Anyone listen to this week's this American Life? It is terrifying what school closures has done

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in a highly blue school district and with the exception of the spring of 2020 my kids have been doing in-person school and in-person activities this entire time. None of us have gotten covid (at least not that we know) and I don't know anyone personally who had a severe case or died. The red areas around us were even more wide open. Your individual experience does not equate to what the entire country experienced.

Where do you live?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what? My kids thrived in virtual learning! School is not childcare! /s

Who is talking about school being childcare? Your child’s reported success in virtual learning isn’t relevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what? My kids thrived in virtual learning! School is not childcare! /s

Who is talking about school being childcare? Your child’s reported success in virtual learning isn’t relevant.

The PP was being sarcastic (hence the “/s”). Lots of posters on here responded with anecdotes about how well their kids were thriving whenever anyone lamented their child’s struggles with distance learning. And God forbid any parent reference a difficulty with balancing work and helping their child (especially the really young ones) with school, we were reminded that “school isn’t childcare.”

The McMansion Zoom class with their nannies liked to make sure we all knew we were failing throughout the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

I work with children in a culture and a place where they are taken care of by multigenerational households, often primarily grandparents. A lot of those grandparents died. Sometimes it was because of transmission through the children. I saw a lot of teddy bears perched on top of the body bags coming out of the hospital -- the kids wanted the send what they loved to be a comfort to who they had loved.

Do you want to know what their mental health is like now?

Our community was hit harder than most. Nobody knew that it would shake out that way in the beginning.

So kids learning remotely gave COVID to their grandparents? Huh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

Nice revisionist history. Europe was open summer 2020 and showed it was safe. Most of the country except for super blue enclaves opened fall 2020. It’s absolutely criminal what happened in the DMV.

+1. By Fall 2020 we knew what Covid was, how it was spread, who was most affected.

+1 you Live in a tiny little bubble. Many people predicted the impact this would have on children and They. Were. Right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Why were most red states able to open, at least hybrid? Are their teachers unions less powerful?

Yes. And many red states don’t even have unions, which isn’t ideal either. But they have too much power in some blue states. I think there is a middle ground.

Teachers Unions have too much power! Lol!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in a highly blue school district and with the exception of the spring of 2020 my kids have been doing in-person school and in-person activities this entire time. None of us have gotten covid (at least not that we know) and I don't know anyone personally who had a severe case or died. The red areas around us were even more wide open. Your individual experience does not equate to what the entire country experienced.

New PP and our experience as well. We moved this year from MCPS to a very blue county in CO that was prioritizing schools staying open. I look back and wish we had done it sooner. Our experience here is so much better in every way than when we were in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

I work with children in a culture and a place where they are taken care of by multigenerational households, often primarily grandparents. A lot of those grandparents died. Sometimes it was because of transmission through the children. I saw a lot of teddy bears perched on top of the body bags coming out of the hospital -- the kids wanted the send what they loved to be a comfort to who they had loved.

Do you want to know what their mental health is like now?

Our community was hit harder than most. Nobody knew that it would shake out that way in the beginning.

So kids learning remotely gave COVID to their grandparents? Huh.

You are ignorant of the situation. That's me using polite language out of respect for the moderator.

Most did not have internet access. The problem was that kids went back and forth from parents (when home) to grandparents. And parents brought it home from their shitty jobs that they couldn't afford to lose, and then the kids took it to their grandparents, who were the only ones who could watch them.

Most of the country was not like this. But it was real, and it takes a helluva toll on children to know people are dead because of them. And guess who reports on abuse here? It's the grandparents, the aunties, the elders.

You don't want to see what it looks like when children have gone through this and have to live with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can we talk about how this being "terrifying" etc is the new overreaction?

You can offer criticism or different points of view without ladling on the drama.

