Caitlyn Peetz on Twitter: 8am MCPS press conference for a “COVID-19 update”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

What did you think having kids was going to be? An endless round of birthday parties? Raising kids takes some effort.

If you want to do those things you need to be part of the solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

You mean the health techs, right? There are not nurses in every school every day, there are health techs. And it would be ridiculous for kids to come to school, get tested, and then possibly have to isolate and go back home. The testing program would be carried out in a different manner.

The DCPS plan seems like the only thing that could plausibly work. They distribute at-home tests and try to get as many parents as possible to submit some form of evidence of using those tests.

The issue, as was quickly asked in DCPS, is what are you doing to do with the students that inevitably show up without a test being submitted. DCPS initially implied they'd send them home, then backtracked and said they'd test them at school. Neither of those seem practical. I suspect they'll end up letting them in and come around and test as many as they can (which will likely be a very small percentage of the students that return without testing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

What did you think having kids was going to be? An endless round of birthday parties? Raising kids takes some effort.

If you want to do those things you need to be part of the solution.

And given that nearly 2 years of restrictions, and 1 year of availability of vaccines that remain highly effective at preventing serious illness, hasn't allowed us to get back to normal, the only plausible option left is letting Omicron burn through the community as fast as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:D'oh! Caitlynn with two N's. Sorry, Caitlynn! Not a fan! But hate to misspell a name! Kisses!

-OP

What do you have against Caitlynn Peetz?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

If they did this, they would almost certainly do what DC is — hand out tests and require parents to upload them prior to school. I still don’t think it will happen, but it logistically would be simpler than in your scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:D'oh! Caitlynn with two N's. Sorry, Caitlynn! Not a fan! But hate to misspell a name! Kisses!

-OP

What do you have against Caitlynn Peetz?

For Peetz sake...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

If they did this, they would almost certainly do what DC is — hand out tests and require parents to upload them prior to school. I still don’t think it will happen, but it logistically would be simpler than in your scenario.

I was talking about the DCPS plan. The issue is what do you do with the students that show up whose parents didn't upload a test? DCPS initially suggested they would send them home, and later suggested they would test them on-site before letting them go to class. Both would be a disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

If they did this, they would almost certainly do what DC is — hand out tests and require parents to upload them prior to school. I still don’t think it will happen, but it logistically would be simpler than in your scenario.

I was talking about the DCPS plan. The issue is what do you do with the students that show up whose parents didn't upload a test? DCPS initially suggested they would send them home, and later suggested they would test them on-site before letting them go to class. Both would be a disaster.

hold your horses. nothing announced yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

What did you think having kids was going to be? An endless round of birthday parties? Raising kids takes some effort.

If you want to do those things you need to be part of the solution.

And given that nearly 2 years of restrictions, and 1 year of availability of vaccines that remain highly effective at preventing serious illness, hasn't allowed us to get back to normal, the only plausible option left is letting Omicron burn through the community as fast as possible.

If we let covid run rampant (not that we seem to have a choice at this point) it will be over in 3 weeks. I say let it burn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe they will somehow let the whiners get a temporary virtual option or something so they’ll leave us alone. I honestly don’t get it. Two vax’d families I know got covid over break and it was like a headache. Can we stop punishing the kids yet?

Can you stop the melodrama yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

I would also like all that, but feel like 87% of what you're describing is due to the existence of a deadly pandemic and/or the poor response of the federal government, not MCPS decisions.

DP. Not really. The pandemic has gone pretty well considering the new Delta and Omicron variants. We've found ourselves in a situation where, at no fault of our own, the only path forward for COVID is to accept that we're all going to get it and take appropriate measures to reduce the likelihood of severe illness (mostly through vaccination/boosters). Nothing the local, state or federal government could have done would have changed that reality-- remember, Delta and Omicron didn't originate in the US.

Besides their obvious primary goal of educating students, MCPS should be trying to minimize the harmful effects of the pandemic on kids. The best way they could do that would be to keep schools open.

The real issue is people like you minimizing Covid. A child just died in a neighboring county. That child never should have died. There is no safe way to keep schools fully in person.

Children die of the flu every year. We don't shut down for the flu. Children die in car accidents. We don't shut down roads until new magical safety devices are invented that prevent all vehicular deaths.

Schools are plenty safe for students. And they're safe for teachers that actually go out and get their vaccinations and boosters.

Further, the logical mistake you're making is that your looking at the overall risk of COVID when what you should be doing is looking at how opening/closing schools changes that risk. It doesn't matter what we do with schools- COVID will remain in widespread circulation in the world, and we'll all be exposed. Probably in the very near future. For that reason, the *marginal* increase in COVID risk by keeping schools open is extremely low. But we know there is real harm to education, and development, as well as students' mental health.

We are not in a pandemic of the flu. We are not in a pandemic of car accidents.

Super, super sorry you’re so inconvenienced.

[Anonymous]

I hope they announce a virtual option, at least for high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard a rumor that they would announce test to return, but logistically see no way for them to actually do this, unless they lucky to virtual until they get enough tests.

There's no way they could do in person this week if that's true. We'd be lucky if they could do it next week.

And in the meantime the school nurses would strike. There's no reasonable way to implement test-to-return without completely screwing over the nurses. You'd have thousands of students showing up on the first day of class without a test. Either you'd test them on site, or you'd have to screen them and hold them for an hour or two until staff could contact parents and get them to pick them up. To make matters worse, the kids that fail the screening would need to be isolated in some way. It would be a nightmare, and the nurses would bear the brunt of it regardless of whatever path MCPS would try to take.

You mean the health techs, right? There are not nurses in every school every day, there are health techs. And it would be ridiculous for kids to come to school, get tested, and then possibly have to isolate and go back home. The testing program would be carried out in a different manner.

The DCPS plan seems like the only thing that could plausibly work. They distribute at-home tests and try to get as many parents as possible to submit some form of evidence of using those tests.

The issue, as was quickly asked in DCPS, is what are you doing to do with the students that inevitably show up without a test being submitted. DCPS initially implied they'd send them home, then backtracked and said they'd test them at school. Neither of those seem practical. I suspect they'll end up letting them in and come around and test as many as they can (which will likely be a very small percentage of the students that return without testing).

No at home tests. Parents will cheat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys I can’t take it anymore. I just want the kids to go to school, to do my job as well as I used to, have some occasional play dates and birthday parties to break up the month. Anyone else hate this feeling of being consumed by thoughts of what MCPS is going to do next to screw your life over again. This feeling takes me back to summer 2020 (remember when they ditched hybrid?) and august 2021 when people were freaking out about delta buy thank god MCPs stuck to its plan. Sigh. I’m so tired. When will it end.

What did you think having kids was going to be? An endless round of birthday parties? Raising kids takes some effort.

If you want to do those things you need to be part of the solution.

And given that nearly 2 years of restrictions, and 1 year of availability of vaccines that remain highly effective at preventing serious illness, hasn't allowed us to get back to normal, the only plausible option left is letting Omicron burn through the community as fast as possible.

If we let covid run rampant (not that we seem to have a choice at this point) it will be over in 3 weeks. I say let it burn.

Idiot. So glad you’re not in charge.