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

[Anonymous]

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

Unfortunately, yes. MCPS has created this perverse incentive.

[Anonymous]

Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The symptom is “new onset severe headache” (same for loss is smell) so I am sure they’ve thought about excluding chronic conditions.

I hope this does deter people from sending in sick kids, although aholes will be aholes no matter what you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Unfortunately, yes. MCPS has created this perverse incentive.

I agree that it's a perverse incentive for parents to tell their kids, "Larlx, if you start to feel sick at school, DO NOT TELL ANYONE. Just finish the day and come home."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

My only experience is with ES, but I hope many families opt into the pool testing. In the spring at my kid's ES, they had to send multiple messages out to get enough families to consent (of course, there were far fewer kids in the room).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

I had this thought too. Imagine the power to send everyone home the day before a math test...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


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

Gee, they've only had all year, and then specifically all spring and summer to plan for return to school and said accommodations that you're so sure of. Where is it? Why isn't it included? Why is it September 3 and there is no guidance on this? It's not like the quarantine protocols haven't been debated to death for a year ... cough cough... oh wait, send everyone home for 10 days!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


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

Gee, they've only had all year, and then specifically all spring and summer to plan for return to school and said accommodations that you're so sure of. Where is it? Why isn't it included? Why is it September 3 and there is no guidance on this? It's not like the quarantine protocols haven't been debated to death for a year ... cough cough... oh wait, send everyone home for 10 days!

The BOE is absolutely worthless. They don't want to actually have to do any work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

[Anonymous]

This is crazy. My child suffers from asthma and has a chronic cough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

Seems like they will go to great lengths to avoid having a real testing policy. It's not the money so what is it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

No, that doesn't follow. Presumably most of the tests were done on asymptomatic people. My family accounts for about 10 tests since the pandemic started, and we've never had any symptoms (or positive tests, either).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

Takes what test?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what can we do to stop this madness?

By stopping to read the actual guidance, instead of believing a sh1tstirrer who says runny noses will be banned from school.

I’m the OP. As far as I’m aware the actual guidance has not been shared yet. From anecdotal reports at multiple schools I understood that cold symptoms were included, but I’m heartened to hear that where schools have shared written guidance it doesn’t include colds. However coughs, headache and sore throat are all very common. Current test positivity is 3.4 percent.

THREE POINT FOUR PERCENT!

so almost 97% of those cases will lead to unnecessarily keeping entire classes of kids out of school for up to ten days. Ridiculous.

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

"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." So, dr says LARLA has asthma, chronic cough - back in school. Dr says strep - not back in school, but everyone else is. Dr says negative test - back in school. It's not you have a headache and everyone is out for 10 days. Man, the catastrophizing and lack of reading comprehension that goes on in DCUM is impressive.