Allegedly there are several options for the fall none of which include being back full time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, it is ridiculous hyperbole, and evidence of the mass hysteria we are facing when trying to have this discussion. Don't get me started on parents worrying about their kids safety at school because of Covid...

Right. Ridiculous hyperbole for teachers to be worried about dying from an infectious disease that has killed 110,000 Americans in the past three months but totally reasonable for people to be screaming about “life long trauma” and children being “beaten to death”. Give me a break. If you beat your child to death it is no one else’s fault. Now you’re likening school closure to murder. If you kill your children or allow yourself to become obese during quarantine those are personal failings. It isn’t the government, the school system, or anyone else’s fault. People need to learn some personal responsibility.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3601399

To combat the spread of COVID-19, many primary and secondary schools in the United States canceled classes and moved instruction online. This study examines an unexplored consequence of COVID-19 school closures: the broken link between child maltreatment victims and the number one source of reported maltreatment allegations - school personnel. Using current, county-level data from Florida, we estimate a counterfactual distribution of child maltreatment allegations for March and April 2020, the first two months in which Florida schools closed. While one would expect the financial, mental, and physical stress due to COVID-19 to result in additional child maltreatment cases, we find that the actual number of reported allegations was approximately 15,000 lower (27 percent) than expected for these two months. We leverage a detailed dataset of school district staffing and spending to show that the observed decline in allegations was primarily driven by school closures. Finally, we discuss policy implications of our findings and suggest a number of responses that may mitigate this hidden cost of school closures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Really? I have a graduate degree in Public Health, so I am used to thinking in terms of populations. Of course, it is bad to die or have long term health consequences from COVID. It is also bad if even more people die from or have long term consequences from heart disease because they gained weight. That's how it works.

Are you the "gained weight" PP? Can you please explain how this is relevant to school next fall?

Obviously, she is making the point that there are numerous negative public health consequences of lockdowns. It is relevant to keeping schools closed because that will force more people to remain at home to supervise their kids. If you used to ride your bike to work, for instance, you are not doing that anymore. If you are already stretched between facilitating DL and getting your work done, it may be hard to fit in workouts. Not to mention kids are missing out on sports.

DP, and I think the weight gain isn’t the best comparative outcome here. More: why is it preferable for children to be beaten to death by their parents, or to experience life-long consequences of trauma (and good luck fixing those), than it is for teachers to take a small risk of serious outcomes and even smaller risk of death from COVID-19? Those are more the outcomes we’re talking about. Yes, I picked the extreme examples, but claiming that we’re sentencing teachers to die by asking them to teach in-person this Fall is also extreme.

Yes, it is ridiculous hyperbole, and evidence of the mass hysteria we are facing when trying to have this discussion. Don't get me started on parents worrying about their kids safety at school because of Covid...

Right. Ridiculous hyperbole for teachers to be worried about dying from an infectious disease that has killed 110,000 Americans in the past three months but totally reasonable for people to be screaming about “life long trauma” and children being “beaten to death”. Give me a break. If you beat your child to death it is no one else’s fault. Now you’re likening school closure to murder. If you kill your children or allow yourself to become obese during quarantine those are personal failings. It isn’t the government, the school system, or anyone else’s fault. People need to learn some personal responsibility.

Obviously/hopefully PP is not beating his children. She is referring to public statistics.

Of course I'm not beating my children. I was referring to the reports of increased rates of severe child abuse going on right now--as evidenced by an increase in cases presenting to EDs--coupled with a decrease in reports to CPS, in all likelihood because there aren't eyes on these endangered kids right now. That's real. So is the disengagement of many kids, most of them already at risk due to poverty, from the educational system.

Not real: that all, or even most, teachers are at high risk of severe disease or death from COVID. Also not real: that childcare facilities are sites of significant disease outbreak. Teachers complain that older kids can't social distance; how do you think the toddlers in essential daycares do that? They don't. And yet, somehow, the overwhelming majority of those open have operated safely for several months now *without major outbreaks*.

Look, you can be scared all you want. But you can't claim "science" and "data" when you ignore the science and the data that don't support your position.

Exactly. I haven't seen anything about even one case of spikes in infections or even any infections from the local daycares that have been operating for essential workers this entire time. And yeah-if there is one group who is going to be the worst at social distancing it's the 0-5 bunch. And mind you these are children of essential workers-so they are getting exposed daily to their parents who are getting exposed to many others daily. And yet, nothing. Sure you can make the argument that there are less kids in a daycare classroom then in elementary schools but The amount of physical contact is way greater in a daycare setting. The kids are being picked up, diapers changed and they are constantly touching others. If we were going to see a drastic increase from educational settings we would have absolutely seen it there if it was going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

I don't know about the other PPs, but when it comes to child abuse, my goal is not: finding someone to blame. My goal is: preventing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

I don't know about the other PPs, but when it comes to child abuse, my goal is not: finding someone to blame. My goal is: preventing it.

