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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so simple. “Ugh, why is this so hard!” “Duh, they just have to go back to school!”

I am a parent and a teacher and I am here to tell you that this is complicated. It’s not simple. Putting 500-3000 wiggly, non-rule following humans in a tight space every day in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge. Even if they tend to be asymptomatic. Even if you have to go to work. If we are going to have a real conversation about what needs to happen to open, people on both sides need to agree on the basics.

But we won't be "in the middle of a pandemic". The numbers are declining everywhere despite things opening up.

We just don't know this yet. Things have only been opening for a couple weeks. I am hesitantly optimistic since we are now 2 weeks out from Memorial Day and the numbers are still trending steadily down but the lag between actions and changes to the data in this disease seems to be closer to 1 month than to 2 weeks. We will not know until end of June/early July. If numbers are still going down then, that's a lot different than if they stagnate or go back up. We just don't know and that is frustrating and makes it very hard to plan for the fall. And I do expect a second wave with flu season. I don't see how it is at all avoidable. Also, even if we don't get COVID, if I have to keep my ES kid home every time she has a cough or runny nose, she's going to miss half the winter anyway.

One would hope that this could be avoided by readily available testing.

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

But that is still better than keeping the schools closed entirely. Maybe this happens to your kids twice (gets a cough and needs to be tested). Even if they miss 2 weeks of school it's still better than an entire quarter. And since they know how to use google classroom and mcps classroom now they can do the work for the days they personally miss anyway. Plus the rapid testing is getting much more readily available. (I just had one and my results came back in 3 hours). So likely the 3 days for the test result won't even be an issue months from now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so simple. “Ugh, why is this so hard!” “Duh, they just have to go back to school!”

I am a parent and a teacher and I am here to tell you that this is complicated. It’s not simple. Putting 500-3000 wiggly, non-rule following humans in a tight space every day in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge. Even if they tend to be asymptomatic. Even if you have to go to work. If we are going to have a real conversation about what needs to happen to open, people on both sides need to agree on the basics.

But we won't be "in the middle of a pandemic". The numbers are declining everywhere despite things opening up.

We just don't know this yet. Things have only been opening for a couple weeks. I am hesitantly optimistic since we are now 2 weeks out from Memorial Day and the numbers are still trending steadily down but the lag between actions and changes to the data in this disease seems to be closer to 1 month than to 2 weeks. We will not know until end of June/early July. If numbers are still going down then, that's a lot different than if they stagnate or go back up. We just don't know and that is frustrating and makes it very hard to plan for the fall. And I do expect a second wave with flu season. I don't see how it is at all avoidable. Also, even if we don't get COVID, if I have to keep my ES kid home every time she has a cough or runny nose, she's going to miss half the winter anyway.

One would hope that this could be avoided by readily available testing.

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

But that is still better than keeping the schools closed entirely. Maybe this happens to your kids twice (gets a cough and needs to be tested). Even if they miss 2 weeks of school it's still better than an entire quarter. And since they know how to use google classroom and mcps classroom now they can do the work for the days they personally miss anyway. Plus the rapid testing is getting much more readily available. (I just had one and my results came back in 3 hours). So likely the 3 days for the test result won't even be an issue months from now.

Just curious - how will kids excluded from school for sickness get caught up? Is everything done in person going to be available through google classroom?

Last year, my teenaged son probably would have misssed 1 -2 months of high school if he were excluded from school for runny noses and/or a cough. He had a cough for more than a month, and tested negative for the flu.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

Schools open, with kids missing school when they're sick, is way better than schools closed.

I agree with the PP: the default assumption should be that schools will open, and the burden should be on people to demonstrate why they should not be open. Keeping in mind that the benefits of open schools and costs of closed schools are both huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so simple. “Ugh, why is this so hard!” “Duh, they just have to go back to school!”

I am a parent and a teacher and I am here to tell you that this is complicated. It’s not simple. Putting 500-3000 wiggly, non-rule following humans in a tight space every day in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge. Even if they tend to be asymptomatic. Even if you have to go to work. If we are going to have a real conversation about what needs to happen to open, people on both sides need to agree on the basics.

But we won't be "in the middle of a pandemic". The numbers are declining everywhere despite things opening up.

