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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These rules are stricter than NYC, the largest school system in the US, which only requires a quarrantine for a positive case. Someone should ask MCPS whether they considered what other districts are doing and why they think what NYC is doing is not good enough.

Is that rhetorical? Because NYC still has the highest total Covid death numbers in the nation, due to their devastating spike in early 2020. They don't have any lessons to give to anybody.

No. It’s called prioritizing education and making decisions instead of being a bunch of knee jerk cowards.

I'll gladly be called a knee-jerk coward if it means having the courage to keep the population safe. I think the cowards are the people who don't want to do anything... like you.

Exactly! Take your perception of freedom and shove it where the sub dont shine. Go live in a libertarian kibbutz and reproduce only with your ilk to create a sovereign nation of entitled a-holes which does not care for the greater good, has a di$& Measuring Contest as a way to elect their Dear Leader .... blah blah blah...

Okay now thats out of the way and we have all yelled at each other....

What is a solution to this? Write to MCPS about obligatory testing? Massive signature campaign?

What other large school districts have a policy to quarantine an entire class for symptoms? When did standing up for public education and children and families over the myopic focus on Covid make someone a libertarian? Too many liberals in this area are sheep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if my kid wakes up with runny nose, and I keep them home to get covid tested, does that mean when I email the school to report their absence they’ll send the entire class home until I report a negative covid test?

Good question. Or does this only apply if a kid is sent to the nurse while at school?

[Anonymous]

Why can’t all the schools just keep a bunch of rapid tests in the office and let students take one when needed? And/or distribute them to families that ask for them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I’m hopeful parents at my school understand what to do here:

(1) kid gets sick not on school hours
(2) KEEP kid home and tell school anything except kid has a covid symptom
(3) get thee to PM pediatrics before 1 pm and procure same day test
(4) get test results (statistically speaking they are going to be negative)
(5) send kid back to school when not sick anymore.
(6) if kid will be out for a few days tell school kid sick but not covid and provide negative test
(7) rest of class is safe

Go forth.

Yep. Someone finally gets it.

PSA if your employer offers Kaiser they typically return test results within 12 hours, at no extra cost. Open enrollment is coming up.

Not anymore they won't. Kaiser is notoriously slow - they won't keep up with demand and results won't be given in such a short amount of time anymore.

since when? I got my kid tested there a couple of weeks ago and it took about 11 hours. They promise 24 though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The question is why is MCPS releasing this changed policy on the Friday of the first week of school just before a holiday weekend? Why wasn’t this the guidance last week? Do they just want to reinforce that they are a clown show and are indecisive about these arbitrary COVID policies? We pulled from private with more sensible policies. Had I known this is have reconsidered. It’s designed to ensure school is disrupted when a masked kid gets a fever on the playground.

There must be a ton of cases we don't know about for this radical shift after 1 week.

Thanks to this board and conversations between parents from different schools, we know for a fact that no "Covid dashboard" of any local school jurisdiction is remotely accurate. There are multiple cases that are left out.

This means the systems are overwhelmed and so correctly, MCPS changes course to make the system a little safer. Now if it only had the help of parents...

Except MCPS isn't acting in good faith. They said they were going to follow CDC guidance on exposures and quarantines, when it is quite clear that was never their intention. And there are a variety of alternatives they could take that would substantially reduce the negative effects on kids, such as test-to-stay. That they didn't do those alternatives strongly suggests they simply want to shut classrooms down.

If you have an alternative plan you think is better, CONTACT THE BOE AND INTERIM SUPERINTENDANT and tell them! That's what I did with outdoor lunches in mid-August, and by late August, they had a directive sent to Principals to facilitate outdoor lunches. If you write convincingly, they will listen.

That's really funny that you think you're single handedly responsible for outdoor lunch. 🤣

It’s hilarious! I’ve been writing to them since March 2020 and no, they have not listened. Not once.

[Anonymous]

I saw an ad for tester RNs pool testing contract for Moco? I hope they roll this in?

[Anonymous]

My sense from reading the (typically flaming) comments here is that people don’t understand the policy or aren’t reading it closely. I can tell you first hand about it because my daughter’s entire class (plus a math section) was quarantined today because of one child with one symptom under this new guidance BEFORE they even told anyone about it. The student did test negative and they’ll go out back next week.

