Charters: When is yours dropping the outdoor mask mandate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

All schools do not have opt-out. Maybe this isn't your topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

All schools do not have opt-out. Maybe this isn't your topic.

Name the schools that do not have the opt-out, because according to the DCPCSB they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

I can read perfectly well. Sure, the CDC doesn't explicitly advise against *offering* testing, but they do explicitly say that schools in areas of low transmission "Do not need to screen students". Therefore, it would be at odds with their guidance to *require* kids to test weekly or even more often (and not all charters allow parents to opt out, as another PP pointed out).

And to claim that there are no harms to asymptomatic testing is to ignore the mathematical fact that in areas of low prevalence, false positives with their consequences of keeping kids out of school unnecessarily are a real issue, and outweigh the true positives caught. But I know data aren't your thing, so I'll leave it at that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer the question, the outdoor mask mandate will be dropped next week. Unvaccinated kids can test to stay (so especially good for prek parents). Everything else stays (which includes a lot of rules beyond masking).

Which charter?

We're at Two Rivers, and this sounds like us. Except they came back a few days later and said they're keeping the outdoor mask mandate for a little while longer because of recent positive COVID tests of students.

Just two more weeks! Because clearly outdoor transmission is a factor here.

Two Rivers, never change. Keep on completely mishandling COVID and disregarding science.

We need to start a list of shame. Two Rivers is definitely on there in the worst tier. Stokes. LAMB. Which other ones have been really bad?

Mundo seems bad but maybe less so? Yu Ying is off the rails but at least it opened last spring earlier than most (even if on a wackadoo schedule).

Breakthrough has been a bit better than those last two. And Sela also opened early.

Which others?

LAMB at least opened for hybrid last Spring. I think Cap City never opened at all.

LAMB just allowed outdoor unmasking this week. They've said that science is confusing so they will maybe announce next week a timeline for lifting indoor masking, after they poll everyone.

NP. Well, if they are confused by the science, the right thing to do would be to follow CDC guidance. That's why we have experts who write these guidelines, so that random school administrators don't have to try to figure this out on their own.

Exactly, but we have to consider FEELINGS. Feelings about science. Feelings about safety. Feelings about feelings.

Here’s the whole message. Seems LAMB feels the need to develop its own metrics even though the CDC has already done that, and DC Health adopted those guidelines. Truly baffling and disappointing:

LAMB has been working on our process for rolling back COVID restrictions, particularly mask mandates. The city has recently made significant changes to the school requirements and regulations regarding safety measures. These changes reflect a shift in the overall city’s focus from keeping individual students and staff safe in school environments to keeping the overall community at a low “community level.” Each local education agency (LEA) is now responsible for determining how it will approach safety.

LAMB will continue to prioritize safety and equity as we move into this new phase. This means our focus will continue to be on keeping individual students and staff safe. We will be taking the following into account:
We understand that feeling safe is an important part of being safe - for both students and staff - and it is not always easy to ensure everyone feels safe. We continue to have sporadic positive cases in both primary and elementary classrooms, and want to make sure those do not increase.
Following the science is important, but it is not always clear. We are still beginning to understand the long-term effects of COVID, even in mild cases, especially among children.
Mask requirements, in particular, have a wide variety of impacts on adults and students that change depending on age, instructional needs, personal or family risk levels, health history, health care access, and more.
We plan to finalize a schedule and plan for moving to optional masks indoors based on some important feedback from you. Our general approach includes:
Identifying metrics that would initiate an immediate return to wearing masks indoors by classroom, level, and/or the whole school if necessary.
Removing indoor mask requirements first at the elementary level and then the primary level.
Being ready to move back to indoor masking, outdoor masking, or other safety measures should we experience a suspected outbreak in the school or a rise in cases in the community.
To understand how our community feels about indoor masks requirements, we ask that you take this short survey. The survey results will be reported back out to the community along with the detailed plan for rolling back mask requirements. Please complete by Monday, April 4.

wow. reading this is driving me crazy. these arguments are so, so bad.

they're determining that the CDC and city's move to community rates isn't conservative enough so they're making their own metrics?
they're claiming that FEELING safe equates to actual safety?
they believe in this long-covid nonsense as though it is anything other than a regular post-viral syndrome?
their first (and clearly main) priority in a mask policy is re-instituting it?

a school, presumably comprised of people whose positions require that they be the "experts" to children are discarding expert advice in favor of sheer fear and FEELINGS. this poll seems like nothing other than a cover to continue masking forever.

just abject rejection of science

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

I can read perfectly well. Sure, the CDC doesn't explicitly advise against *offering* testing, but they do explicitly say that schools in areas of low transmission "Do not need to screen students". Therefore, it would be at odds with their guidance to *require* kids to test weekly or even more often (and not all charters allow parents to opt out, as another PP pointed out).

