quarantine policies because they aren’t negatively impacted by kids getting pushed into unnecessarily long quarantines. What is incorrect or unfair about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t understand what you think demonizes childcare workers in the OP. All I said was childcare centers and prek settings don’t have an (financial) incentive to push for changes to quarantine policies because they aren’t negatively impacted by kids getting pushed into unnecessarily long quarantines. What is incorrect or unfair about that?

Sure they are, they lose business when they can't provide child care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent DCUM thread was from a preschool teacher that wants to quit in January because people keep sending their kids in sick during the pandemic and it is stressing her out. Daycares pay terribly. PP, you are lucky that anyone wants to work at/run these germ cesspools. Add more burden to them and see how it goes.

+1 to all this. Daycare workers are massively underpaid and have had a hard job during the pandemic. And you're demanding their employers remove protections for them?

+1

OP's post is tone-deaf, and I think she's wrong that shortened quarantines and test-to-stay are more politically charged than ending masking of young children. I will say that:

- There has not been enough attention paid to the issues faced by families with young children. While certainly most of the posters on DCUM that use daycare are probably UMC and lack sufficient empathy for child care workers, many low-income families use daycare (that's why there are subsidies for it) and desperately need it in order to stay employed. Currently, if a parent tests positive for Covid, an unvaccinated child needs to quarantine for 24 days (14 days past the parent's 10 days) unless the positive adult is able to isolate from the family, which requires having space and therefore money. That is a massive burden that's going to fall on a ton of families in the next couple of weeks. Can my family handle it - yes, we both WFH and have understanding employers. But for most families it's a massive, massive ask.

- You assume the only parties involved here are parents and teachers. But there are also the interests of the kids to think of. Their development matters. I find it extremely hard to believe that masking young children for half the day makes one bean of difference in preventing transmission of Covid. Why has this not been studied yet? Because parents have not wanted to rock the boat, most of us (unlike OP) respect our children's teachers and don't want to do anything to make them feel less safe. But it's time to step up for our kids.

I don’t think I implied quarantines and isolation are more politically charged than masks. I was trying to say the opposite. It should be easier to put political pressure on county/state health departments to align isolation/quarantine policies with other unvaccinated kid than it would be to push for an end to mask mandates in young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t understand what you think demonizes childcare workers in the OP. All I said was childcare centers and prek settings don’t have an (financial) incentive to push for changes to quarantine policies because they aren’t negatively impacted by kids getting pushed into unnecessarily long quarantines. What is incorrect or unfair about that?

Sure they are, they lose business when they can't provide child care

Sure… how many child care centers are having parents drop out over quarantine/isolation requirements? As far as I can tell, nearly all are following the lead from the county and state health departments. So if you need child care, which if you’re paying a bunch of money, you probably do, then you’re stuck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents of school-aged kids have been much more politically active during than the pandemic than parents of prek kids. And it shows- child care and PreK kids have had the harshest covid restrictions, and the fewest options for avoiding or limiting quarantines.

We’re going to be in a world of hurt if parents of younger kids don’t step up to demand changes like adopting the shortened quarantine periods the CDC just announced, allowing rapid at-home tests to break quarantine, and implementing test-to-stay. Daycare and preschools don’t care about making these changes themselves- they get paid either way. We need state and county health departments to make these changes in their guidance, and that will only happen with political pressure.

Get to work, parents!

Aww, you’re so cute. Demand all you want. Throw oversized temper tantrums.

Then follow the rules or take care of your own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you just join one of the ten or so threads already on this and related topics? This one is probably your best bet: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1024207.page

Unfortunately the change.org petition in that thread blends introducing test-to-stay/reducing quarantines with dropping masks. This is a strategic mistake as masks are a political issue and it is clear from the comments on the petition some looneys have signed it. We really need some effort just focused on changing the quarantine rules to be more sensible.

Since you’re all adults, you know that change dot org petitions are a total joke, right?

Just checking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t understand what you think demonizes childcare workers in the OP. All I said was childcare centers and prek settings don’t have an (financial) incentive to push for changes to quarantine policies because they aren’t negatively impacted by kids getting pushed into unnecessarily long quarantines. What is incorrect or unfair about that?

