ACPS is a covid cluster

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is it lots of cases or are they overquarantining?

ACPS is both doing too little mitigation and over-quarantining at the same time. The Alexandria Health Department is requiring longer quarantines that even the CDC recommends, with no ability to shorten for a negative test at any point in the two weeks (CDC says that is an option).

Have a quarantined child right now. Have a high schooler whose science teacher said that the vaccine is similar to the (very racist and horrific) experiments the government performed on the black community in the early 20th century - needless to say there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy in the community. ACPS is not inclined - at all - to require vaccination. The definition of close contact is someone in the same class - regardless of mask-wearing and whether positive child was/is symptomatic. It is a mess!

What??? How has no one else commented on this? What science class was this? If true this needs to be reported to the administration.

Could it be that the science teacher said that some VACCINE HESITANCY is rooted in the very racist and horrific experiments the government performed on the black community in the early 20th century??! Teens are not always reliable reporters.

PP here and that is a good point. I found this shocking but I could imagine it being a misunderstanding.

Poster of this. Spoke to child at length about this, and does not seem that teacher was supportive of the vaccine. Teacher is not vaccinated nor is teacher’s very old parent.

Oh. I’m sorry; I really hoped it was a misunderstanding. That is unacceptable. (Not that the teacher holds those beliefs, but that they are spouting rhetoric that is antithetical to modern science.)

[Anonymous]

The reporting of results weekly is just insane. You add positive cases as they happen.

[Anonymous]

They need to update the dashboard daily if not able to in real time. I think they also need to report each unique case count and have an archive like other school districts in neighboring jurisdictions with the letters that were issued. For example, MCPS has an archive of the COVID-19 close contacts. It lists each school and the number of positive cases. Then it numerates the cases for a unique case count and archives the issued letters for each case, school, date, etc. I think ACPS needs to do this. We also need to promote vaccines for staff. I think there are over 400 staff not vaccinated. In our schools. The vaccination rate for 12 and up in the city is very high, but we should incentivize it. Did anyone watch last night's board meeting? Did they require vaccines now that Biden is requiring of federal employees? I'm assuming they could only require FDA approved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to update the dashboard daily if not able to in real time. I think they also need to report each unique case count and have an archive like other school districts in neighboring jurisdictions with the letters that were issued. For example, MCPS has an archive of the COVID-19 close contacts. It lists each school and the number of positive cases. Then it numerates the cases for a unique case count and archives the issued letters for each case, school, date, etc. I think ACPS needs to do this. We also need to promote vaccines for staff. I think there are over 400 staff not vaccinated. In our schools. The vaccination rate for 12 and up in the city is very high, but we should incentivize it. Did anyone watch last night's board meeting? Did they require vaccines now that Biden is requiring of federal employees? I'm assuming they could only require FDA approved.

They didn't outright mandate vaccines but it seemed to be headed that way and will be addressed at the next staff meeting. This seemed to be more of a heads up to staff.

Completely, totally, 100% agree about the dashboard. Weekly updates are useless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to update the dashboard daily if not able to in real time. I think they also need to report each unique case count and have an archive like other school districts in neighboring jurisdictions with the letters that were issued. For example, MCPS has an archive of the COVID-19 close contacts. It lists each school and the number of positive cases. Then it numerates the cases for a unique case count and archives the issued letters for each case, school, date, etc. I think ACPS needs to do this. We also need to promote vaccines for staff. I think there are over 400 staff not vaccinated. In our schools. The vaccination rate for 12 and up in the city is very high, but we should incentivize it. Did anyone watch last night's board meeting? Did they require vaccines now that Biden is requiring of federal employees? I'm assuming they could only require FDA approved.

They didn't outright mandate vaccines but it seemed to be headed that way and will be addressed at the next staff meeting. This seemed to be more of a heads up to staff.

Completely, totally, 100% agree about the dashboard. Weekly updates are useless.

*will be addressed at the next school board meeting, not staff meeting

[Anonymous]

What do you consider a "COVID cluster?" My son goes to GW, there have been six cases this year out of around 600 kids per grade (so 1800). I think they should be testing kids to find out how much COVID there actually is, but there have not been that many confirmed cases, at least at GW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You realize it is ACPS. Most (not all) of their teachers are not the best of the best. They have to pay more than the other districts to teach there. It is not for the quality of the teachers, it is to get them to work under those conditions.

Let's not bash the teachers. My kids have had some excellent teachers in ACPS (and a couple duds, too). The teachers aren't the ones making the testing/vaccination/quarantine rules.

Same. We've been very happy with the caliber of our teachers. Not all are rock stars, but no bad ones yet.

[Anonymous]

Oh wow - 400 seems high. Not feeling good about working with unvaccinated adults - no excuse not to get vaccinated at this point. What’s the denominator for all staff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you consider a "COVID cluster?" My son goes to GW, there have been six cases this year out of around 600 kids per grade (so 1800). I think they should be testing kids to find out how much COVID there actually is, but there have not been that many confirmed cases, at least at GW.

there have been more than 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you consider a "COVID cluster?" My son goes to GW, there have been six cases this year out of around 600 kids per grade (so 1800). I think they should be testing kids to find out how much COVID there actually is, but there have not been that many confirmed cases, at least at GW.

there have been more than 6.

Right? Lol 6. How does it affect numbers if they wait 9 days after exposure to notify those potentially exposed?

[Anonymous]

If one family from each ACPS school forwarded all notifications to me, I could easily maintain a daily dashboard. This should not be that difficult to do.

In any case, I agree that ACPS is flying blind since there is no screening testing. Weekly or twice weekly asymptomatic screening or any testing (even if it is 30% of students per campus) needs to be rolled out a lot quicker than the amorphous timeline set forth by ACPS. Does anyone have a sense for when testing will begin?

Please sign this petition if you haven't done so already - https://chng.it/xsxGFy6vZ8

Would really love to see where the 90 million in CARES/ARP/ESSER funding has been allocated.

[Anonymous]

It has now been six days since the last school board meeting and the written public comments have still not been posted. ACPS is clearly trying stifle the community’s ability to challenge ACPS’s poor covid mitigation strategy (never mind Alderton refusing to give two measly extra minutes to the organizer of the petition on Covid testing).

[Anonymous]

GWMS put out a notice today that due to an uptick in cases they are having the health department on site for COVID testing after school on Friday. And still they won’t allow the middle school to implement an outdoor lunch program, even for unvaxxed sixth graders. What did they think would happen?

[Anonymous]

GWMS put out a notice today that due to an uptick in cases they are having the health department on site for COVID testing after school on Friday. And still they won’t allow the middle school to implement an outdoor lunch program, even for unvaxxed sixth graders. What did they think would happen?

Also, the structure of the testing makes no sense, because my kid cannot get tested without me there, and I can't take off work. So we are not doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

GWMS put out a notice today that due to an uptick in cases they are having the health department on site for COVID testing after school on Friday. And still they won’t allow the middle school to implement an outdoor lunch program, even for unvaxxed sixth graders. What did they think would happen?

Also, the structure of the testing makes no sense, because my kid cannot get tested without me there, and I can't take off work. So we are not doing it.

Such a cluster! They should have had authorization forms parents could sign so kids could get tested. Another ill-conceived and poorly executed plan from ACPS.