The prospect of kids not going back to school until 2021

[Anonymous]

In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Honest question. Do we have enough high quality masks for teachers to use if there is a full time return to school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Another honest question: who do you mean by "we as a society"? Because this is happening on the entire planet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Honest question. Do we have enough high quality masks for teachers to use if there is a full time return to school?

DP. Honestly? My mom is still making cloth masks for hospital workers, so no you will not have custom fit N95s. Wear cloth or surgical masks like everyone else.

Temperature checks every day before kids enter the school. No it’s not perfect but this is used all over and will catch some sick kids. Same with all staff. I’d like to think parents will be better about keeping kids home when sick right now. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Yes, lets not care about the people getting really sick and dying. Lets not care about the health care folks taking care of us getting sick and dying as their lives don't mean anything because you NEED to go on vacation, get free child care and go out to eat, shopping. Things like vaccines can wait. You can get mental health treatment online. Why would a provider want to risk their lives? Our teacher was so bad this year, online was far better and now we are paying for online summer school to make up for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Honest question. Do we have enough high quality masks for teachers to use if there is a full time return to school?

DP. Honestly? My mom is still making cloth masks for hospital workers, so no you will not have custom fit N95s. Wear cloth or surgical masks like everyone else.

Temperature checks every day before kids enter the school. No it’s not perfect but this is used all over and will catch some sick kids. Same with all staff. I’d like to think parents will be better about keeping kids home when sick right now. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

You can buy N95 and surgical masks online now in several places and prices are coming down. There is no excuse hospitals and schools don't have enough for their staff now. They are expecting donations vs. spending money and hospitals have the money for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Honest question. Do we have enough high quality masks for teachers to use if there is a full time return to school?

This poster will make enough for all the teachers and students in their school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Honest question. Do we have enough high quality masks for teachers to use if there is a full time return to school?

DP. Honestly? My mom is still making cloth masks for hospital workers, so no you will not have custom fit N95s. Wear cloth or surgical masks like everyone else.

Temperature checks every day before kids enter the school. No it’s not perfect but this is used all over and will catch some sick kids. Same with all staff. I’d like to think parents will be better about keeping kids home when sick right now. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

I asked the question and am not a teacher. But your snarky response proved my point, which is that high quality masks are still in short supply which is why we must proceed cautiously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, lets not care about the people getting really sick and dying. Lets not care about the health care folks taking care of us getting sick and dying as their lives don't mean anything because you NEED to go on vacation, get free child care and go out to eat, shopping. Things like vaccines can wait. You can get mental health treatment online. Why would a provider want to risk their lives? Our teacher was so bad this year, online was far better and now we are paying for online summer school to make up for it.

I'm not going on vacation. I don't need any child care. I'm not going out to eat. I am going shopping to the grocery store, for my family and for my parents.

None of that has anything to do with the fact that kids need school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Another honest question: who do you mean by "we as a society"? Because this is happening on the entire planet.

No, it's not. Some countries dealt with it competently. Unfortunately, our country did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP. At some point, collectively we will need to decide to accept a level of risk or not. I just kind of think it’s nuts that we are opening indoor gyms and indoor dining over schools. It’s shows you where our priorities lie. Functioning schools (and daycares) are critical to our society and we will be at a stalemate until that happens.

This board is relatively privileged relative to the DMV in general. There are a ton of kids for which for one reason or another, distance learning is not a viable option.

Distance learning has been unsuccessful for my privileged kids. 3 months this spring, I can understand. More next fall? No way.

In fairness, I would hope that if there is DL in the fall for older kids, it will be better.

My kids are in high school, and for the most part hated DL, but I think that if we can't open full-time, we should bring K-6 back with social distancing. That needs to be the priority. It has to happen.

For older kids, figure out a way to have better distance learning with some in person component, even if just a few days per week

Older kids need school too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This language about teachers wanting a "free pass" is really not fair if it's coming from people whose jobs entail working in private offices or cubicles with masks on. Teachers absolutely face higher risk than your average worker, and we need to acknowledge that if we are going to make this work.

Since you sound pretty co go cer about this, care to show me some studies? Because other research is showing that transmission is not as high among kids. Schools are open all over Europe, you should be able to find sone data to support your hypothesis.