Sure they are, they lose business when they can't provide child care

Sure… how many child care centers are having parents drop out over quarantine/isolation requirements? As far as I can tell, nearly all are following the lead from the county and state health departments. So if you need child care, which if you’re paying a bunch of money, you probably do, then you’re stuck.

My kid’s preschool tried to move to a 7-day quarantine with a negative test, to align with the employee policy, but the county made vague threats, causing the preschool to quickly back down. While they've lobbied the county for other changes to child care policy, they didn't lobby for changes to the quarantine policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A recent DCUM thread was from a preschool teacher that wants to quit in January because people keep sending their kids in sick during the pandemic and it is stressing her out. Daycares pay terribly. PP, you are lucky that anyone wants to work at/run these germ cesspools. Add more burden to them and see how it goes.

+1 to all this. Daycare workers are massively underpaid and have had a hard job during the pandemic. And you're demanding their employers remove protections for them?

This. They are paid terribly and many could make more right now at a retail job, with the way companies are having to raise pay rates to compete to hire. So keep pushing them, demanding to remove any and all safeguards to their health, so they’ll quit and make the same money stocking shelves at Target.

Hope your center director can take care of every kid alone. Oops, no, they can’t, because that’s against the law. Bummer for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents of school-aged kids have been much more politically active during than the pandemic than parents of prek kids. And it shows- child care and PreK kids have had the harshest covid restrictions, and the fewest options for avoiding or limiting quarantines.

We’re going to be in a world of hurt if parents of younger kids don’t step up to demand changes like adopting the shortened quarantine periods the CDC just announced, allowing rapid at-home tests to break quarantine, and implementing test-to-stay. Daycare and preschools don’t care about making these changes themselves- they get paid either way. We need state and county health departments to make these changes in their guidance, and that will only happen with political pressure.

Get to work, parents!

Aww, you’re so cute. Demand all you want. Throw oversized temper tantrums.

Then follow the rules or take care of your own kids.

If a child care center or preschool wants to implement harsh policies, that’s their perogative. But state and county health departments shouldn’t be suggesting that preschools/centers are not allowed to adopt the more balanced policies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work for a child development center that has several locations in the DMV. I can tell you that DC is not going to be lightening up on masking or quarantining any time soon. Keep in mind, we work with the only population that still cannot get vaccinated.

We have been open and operating all of our centers since June 2020. From June 2020 until the past couple of months, we had ZERO children (infants through Kindergarten) that we know of that had Covid. We had a few teachers who mostly got it from relatives, and had to only close a class here and there when a teacher tested positive. We did not have to close an entire center at all. The protocols we had put in place were working and prevented outbreaks in our centers.

This all changed starting this fall and with the onset of Omicron. We have had several children with Covid and have closed classes several times, and one instance where we closed an entire center for a few days because four classes were impacted and we had to stop the spread. We had not changed our protocols at all so this variant is obviously a lot more contagious.

Childcare workers and leadership are very worried about this rapid spread and keeping everyone safe. No matter how loud parents complain, I just don't see the guidance changing any time soon. And if we did ease up on these requirements, you're going to see a lot more classrooms and whole centers closing more frequently.

Oh - and you'd be surprised how well the children actually do with the masks. They do remove them to eat and nap, so there are many periods throughout the day where they are unmasked.

But we're all worried that January is going to be a shit show when all the centers that have been closed for the holidays reopen and everyone who travelled comes back. We're all testing, but that is not reliable either. Ugh. Let's hope this variant fizzles out as fast as it blew in.

Stay healthy everone!

So, let’s get this straight— kids are going well with masks because they don’t have to wear masks for much of the day. Yet somehow you seem to think they help. Is that right?

I don't really care that much about masks. I mean, I think they're dumb for little kids, as does nearly every public health organization outside the US, but I think there are bigger problems to focus on. However, I do find it frustrating that people aren't willing to look at what is actually going on and acknowledge those masks aren't doing much.

She just showed you evidence of success and you say masks don't work.

A sleeping person isn't talking. Their exhalations arent traveling very far. An eating person can be somewhat distanced. But yes, it remains a risk. The thing about risk is we mitigate for it. The daycare will be using measures to make risky activities less risky. Like when you use condoms.

The big Bangladesh study for one. Surely you saw that, didn’t you? No reduction in cases at all when using cloth masks. No reduction in people under 50 when wearing surgical masks.

You do know you can cherry pick a study to support any cause you want to push, right?