We just don't know this yet. Things have only been opening for a couple weeks. I am hesitantly optimistic since we are now 2 weeks out from Memorial Day and the numbers are still trending steadily down but the lag between actions and changes to the data in this disease seems to be closer to 1 month than to 2 weeks. We will not know until end of June/early July. If numbers are still going down then, that's a lot different than if they stagnate or go back up. We just don't know and that is frustrating and makes it very hard to plan for the fall. And I do expect a second wave with flu season. I don't see how it is at all avoidable. Also, even if we don't get COVID, if I have to keep my ES kid home every time she has a cough or runny nose, she's going to miss half the winter anyway.

One would hope that this could be avoided by readily available testing.

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

But that is still better than keeping the schools closed entirely. Maybe this happens to your kids twice (gets a cough and needs to be tested). Even if they miss 2 weeks of school it's still better than an entire quarter. And since they know how to use google classroom and mcps classroom now they can do the work for the days they personally miss anyway. Plus the rapid testing is getting much more readily available. (I just had one and my results came back in 3 hours). So likely the 3 days for the test result won't even be an issue months from now.

Just curious - how will kids excluded from school for sickness get caught up? Is everything done in person going to be available through google classroom?

Last year, my teenaged son probably would have misssed 1 -2 months of high school if he were excluded from school for runny noses and/or a cough. He had a cough for more than a month, and tested negative for the flu.

I think if they are able to prove they had a negative test than they should be allowed back at school. It's normal to have coughs/colds at school. I think the only precaution should be flu/COVID and fever free to return.

And at this point if they are going to require to be tested for Covid and be out of school for it then yes, I think they will probably be better prepared to get the work online.

[Anonymous]

Most of the people with COVID who were sick enough to be hospitalized didn't even have a fever. Temp checks are security theatre, nothing more.

I can't imagine schools are going to be able to exclude for a runny nose and any sort of cough. It's just unworkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so simple. “Ugh, why is this so hard!” “Duh, they just have to go back to school!”

I am a parent and a teacher and I am here to tell you that this is complicated. It’s not simple. Putting 500-3000 wiggly, non-rule following humans in a tight space every day in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge. Even if they tend to be asymptomatic. Even if you have to go to work. If we are going to have a real conversation about what needs to happen to open, people on both sides need to agree on the basics.

But we won't be "in the middle of a pandemic". The numbers are declining everywhere despite things opening up.

We just don't know this yet. Things have only been opening for a couple weeks. I am hesitantly optimistic since we are now 2 weeks out from Memorial Day and the numbers are still trending steadily down but the lag between actions and changes to the data in this disease seems to be closer to 1 month than to 2 weeks. We will not know until end of June/early July. If numbers are still going down then, that's a lot different than if they stagnate or go back up. We just don't know and that is frustrating and makes it very hard to plan for the fall. And I do expect a second wave with flu season. I don't see how it is at all avoidable. Also, even if we don't get COVID, if I have to keep my ES kid home every time she has a cough or runny nose, she's going to miss half the winter anyway.

Some airports are now testing passengers with the rapid test, and you need the negative result to board the plane (I needed a longer layover to accommodate the delay). It is already happening so if we could get our act together, we could easily test people with a cough at school and have them cleared (or not) by the end of first period.

One would hope that this could be avoided by readily available testing.

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

But that is still better than keeping the schools closed entirely. Maybe this happens to your kids twice (gets a cough and needs to be tested). Even if they miss 2 weeks of school it's still better than an entire quarter. And since they know how to use google classroom and mcps classroom now they can do the work for the days they personally miss anyway. Plus the rapid testing is getting much more readily available. (I just had one and my results came back in 3 hours). So likely the 3 days for the test result won't even be an issue months from now.

Just curious - how will kids excluded from school for sickness get caught up? Is everything done in person going to be available through google classroom?

Last year, my teenaged son probably would have misssed 1 -2 months of high school if he were excluded from school for runny noses and/or a cough. He had a cough for more than a month, and tested negative for the flu.

I think if they are able to prove they had a negative test than they should be allowed back at school. It's normal to have coughs/colds at school. I think the only precaution should be flu/COVID and fever free to return.