They really aren't open all over Europe. Here's an article about a few places that tentatively reopened with many, many restrictions, with varying degrees of success: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherrim/2020/06/12/what-international-school-reopenings-say-about-nycs-tentative-plan-for-the-fall/#3138f00050b4

There is so much hostility toward teachers on here. So clearly people will not be listening to teachers. Maybe they will listen to public health authorities.

Berlin announced they will reopen schools without social distance requirements at the end of August. I expect the rest of Germany to follow suit.

We are not Berlin or Germany where more people may follow the rules. We are probably going to have a huge serge again as people refuse to social distance and stay home.

I don't know. From talking to my family with kids in Berlin, I didn't get the impression that people were taking this more seriously than they did here around DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

DP. At some point, collectively we will need to decide to accept a level of risk or not. I just kind of think it’s nuts that we are opening indoor gyms and indoor dining over schools. It’s shows you where our priorities lie. Functioning schools (and daycares) are critical to our society and we will be at a stalemate until that happens.

This board is relatively privileged relative to the DMV in general. There are a ton of kids for which for one reason or another, distance learning is not a viable option.

Distance learning has been unsuccessful for my privileged kids. 3 months this spring, I can understand. More next fall? No way.

In fairness, I would hope that if there is DL in the fall for older kids, it will be better.

My kids are in high school, and for the most part hated DL, but I think that if we can't open full-time, we should bring K-6 back with social distancing. That needs to be the priority. It has to happen.

For older kids, figure out a way to have better distance learning with some in person component, even if just a few days per week

Older kids need school too.

Of course they do. We all have needs that aren't being met. But they can do better using distance learning that younger kids. Social distancing is all but impossible in large crowded high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a matter of three months, we as a society have become totally myopic when it comes to COVID. COVID now trumps all other issues, including education (permanent learning losses, especially for disadvantaged kids), the economy (devastated small businesses, hotels, airlines, mass layoffs, etc.); mental health (suicide, addiction); health other than COVID (skipped vaccinations, tests, well visits, operations), and happiness. This shift in mindset happened extremely quickly, and all of those who dared question it--stating the perhaps tradeoffs between health and these other issues might at least be considered--were shamed. Now, thousands of parents are realizing that their children are being permanently damaged by a lockdown of increasingly dubious value, and thankfully these parents are starting to slowly whisper "no, not this Fall." And you would think that these parents are monsters by the reactions of some of the truly virtuous woke posters on this board. I truly hope for the future of our society that we as parents start to find our voice and demand that our children receive a quality, in-person education this fall. And for the teacher's unions, County officials, Principals, and various others who will aggressively push back by citing the risks, let us remind them that, yes, in fact, they work for us, the taxpayers, and we demand that they do their jobs and figure it out. Of course there are risks. There are *always* risks. What we do know is that we now have a functioning contact tracing infrastructure, plenty of tests, plenty of PPE, and *six months* of time from March to September to figure this out. MoCo simply must figure out an in-person schooling approach; if they punt and go to another semester of Zoom wasted time, I can think of another organization that should be defunded.

Yes, lets not care about the people getting really sick and dying. Lets not care about the health care folks taking care of us getting sick and dying as their lives don't mean anything because you NEED to go on vacation, get free child care and go out to eat, shopping. Things like vaccines can wait. You can get mental health treatment online. Why would a provider want to risk their lives? Our teacher was so bad this year, online was far better and now we are paying for online summer school to make up for it.

Have you not heard about the resurgence in other preventable illnesses around the world due to vaccination campaigns being suspended? If you had, maybe you wouldn't make such an ignorant statement. It's a real problem. You clearly completely missed the PP's point, which was that there are serious consequences to our singular fixation on the Covid problem. Pointing that out has nothing to do with wanting to "go on vacation". God, I'm so sick of the tunnel vision Covid virtue signaling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Of course they do. We all have needs that aren't being met. But they can do better using distance learning that younger kids. Social distancing is all but impossible in large crowded high schools.

OK. So, distance learning is basically impossible for the younger kids, vs. merely really bad for the older kids. Neither is acceptable.