This. But the absurd superlatives are always piled high when talking about virtual learning (which was not “closure”).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live in a highly blue school district and with the exception of the spring of 2020 my kids have been doing in-person school and in-person activities this entire time. None of us have gotten covid (at least not that we know) and I don't know anyone personally who had a severe case or died. The red areas around us were even more wide open. Your individual experience does not equate to what the entire country experienced.

That’s nice. Some of us know several people who had severe cases and multiple people who died. And the idiotic assertion that cramming kids, teachers and staff, all unvaccinated, into enclosed Petri dishes for 30+ hours a week “didn’t spread it” is a lie born out of convenience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what? My kids thrived in virtual learning! School is not childcare! /s

Who is talking about school being childcare? Your child’s reported success in virtual learning isn’t relevant.

It’s so cute how you throw in “reported” there to imply that since your kids didn’t succeed, no one else’s could, because that would mean admitting it could be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what? My kids thrived in virtual learning! School is not childcare! /s

Who is talking about school being childcare? Your child’s reported success in virtual learning isn’t relevant.

The PP was being sarcastic (hence the “/s”). Lots of posters on here responded with anecdotes about how well their kids were thriving whenever anyone lamented their child’s struggles with distance learning. And God forbid any parent reference a difficulty with balancing work and helping their child (especially the really young ones) with school, we were reminded that “school isn’t childcare.”

The McMansion Zoom class with their nannies liked to make sure we all knew we were failing throughout the pandemic.

Once again, we’re one of the families you mention. We don’t have a McMansion, or a vacation home, or a nanny, tutors, a pod or local grandparents. We weren’t “out walking the dog/baking cookies during work/school hours.”

Aren’t you tired of your own excuses yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, these are extreme stories. There are kids who thrived in distance learning (their parents have posted on here) who are also at the other extreme. Most kids fall somewhere in between.

I get that parents are upset. For fricks sake, we've been through two years of a pandemic. It has sucked.

But the irrational anger has to stop because IT HELPS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In fact, it hurts forward progress. You all want apologies and blood (SOMEONE MUST PAY!!! I WILL NEVER FORGET!!!) and that doesn't do our kids one dang bit of good.

What you need to be putting your energy into is lobbying for the remediation we all know needs to start happening ASAP. The whining and tearing out your hair and looking for scapegoats is a WASTE OF FRICKIN TIME.

We need to be lobbying at the state and county levels for summer programs to help kids catch up or whatever other ideas people might have. It will cost money but the kids need the help. We should be trying to work with school boards and teachers to make remediation happen. IF you keep screaming at the sky and stamping your feet you aren't helping your kids.

And think carefully about who you vote for for the school boards. Knee-jerk voting for GOP RWNJs who are using the angry parent thing and cries of "parent's rights" to push their scary agendas will NOT help all our kids move forward. They don't want to fund anything for schools, no matter what they say. We may need new blood, but we need to think about who that could be.

I disagree. People should be angry about what happened to their kids. And usually when it’s your kid who was harmed, the anger is irrational. So I don’t even care if it’s irrational. If the anger goes away and people like some of the PPs rewrite history, we risk this happening again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what? My kids thrived in virtual learning! School is not childcare! /s

Who is talking about school being childcare? Your child’s reported success in virtual learning isn’t relevant.

The PP was being sarcastic (hence the “/s”). Lots of posters on here responded with anecdotes about how well their kids were thriving whenever anyone lamented their child’s struggles with distance learning. And God forbid any parent reference a difficulty with balancing work and helping their child (especially the really young ones) with school, we were reminded that “school isn’t childcare.”

The McMansion Zoom class with their nannies liked to make sure we all knew we were failing throughout the pandemic.

Once again, we’re one of the families you mention. We don’t have a McMansion, or a vacation home, or a nanny, tutors, a pod or local grandparents. We weren’t “out walking the dog/baking cookies during work/school hours.”

Aren’t you tired of your own excuses yet?

But lemme guess, you worked from home and probably still are?

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile, this is going on:

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2022/03/10/massachusetts-covid-death-definition/