Most people agree that if a kid is sick with one of those symptoms they should stay home and take a test. No one is debating that. Let’s talk specifics - the specifics are that the entire class was quarantined for a day because of one kid with one symptom that my daughter didn’t even talk to or sit close to. And she was wearing a mask all day as was the child. They ate outside.

It is total insanity. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it’s certainly suspicious that they dumped this on a holiday Friday evening (oldest trick in the book) at least 24 hours after they decided it - since our class was told to quarantine under this policy last night. Our kids will be out all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I probably would get a test. I'm just not going to tell MCPS if it is positive, since I know how awful it would be for the other students to get sent home for 10+ days.

You wouldn't, anyway. The contact tracers would do that.

What do you think contact tracers do? In particular, who do they get their information from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a good policy and I support it.

+1. Since parents refuse to be responsible, schools have to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t all the schools just keep a bunch of rapid tests in the office and let students take one when needed? And/or distribute them to families that ask for them?

Because its not the schools job to provide medical care as that is what you should do as a parent. If its in question, its your responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw an ad for tester RNs pool testing contract for Moco? I hope they roll this in?

They are doing random sampling testing for kids who opt in in ES and 6th grade only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw an ad for tester RNs pool testing contract for Moco? I hope they roll this in?

Pool testing? That's almost as bad as this policy.

Test-to-stay is the most cautious option that doesn't cause undue harm to kids. If they can't get enough tests to do everyone regularly, then test kids if someone is symptomatic. Send positive kids home, and retest those that stay every day for a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw an ad for tester RNs pool testing contract for Moco? I hope they roll this in?

They are doing random sampling testing for kids who opt in in ES and 6th grade only.

And parents would be fools to opt-in given this new policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I class is sent home until getting a negative test on their own. Let's say that takes 2 days, comes back and 3 days later another kid has a "bad headache " back home again but there's a project at work so this time it takes 3 days to go get the test then back again until a week and a half later someone eats the cafeteria food and has diarrhea so now you're out again for another day.

What a sh"tshow

ok - so what do you propose? No class? No quarantine ever? Only the child that is sick gets sent home (one after another after another -until the entire class is sent home sequentially and the spread continues? What?

Test to stay like Boston (and probably many many other schools are doing)

I'm not sure what MCPS has against using the testing that's been provided by the federal government but irs causing much risk and disruption to not use it.

They don't want to know.

Right. They just want to send them home.

Just do rapid antigen tests as often as you can, and send home anyone positive while keeping everyone that tested negative. Once a classroom crosses a certain threshold of concurrent cases (3-5), shut down the room for 10 days.

Majority of parents aren't agreeing to testing so their only option is to send kids home.

At the very least, they could send the symptomatic kid home and allow others in the room to stay after a negative rapid antigen test. If your child is in the room and you refuse the test, then your child could get sent home too.

The key point is that we absolutely do not need to send everyone home when there's a positive test or a symptomic kid. We're going to be dealing with COVID for a long time. This is not an appropriate or sustainable plan. It's so bad that it only makes sense in the context of trying to force a closure of the district as a whole.

No, because if those other kids are asymptomatic, they could have a huge spread. Parents need to be responsible. If your child is sick keep them home.

Exactly, and if the other kids have just been exposed to the positive kid and are positive and asymptomatic or presymptomatic, their tests will be falsely negative and allow spread. So you send them home until the incubation period has passed and don’t use too early meaningless testing to keep them in buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sense from reading the (typically flaming) comments here is that people don’t understand the policy or aren’t reading it closely. I can tell you first hand about it because my daughter’s entire class (plus a math section) was quarantined today because of one child with one symptom under this new guidance BEFORE they even told anyone about it. The student did test negative and they’ll go out back next week.

Most people agree that if a kid is sick with one of those symptoms they should stay home and take a test. No one is debating that. Let’s talk specifics - the specifics are that the entire class was quarantined for a day because of one kid with one symptom that my daughter didn’t even talk to or sit close to. And she was wearing a mask all day as was the child. They ate outside.

It is total insanity. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but it’s certainly suspicious that they dumped this on a holiday Friday evening (oldest trick in the book) at least 24 hours after they decided it - since our class was told to quarantine under this policy last night. Our kids will be out all the time.

I understand your frustration, but with Delta cases at very high levels in our area, I think schools are doing everything they can to prevent outright closures, especially elementary school closures.
Quarantines here and there are better than year-long virtual, no? At least to some people?