And at this point if they are going to require to be tested for Covid and be out of school for it then yes, I think they will probably be better prepared to get the work online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people with COVID who were sick enough to be hospitalized didn't even have a fever. Temp checks are security theatre, nothing more.

I can't imagine schools are going to be able to exclude for a runny nose and any sort of cough. It's just unworkable.

...anymore.

I agree that temperature checks for adults are mostly health theater, but I don't think they're necessarily health theater for kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people with COVID who were sick enough to be hospitalized didn't even have a fever. Temp checks are security theatre, nothing more.

I can't imagine schools are going to be able to exclude for a runny nose and any sort of cough. It's just unworkable.

I don't disagree, but if you look at the reopening guidance, it always contemplates a negative test for those sick with COVID or a 14 day quarrantine for anyone exposed. Look at how complicated this is:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine-isolation.html

I want kids to return to school. I'm just not sure it is workable. And I'm not just talking about kids, but teachers and staff too. As an older, seasoned parent, I can attest that if an educational environment is not consistent, little learning takes place. If the environment is chaos, with kids being excluded from school for sickness and those attending dealing with a constant stream of substitutes due to sickness or isolation because of exposure, I wonder whether the risk is worth it. It isn't a choice between opening schools as usual or keeping them closed and doing distance learning. The choice is between opening in a safe manner, with contingencies built in for possible COVID related complications, and distance learning. If the former is going to be a messy inefficient waste of time that carries great risk, particularly to the adults, I'm against it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people with COVID who were sick enough to be hospitalized didn't even have a fever. Temp checks are security theatre, nothing more.

I can't imagine schools are going to be able to exclude for a runny nose and any sort of cough. It's just unworkable.

I don't disagree, but if you look at the reopening guidance, it always contemplates a negative test for those sick with COVID or a 14 day quarrantine for anyone exposed. Look at how complicated this is:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine-isolation.html

I want kids to return to school. I'm just not sure it is workable. And I'm not just talking about kids, but teachers and staff too. As an older, seasoned parent, I can attest that if an educational environment is not consistent, little learning takes place. If the environment is chaos, with kids being excluded from school for sickness and those attending dealing with a constant stream of substitutes due to sickness or isolation because of exposure, I wonder whether the risk is worth it. It isn't a choice between opening schools as usual or keeping them closed and doing distance learning. The choice is between opening in a safe manner, with contingencies built in for possible COVID related complications, and distance learning. If the former is going to be a messy inefficient waste of time that carries great risk, particularly to the adults, I'm against it.

I am sure that keeping schools closed is not workable.

I am sure that continued "distance learning" is not workable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the people with COVID who were sick enough to be hospitalized didn't even have a fever. Temp checks are security theatre, nothing more.

I can't imagine schools are going to be able to exclude for a runny nose and any sort of cough. It's just unworkable.

I don't disagree, but if you look at the reopening guidance, it always contemplates a negative test for those sick with COVID or a 14 day quarrantine for anyone exposed. Look at how complicated this is:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/quarantine-isolation.html

I want kids to return to school. I'm just not sure it is workable. And I'm not just talking about kids, but teachers and staff too. As an older, seasoned parent, I can attest that if an educational environment is not consistent, little learning takes place. If the environment is chaos, with kids being excluded from school for sickness and those attending dealing with a constant stream of substitutes due to sickness or isolation because of exposure, I wonder whether the risk is worth it. It isn't a choice between opening schools as usual or keeping them closed and doing distance learning. The choice is between opening in a safe manner, with contingencies built in for possible COVID related complications, and distance learning. If the former is going to be a messy inefficient waste of time that carries great risk, particularly to the adults, I'm against it.

I am sure that keeping schools closed is not workable.

I am sure that continued "distance learning" is not workable.

I don't disagree, but you should realize that you're going to wind up staying home a lot more than usual with your kid anyway. Potentially for weeks at a time. I don't really see how that's workable either. Unless we literally do nothing and just refuse to shut down again. There are plenty of states, like Arizona, headed in that direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am sure that keeping schools closed is not workable.

I am sure that continued "distance learning" is not workable.

I don't disagree, but you should realize that you're going to wind up staying home a lot more than usual with your kid anyway. Potentially for weeks at a time. I don't really see how that's workable either. Unless we literally do nothing and just refuse to shut down again. There are plenty of states, like Arizona, headed in that direction.