And to claim that there are no harms to asymptomatic testing is to ignore the mathematical fact that in areas of low prevalence, false positives with their consequences of keeping kids out of school unnecessarily are a real issue, and outweigh the true positives caught. But I know data aren't your thing, so I'll leave it at that.

When Trump was against testing, we all said he was crazy - so gotta call BS on your logic here. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

All schools do not have opt-out. Maybe this isn't your topic.

Name the schools that do not have the opt-out, because according to the DCPCSB they do.

Sela. Is there someone specific at DCPSCSB who is unaware of this? It was in the health and safety plan they filed at the beginning of the year, and they weren't the only one, so that would be surprising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

Lamb has been sued a couple times. I don’t think they GAF anymore.

[Anonymous]

like i am certain someone else in this thread has pointed all of this out, but i had to express my outrage at the blatant science denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

I can read perfectly well. Sure, the CDC doesn't explicitly advise against *offering* testing, but they do explicitly say that schools in areas of low transmission "Do not need to screen students". Therefore, it would be at odds with their guidance to *require* kids to test weekly or even more often (and not all charters allow parents to opt out, as another PP pointed out).

And to claim that there are no harms to asymptomatic testing is to ignore the mathematical fact that in areas of low prevalence, false positives with their consequences of keeping kids out of school unnecessarily are a real issue, and outweigh the true positives caught. But I know data aren't your thing, so I'll leave it at that.

When Trump was against testing, we all said he was crazy - so gotta call BS on your logic here. Yikes.

No surprise that your only attempt to dispute my logic is with a vague political non-argument. That's all you got at this point. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to start suing these charters.

For what exactly?

Well, you can probably find individual cases of children that can demonstrate that they are harmed by having to mask for two years of their development. For example, kids with speech delays whose speech therapists can document that the mask hinders progress. Particularly when the CDC and DC Health don't support the school's bizarre public health measures.

Demonstrating injury for legal purposes is most unlikely, particularly given there is no science that supports your theory of harm.

It's not worth debating the point of science supporting the theory of harm. Every expert would have said that it does harm prior to March 2020.

But the threat of litigation would very likely pave the way for doing mask optional.

Hahhaha. Obliviously not a lawyer.

IANAL and I am not PP, but everyone here who so confidently and sophisticatedly dismissed the idea of a lawsuit last time with the Catholic schools was incorrect. Threats of litigation can matter - even if the probability of success is low.

I dunno, it seems like there could be an equal protection claim made on the basis that public school kids in DCPS are under one regime, while public school kids in the charter sector are forced to take several medical tests a week to attend school, can't receive unmasked speech therapy, and get excluded from school for 7-10 days because they travelled outside the local area -- all because of the whims of school leaders and contradicting public health officials??

But none of your facts stated here are true...

Yes they are. Some charters require covid tests every week, some charters maintain an indoor mask mandate (thus denying unmasked speech therapy), and some charters still have those damn travel restrictions.

All schools should be testing weekly, nutter. That is a good thing for students/community. Going on record as being anti-testing shows your crazy colors. At this point all charters are test to stay. I don’t know what you are talking about re: speech therapy. Everyone I know at a charter does this privately off campus.

Actually, the CDC now says that screening testing of students (not sure if you know the difference between that and test-to-stay) is unnecessary in communities with low transmission, which applies to DC:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html#screening-testing

But keep trying to insult perfectly reasonable people as "nutters" to make yourself feel better.

(Oh, and I was not the PP you responded to.)

"Forced to take several tests a week to attend school" is absolute nuttery, but fly the dim flag high. First, all schools have opt-out. Second, there is no evidence that testing harms students. Third, the CDC also says: "n K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, initiate quarantine, and identify clusters to help reduce the risk to in-person education. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level." I guess learn to read?

I can read perfectly well. Sure, the CDC doesn't explicitly advise against *offering* testing, but they do explicitly say that schools in areas of low transmission "Do not need to screen students". Therefore, it would be at odds with their guidance to *require* kids to test weekly or even more often (and not all charters allow parents to opt out, as another PP pointed out).