I'm the one who brought it up and yeah, exactly. Other PP is being completely disingenuous about making the hurricane comparison, and s/he knows it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/04/30/child-abuse-reports-coronavirus/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/13/hospitals-seeing-more-severe-child-abuse-injuries-during-coronavirus/3116395001/

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/28/847251985/child-sexual-abuse-reports-are-on-the-rise-amid-lockdown-orders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

35,000+ people die every year in car crashes. If we close the roads and ban automobiles, that rate would plummet. Why do we allow people to drive cars?

Because life is a matter of trade-offs. Scientists talk about it from a scientific perspective (as they should) but don't consider the other implications.

I guarantee if kids go back to school, more people will get corona, and more people will die. The question is -- how bad will it be?

We allow cars on the road, despite more people dying by doing so. It's a trade off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

35,000+ people die every year in car crashes. If we close the roads and ban automobiles, that rate would plummet. Why do we allow people to drive cars?

Because life is a matter of trade-offs. Scientists talk about it from a scientific perspective (as they should) but don't consider the other implications.

I guarantee if kids go back to school, more people will get corona, and more people will die. The question is -- how bad will it be?

We allow cars on the road, despite more people dying by doing so. It's a trade off.

Actually, this is a horrible analogy. This number could be much smaller, if we were serious about making roads safer. But we're not. 35,000+ people die every year in car crashes because we don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Really? I have a graduate degree in Public Health, so I am used to thinking in terms of populations. Of course, it is bad to die or have long term health consequences from COVID. It is also bad if even more people die from or have long term consequences from heart disease because they gained weight. That's how it works.

Are you the "gained weight" PP? Can you please explain how this is relevant to school next fall?

Obviously, she is making the point that there are numerous negative public health consequences of lockdowns. It is relevant to keeping schools closed because that will force more people to remain at home to supervise their kids. If you used to ride your bike to work, for instance, you are not doing that anymore. If you are already stretched between facilitating DL and getting your work done, it may be hard to fit in workouts. Not to mention kids are missing out on sports.

DP, and I think the weight gain isn’t the best comparative outcome here. More: why is it preferable for children to be beaten to death by their parents, or to experience life-long consequences of trauma (and good luck fixing those), than it is for teachers to take a small risk of serious outcomes and even smaller risk of death from COVID-19? Those are more the outcomes we’re talking about. Yes, I picked the extreme examples, but claiming that we’re sentencing teachers to die by asking them to teach in-person this Fall is also extreme.

Yes, it is ridiculous hyperbole, and evidence of the mass hysteria we are facing when trying to have this discussion. Don't get me started on parents worrying about their kids safety at school because of Covid...

Right. Ridiculous hyperbole for teachers to be worried about dying from an infectious disease that has killed 110,000 Americans in the past three months but totally reasonable for people to be screaming about “life long trauma” and children being “beaten to death”. Give me a break. If you beat your child to death it is no one else’s fault. Now you’re likening school closure to murder. If you kill your children or allow yourself to become obese during quarantine those are personal failings. It isn’t the government, the school system, or anyone else’s fault. People need to learn some personal responsibility.

There is almost ZERO sense of personal responsibility left in this country. ZERO. Everything is someone else's fault, someone else's responsibility to do for you. If there were, within a generation we would have a completely different country. But we won't. That's too hard. It's easier to blame a system, a government, Donald Trump, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

35,000+ people die every year in car crashes. If we close the roads and ban automobiles, that rate would plummet. Why do we allow people to drive cars?

Because life is a matter of trade-offs. Scientists talk about it from a scientific perspective (as they should) but don't consider the other implications.

I guarantee if kids go back to school, more people will get corona, and more people will die. The question is -- how bad will it be?

We allow cars on the road, despite more people dying by doing so. It's a trade off.

Probably not very bad. Here is a report about a recent study published in Nature:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-08/lockdowns-may-have-helped-prevent-half-a-billion-covid-cases?sref=Of7mcH17

The study showed the benefits of lockdowns, and then says this about schools:

"There was no strong evidence that school closures had an effect in any country, and the team said that more research should be done to inform decisions on opening or closing schools."

Yes, they recommend more research. But so far, despite a world-wide experiment in lockdowns and school closures, we don't have any evidence to conclude that school closures have any benefits. Given their enormous harms on many levels, that should be enough to reopen schools until evidence suggests they need to be closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Really? I have a graduate degree in Public Health, so I am used to thinking in terms of populations. Of course, it is bad to die or have long term health consequences from COVID. It is also bad if even more people die from or have long term consequences from heart disease because they gained weight. That's how it works.

