MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only

[Anonymous]

Good thing they waited until the last week of summer to approve a reopening plan that didn't make it a week into the new school year! MCPS never wanted to reopen, so they did the bare minimum so they'd force themselves to close.

[Anonymous]

Common allergy symptoms such as sneezing ARE NOT on this list.

Coughing and asthma do need to be clarified, though. My son is asthmatic and coughs during allergy season, even while medicated, and his pediatrician would be very willing to explain his long history of symptoms to MCPS. I expect that such cases will be allowed in school, with documentation.

So please don't worry. Reasonable accommodations will be made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:cough
difficulty breathing
new loss of taste or smell
fever ≥100.4°
sore throat
severe headache,
diarrhea
vomiting

Those seem perfectly reasonable.

But from the notice above, it's only if a kid is sent home with these symptoms? If a kid wakes up with the symptom or has it at night after getting home from school and the parent does the right thing and keeps them home.... then the rest of the class will never know any different? This is all so odd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

Runny nose and sniffles are not on the list.

"symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting"

Still ... cough (allergies, reflux), a sore throat (yelled too much at your sports game or playing with friends), a headache (migraines are a problem for many and it is utter stupidity to quarantine a class based on a headache). Diarrhea also quite common. A kid eats the wrong food or has an irritable bowel, everyone is quarantined.

Parents need to read between the lines and not report things to school unless a kid is actually sick. That's unfortunate, as this system only works with transparency and honesty, but with this utter nonsense, it just creates incentives not to report anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

Hey, way to wildly exaggerate the policy. Runny nose is not a symptom. 10 day quarantine is not required if you show a negative test. Basically, the policy is to get you to not send your sick kid to school, and if your kid is sick, to get a covid test to confirm what it is. I have no problem with that. That being said, I don't see why the rest of the class has to quarantine until the sick kid's family can show a negative test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest policy in a long line of many. Allergies, asthma, chronic headaches, cold season coming up. It's utter nonsense. Seriously, how stupid can people be and feel like they need to one up the CDC and state officials?

+1 I feel for you ES parents.

my kids are in MS/HS, but DC gets migraines, have had them since 6 yrs old, DC also has asthma. Other DC has terrible allergies, including in the fall.

I have stated before.. MoCo leadership, including the BOE are waaaay too conservative and are driven by fear rather than science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just get a test. Makes sense to me

It's not really that simple for an entire class to go/stay home until a test comes back every time for the long list of symptoms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:cough
difficulty breathing
new loss of taste or smell
fever ≥100.4°
sore throat
severe headache,
diarrhea
vomiting

Those seem perfectly reasonable.

Sore throat? Cough? Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

Runny nose and sniffles are not on the list.

"symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting"

Still ... cough (allergies, reflux), a sore throat (yelled too much at your sports game or playing with friends), a headache (migraines are a problem for many and it is utter stupidity to quarantine a class based on a headache). Diarrhea also quite common. A kid eats the wrong food or has an irritable bowel, everyone is quarantined.

Parents need to read between the lines and not report things to school unless a kid is actually sick. That's unfortunate, as this system only works with transparency and honesty, but with this utter nonsense, it just creates incentives not to report anything.

Headache you can hide. Loss of taste and smell you can hide, but if you are sending your kid to school with that symptom, you are an ahole. Hard to hide symptoms though if your kid is coughing, vomiting, and sh*tng their pants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Common allergy symptoms such as sneezing ARE NOT on this list.

Coughing and asthma do need to be clarified, though. My son is asthmatic and coughs during allergy season, even while medicated, and his pediatrician would be very willing to explain his long history of symptoms to MCPS. I expect that such cases will be allowed in school, with documentation.

So please don't worry. Reasonable accommodations will be made.

Reasonable accommodations will be made by reasonable people, I assume. However, there are many unreasonable people in the world, and every organization has some unreasonable people, including MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

Runny nose and sniffles are not on the list.

"symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting"

Still ... cough (allergies, reflux), a sore throat (yelled too much at your sports game or playing with friends), a headache (migraines are a problem for many and it is utter stupidity to quarantine a class based on a headache). Diarrhea also quite common. A kid eats the wrong food or has an irritable bowel, everyone is quarantined.

Parents need to read between the lines and not report things to school unless a kid is actually sick. That's unfortunate, as this system only works with transparency and honesty, but with this utter nonsense, it just creates incentives not to report anything.

This means if a child is not feeling well at school and tells the nurse they fe sick.. they have a sore throat etc they send the whole class home for 10 days??

It is on the school to use the tests available to them for free to monitor. Not to put it on families to go get a negative test.

[Anonymous]

Are elementary parents supposed to tell their little ones not to ask to go to the nurse now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest policy in a long line of many. Allergies, asthma, chronic headaches, cold season coming up. It's utter nonsense. Seriously, how stupid can people be and feel like they need to one up the CDC and state officials?

+1 I feel for you ES parents.

my kids are in MS/HS, but DC gets migraines, have had them since 6 yrs old, DC also has asthma. Other DC has terrible allergies, including in the fall.

I have stated before.. MoCo leadership, including the BOE are waaaay too conservative and are driven by fear rather than science.

My kid has chronic migraines. No medical professional on the face of the earth says to go get a COVID test, let alone quarantine a class and take away their ability for in person education and socialization, if he gets a headache. I feel awful for his class if they do that when he gets one in school. He knows when it is a migraine as opposed to sick. They need to clarify. Limiting it to "severe" doesn't help because it is severe. Actually, it's more severe than when he is sick. And it got worse with all the screen time and virtual. So MCPS made worse the problem that is now a quarantine symptom. Self fulfilling prophecy.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure accommodations will be made for children who are chronic or habitual sufferers of symptoms on this list, for reasons other than Covid. You might need to talk to your doctor and have them write a letter or something.

As for the policy itself, I applaud it. It will stop parents who routinely send their children to school with heavy colds and flu! This should stay in place after the pandemic

[Anonymous]

I’m sure I will be attacked. I’m glad MCPS is taking it seriously though they definitely need more specific criteria so they aren’t going overboard. My child’s principal certainly isn’t doing this. The criteria shared has basically nobody quarantining and allows for uncontrolled spread. Frankly it’s unacceptable to me.

What I’d like to see is mandatory weekly testing. And to clarify, I want schools open 5 days a week in person with minimal disruption. My kids want to be in school. They need to be in school. Sick kids going to school is the reason my kids probably will have multiple disruptions this year.