And to claim that there are no harms to asymptomatic testing is to ignore the mathematical fact that in areas of low prevalence, false positives with their consequences of keeping kids out of school unnecessarily are a real issue, and outweigh the true positives caught. But I know data aren't your thing, so I'll leave it at that.

When Trump was against testing, we all said he was crazy - so gotta call BS on your logic here. Yikes.

Your argument is that two years ago, Trump argued against testing for spurious reasons, so we have to keep testing for spurious reasons out of spite?

[Anonymous]

Like, I love spite as much as the next person, but I don't think we should be making educational and health policy because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like, I love spite as much as the next person, but I don't think we should be making educational and health policy because of it.

Omg I like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer the question, the outdoor mask mandate will be dropped next week. Unvaccinated kids can test to stay (so especially good for prek parents). Everything else stays (which includes a lot of rules beyond masking).

Which charter?

We're at Two Rivers, and this sounds like us. Except they came back a few days later and said they're keeping the outdoor mask mandate for a little while longer because of recent positive COVID tests of students.

Just two more weeks! Because clearly outdoor transmission is a factor here.

Two Rivers, never change. Keep on completely mishandling COVID and disregarding science.

We need to start a list of shame. Two Rivers is definitely on there in the worst tier. Stokes. LAMB. Which other ones have been really bad?

Mundo seems bad but maybe less so? Yu Ying is off the rails but at least it opened last spring earlier than most (even if on a wackadoo schedule).

Breakthrough has been a bit better than those last two. And Sela also opened early.

Which others?

LAMB at least opened for hybrid last Spring. I think Cap City never opened at all.

LAMB just allowed outdoor unmasking this week. They've said that science is confusing so they will maybe announce next week a timeline for lifting indoor masking, after they poll everyone.

NP. Well, if they are confused by the science, the right thing to do would be to follow CDC guidance. That's why we have experts who write these guidelines, so that random school administrators don't have to try to figure this out on their own.

Exactly, but we have to consider FEELINGS. Feelings about science. Feelings about safety. Feelings about feelings.

Here’s the whole message. Seems LAMB feels the need to develop its own metrics even though the CDC has already done that, and DC Health adopted those guidelines. Truly baffling and disappointing:

LAMB has been working on our process for rolling back COVID restrictions, particularly mask mandates. The city has recently made significant changes to the school requirements and regulations regarding safety measures. These changes reflect a shift in the overall city’s focus from keeping individual students and staff safe in school environments to keeping the overall community at a low “community level.” Each local education agency (LEA) is now responsible for determining how it will approach safety.

LAMB will continue to prioritize safety and equity as we move into this new phase. This means our focus will continue to be on keeping individual students and staff safe. We will be taking the following into account:
We understand that feeling safe is an important part of being safe - for both students and staff - and it is not always easy to ensure everyone feels safe. We continue to have sporadic positive cases in both primary and elementary classrooms, and want to make sure those do not increase.
Following the science is important, but it is not always clear. We are still beginning to understand the long-term effects of COVID, even in mild cases, especially among children.
Mask requirements, in particular, have a wide variety of impacts on adults and students that change depending on age, instructional needs, personal or family risk levels, health history, health care access, and more.
We plan to finalize a schedule and plan for moving to optional masks indoors based on some important feedback from you. Our general approach includes:
Identifying metrics that would initiate an immediate return to wearing masks indoors by classroom, level, and/or the whole school if necessary.
Removing indoor mask requirements first at the elementary level and then the primary level.
Being ready to move back to indoor masking, outdoor masking, or other safety measures should we experience a suspected outbreak in the school or a rise in cases in the community.
To understand how our community feels about indoor masks requirements, we ask that you take this short survey. The survey results will be reported back out to the community along with the detailed plan for rolling back mask requirements. Please complete by Monday, April 4.

wow. reading this is driving me crazy. these arguments are so, so bad.

they're determining that the CDC and city's move to community rates isn't conservative enough so they're making their own metrics?
they're claiming that FEELING safe equates to actual safety?
they believe in this long-covid nonsense as though it is anything other than a regular post-viral syndrome?
their first (and clearly main) priority in a mask policy is re-instituting it?

a school, presumably comprised of people whose positions require that they be the "experts" to children are discarding expert advice in favor of sheer fear and FEELINGS. this poll seems like nothing other than a cover to continue masking forever.

just abject rejection of science

I know. I really like the school otherwise. This is so incredibly frustrating. The parents who want the mandate removed just don’t speak up.