Are you the "gained weight" PP? Can you please explain how this is relevant to school next fall?

Obviously, she is making the point that there are numerous negative public health consequences of lockdowns. It is relevant to keeping schools closed because that will force more people to remain at home to supervise their kids. If you used to ride your bike to work, for instance, you are not doing that anymore. If you are already stretched between facilitating DL and getting your work done, it may be hard to fit in workouts. Not to mention kids are missing out on sports.

DP, and I think the weight gain isn’t the best comparative outcome here. More: why is it preferable for children to be beaten to death by their parents, or to experience life-long consequences of trauma (and good luck fixing those), than it is for teachers to take a small risk of serious outcomes and even smaller risk of death from COVID-19? Those are more the outcomes we’re talking about. Yes, I picked the extreme examples, but claiming that we’re sentencing teachers to die by asking them to teach in-person this Fall is also extreme.

Yes, it is ridiculous hyperbole, and evidence of the mass hysteria we are facing when trying to have this discussion. Don't get me started on parents worrying about their kids safety at school because of Covid...

Right. Ridiculous hyperbole for teachers to be worried about dying from an infectious disease that has killed 110,000 Americans in the past three months but totally reasonable for people to be screaming about “life long trauma” and children being “beaten to death”. Give me a break. If you beat your child to death it is no one else’s fault. Now you’re likening school closure to murder. If you kill your children or allow yourself to become obese during quarantine those are personal failings. It isn’t the government, the school system, or anyone else’s fault. People need to learn some personal responsibility.

How about some personal responsibility on your part if you are at serious risk from this virus? Protecting yourself and loved ones from infection is a lot easier to accomplish than mitigating the many harmful effects of school closures by those who feel them. Most of all by the kids who are the ones impacted most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There is almost ZERO sense of personal responsibility left in this country. ZERO. Everything is someone else's fault, someone else's responsibility to do for you. If there were, within a generation we would have a completely different country. But we won't. That's too hard. It's easier to blame a system, a government, Donald Trump, etc.

PP, feel free to take personal responsibility for your own health by staying inside away from everybody until you decide it's safe for you to come out. Meanwhile, the kids need to go back to school in the fall.

[Anonymous]

MCPS needs to have real instruction in the fall: either a meaningful distance learning curriculum that consists of actual instruction, just like the kids in private school are getting as well as many other public school systems (including NYC, which has an infinitely larger, more unequal, and more complicated set of dynamics to take into account.) Or they can get kids back in school FT w/masks and a swimming pool full of hand sanitizer.

I can live with either option, but continuing the charade of the past 3 months is not acceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should schools be open when there’s hurricanes so that people don’t beat their kids? What about blizzards? I recall MCPS closing for three weeks. Maybe schools should be open 24/7/365 so that people don’t beat their kids? Because clearly the onus is not on the people who beat their kids, but schools for being closed.

35,000+ people die every year in car crashes. If we close the roads and ban automobiles, that rate would plummet. Why do we allow people to drive cars?

Because life is a matter of trade-offs. Scientists talk about it from a scientific perspective (as they should) but don't consider the other implications.

I guarantee if kids go back to school, more people will get corona, and more people will die. The question is -- how bad will it be?

We allow cars on the road, despite more people dying by doing so. It's a trade off.

Actually, this is a horrible analogy. This number could be much smaller, if we were serious about making roads safer. But we're not. 35,000+ people die every year in car crashes because we don't care.

Making roads safer = still leting people drive, but make the roads safer. How about we do this with schools too? Let kids go to school, but have precautions in place. The current situation is akin to just closing roads and banning cars completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to have real instruction in the fall: either a meaningful distance learning curriculum that consists of actual instruction, just like the kids in private school are getting as well as many other public school systems (including NYC, which has an infinitely larger, more unequal, and more complicated set of dynamics to take into account.) Or they can get kids back in school FT w/masks and a swimming pool full of hand sanitizer.

I can live with either option, but continuing the charade of the past 3 months is not acceptable.

A "meaningful distance learning curriculum" doesn't solve the fundamental problem with distance learning, namely that it is distance learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS needs to have real instruction in the fall: either a meaningful distance learning curriculum that consists of actual instruction, just like the kids in private school are getting as well as many other public school systems (including NYC, which has an infinitely larger, more unequal, and more complicated set of dynamics to take into account.) Or they can get kids back in school FT w/masks and a swimming pool full of hand sanitizer.

I can live with either option, but continuing the charade of the past 3 months is not acceptable.

A "meaningful distance learning curriculum" doesn't solve the fundamental problem with distance learning, namely that it is distance learning.

Also known as “not free daycare” so not valuable to you.