My kids will be in high school.

Also, some kids staying home a lot more than usual is better than all kids staying home.

[Anonymous]

Opening schools will provide the perfect vector to increase the spread of COVID-19, with students infecting each other and their teachers, and then bringing it home to their parents, like every other bug that circulates in the germ factory that is a public school building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why everyone thinks this is so simple. “Ugh, why is this so hard!” “Duh, they just have to go back to school!”

I am a parent and a teacher and I am here to tell you that this is complicated. It’s not simple. Putting 500-3000 wiggly, non-rule following humans in a tight space every day in the middle of a pandemic is a challenge. Even if they tend to be asymptomatic. Even if you have to go to work. If we are going to have a real conversation about what needs to happen to open, people on both sides need to agree on the basics.

But we won't be "in the middle of a pandemic". The numbers are declining everywhere despite things opening up.

We just don't know this yet. Things have only been opening for a couple weeks. I am hesitantly optimistic since we are now 2 weeks out from Memorial Day and the numbers are still trending steadily down but the lag between actions and changes to the data in this disease seems to be closer to 1 month than to 2 weeks. We will not know until end of June/early July. If numbers are still going down then, that's a lot different than if they stagnate or go back up. We just don't know and that is frustrating and makes it very hard to plan for the fall. And I do expect a second wave with flu season. I don't see how it is at all avoidable. Also, even if we don't get COVID, if I have to keep my ES kid home every time she has a cough or runny nose, she's going to miss half the winter anyway.

One would hope that this could be avoided by readily available testing.

Even at its best testing currently requires: an appointment with a health care provider/pediatrician to get swabbed (1 day out of school) and at least 3 days for them to send the test out to the lab, receive the result back, and contact you. That is 4 days out of school for 1 test, and then really, if you have continuing symptoms, how do you know when to get re-tested? If you have a cough that is NOT COVID, how do you know if you pick up a new cough that IS COVID? Especially if the symptoms in kids are very mild. And if you don't immediately quarantine at the slightest appearance of symptoms, how many people do the ones who have COVID infect before it gets "bad enough" to get tested? It's a mess, and that is why the schools decision is so difficult. Our elementary schools bring ~700 kids together every day. Our middle schools more like 1000-1200; high schools up to 3000. If there's any significant degree of COVID circulating when cold/flu season comes, there's going to be a LOT of missed school even if schools are open for "normal" in person instruction. Because you don't know for at least 3-4 days if that cough is COVID or not. And every time you develop a new/different symptom you should probably be re-testing and quarantined until you get the results. Little kids get sick a lot. They will miss a lot of school.

But that is still better than keeping the schools closed entirely. Maybe this happens to your kids twice (gets a cough and needs to be tested). Even if they miss 2 weeks of school it's still better than an entire quarter. And since they know how to use google classroom and mcps classroom now they can do the work for the days they personally miss anyway. Plus the rapid testing is getting much more readily available. (I just had one and my results came back in 3 hours). So likely the 3 days for the test result won't even be an issue months from now.

Just curious - how will kids excluded from school for sickness get caught up? Is everything done in person going to be available through google classroom?

Last year, my teenaged son probably would have misssed 1 -2 months of high school if he were excluded from school for runny noses and/or a cough. He had a cough for more than a month, and tested negative for the flu.

If everything is created to be easily made up through Google Classroom, why take the risk of F2F school at all, other than free childcare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the chances that we follow Northern Virginia's decision to open in the fall?

Low

Our stats are different. Both our COVID numbers and so many of our students attending schools far from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Smith just said "no decision has been made for the Fall". He also said "the rumors that the Fall will distance learning is 100% not true".

Was this at the Board of Ed meeting today? The news I read about it was all centered on whether MCPS should still have school resources officers (police) in schools or not. While that may be important, I think more important is if kids are going back to school.

That answer seems wishy-washy too.. so they haven't made a decision, but 100% distance learning is not correct? Does that mean they've indeed made a decision, at least that 100% distance learning won't happen?

We're 2.5 months out, and whatever they decide requires a huge amount of planning from many sides. They need to figure it out soon.