4.4 percent of MCPS staff report having COVID

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you cannot make your point in a couple sentences it’s not a point worth making because no one will read it.

That makes perfect sense in a forum where an OP will post something like, "My 6-year-old is bored on weekends-- what activities would you suggest for an only child?"

And more than one response will be like: "Why are you scheduling your teens' weekends for them? My kids just play video games with each other, it's fine."

Post length is not the primary factor when it comes to what people choose to ignore, and why.

Most of it is their own cognitive bias, which is why every. single. thread. in the MCPS forum devolves into the same bickering with the same overwarmed arguments. The post could be specifically about, I don't know, current staff positives, and 2 pages in, it's about basement-dwellers, "Monifa" and free babysitting.

But, hey, at least it's in nice, easy-to-read "couple-sentence" bites!

Long post writing person is defensive and likes projection!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My ES has three staff with Covid. That’s a normal illness rate for flu season - we often have had 2-3 staff out sick at the same time. We don’t need to close for staff shortages at this time.

Other schools might, but system wide closures make no sense.

Cool, is there also no flu this year? So just 2-3 total staff out, since COVID is the only illness that exists now?

I don’t know anyone sick with flu - do you? It’s possible, but doesn’t seem prevalent.

Well, yes, I do, and with a cold. But I also know a few people who are sick with cold/flu symptoms and just assuming it's COVID, without a test. They wouldn't be counted among COVID cases, but they are not going in to work. And then there are other reasons for absences.

It may be true that with omicron so rampant, it's partially replacing other absences, but I highly doubt it's doing so fully. That defies common sense.

E.g. there might normally be 5 staff out of 100 out for whatever reason during cold and flu season, but now there might be 5 out for COVID and still 3 more out for other reasons. And then with the replicability of COVID, by the end of the week that might be 8-10 out for COVID (even with some people coming back after quarantine) and 3 out for other reasons, then next week 12-20 out for COVID and 3 out for other reasons, and so on.

I just don't understand why people can look at COVID numbers, specifically, and decide that if they're "not that high" now, they won't ever be, or won't be soon. It reminds me of when people were like, "Yeah, but there's only 500 people dead" or "Yeah, but there's only like a 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1000 chance of getting COVID, so..." in ~March of 2020.

I mean, yeah, 5% of staff out in wintertime, if that's all of the staff that's out, and that's where it stops[i], sure, okay, we can deal with that.

But... why would we assume that? That's not a good assumption.

I wasn’t saying they won’t go higher. But because they might go higher in the future is a dumb reason to close now. Close when/if there is a problem, not in anticipation of one. Scientists say the peak should be over in two weeks, so some schools might well be able to make it two-three weeks on shoestring staffing and save a lot of disruption and problems for staff and kids alike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For everyone on this board who thinks COVID is NBD- 4.4 percent of teachers and staff have COVID. That’s a huge number and IMHO a reason to go virtual for a couple of weeks (971/22,000).

I’m super happy that my kid went back to school last fall, but I don’t hate teachers. I know that people think if MCPS goes virtual they won’t ever go back to in person. I think that’s unrealistic. 5 percent positivity rate is a stupidly high number.

That number is staff not teachers. Where do you get the 22,000 number from?

OMG! This person just keeps being wrong.

It’s just always so common for these people with a pretense of authority not actually knowing what they are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For everyone on this board who thinks COVID is NBD- 4.4 percent of teachers and staff have COVID. That’s a huge number and IMHO a reason to go virtual for a couple of weeks (971/22,000).

I’m super happy that my kid went back to school last fall, but I don’t hate teachers. I know that people think if MCPS goes virtual they won’t ever go back to in person. I think that’s unrealistic. 5 percent positivity rate is a stupidly high number.

That number is staff not teachers. Where do you get the 22,000 number from?

OMG! This person just keeps being wrong.

It’s just always so common for these people with a pretense of authority not actually knowing what they are talking about.

In the person you are replying to and that’s my first post, plus I’m asking a question so your response makes no sense. Where does this 22k number come from? I want to make sure it’s accurate before responding to the alleged percentage.

[Anonymous]

Two of my high schooler’s 7 teachers currently have Covid.

[Anonymous]

At my high school (~2500 kids), a normal rate of teacher absences is 10-15, with maybe 3-4 out sick that morning and no sub coverage. In normal times, the subs that do come in would be puzzle fit to cover the periods with no sub, and occasionally another teacher would be asked to do emergency sub coverage.

This year, I think the rate started off a little less, because teachers are not taking days for things they normally would (like dr. appts). Before Christmas things got up to 10-15, maybe 20 out, due to additional teacher/teacher family quarantines, but we had fewer subs picking up jobs -10-12 needed covering. With fewer subs to fill in gaps, more teachers were called for emergency coverage. We also had more teachers that needed to be on zoom available to quarantined students during a planning period, so they couldn't cover classes. A few classes ended up being combined in the auditorium for coverage.

15 teachers out, with maybe 5 substitutes, is manageable for a couple of days. 20 teachers out is a strain. 25+ is a problem.

[Anonymous]

Where does this 22k number come from? I want to make sure it’s accurate before responding to the alleged percentage.

From the About section on the MCPS website https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/ , which is a year out of date:

Total students: ~160,000
Total employees: ~24,000, of which 14,000 are professional (including teachers)

[Anonymous]

I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

Honey, these teachers have been on winter break. Same as families. Travel, socializing, restaurants. Majority of staff are vaccinated. We need to stop relying on vaccines to save us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

Honey, these teachers have been on winter break. Same as families. Travel, socializing, restaurants. Majority of staff are vaccinated. We need to stop relying on vaccines to save us.

Perhaps it’s time to also point out those who want schools to close because of exposure risk, but then go out to eat and watch a moving on a theater.

[Anonymous]

I feel bad for the ES that have 10+ staff members out. Depending on the jobs of those staff members, that can be really hard to cover. Even the MS that have 10-15 out, I can see that being a real problem. I forsee a lot of kids watching videos.
I think the numbers are also probably waaay under-reported for students. Just calling around today to see who wants to play in the snow, there are a lot of families down with COVID. All last year, I maybe knew one family that got it. Now I now several sick now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

Honey, these teachers have been on winter break. Same as families. Travel, socializing, restaurants. Majority of staff are vaccinated. We need to stop relying on vaccines to save us.

Perhaps it’s time to also point out those who want schools to close because of exposure risk, but then go out to eat and watch a moving on a theater.

Mandatory testing to get back into school would fix all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Where does this 22k number come from? I want to make sure it’s accurate before responding to the alleged percentage.

From the About section on the MCPS website https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/about/ , which is a year out of date:

Total students: ~160,000
Total employees: ~24,000, of which 14,000 are professional (including teachers)

Thanks, I just found it. Actually 24,589 staff which rounds up to 25k. So the correct percentage using the most up to date numbers available is 971/24589 which is 3.9 percent, not 4.4. Similarly, the rate among students is 1.7 percent. Why the huge discrepancy I wonder.

[Anonymous]

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/directory/faq.aspx

OP here- this was the link I used to come up with the 22k number. Sounds like it’s out of date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that some schools have many more cases of COVID among staff than others.
Are safety protocols such as masks being followed?
Are staff eating lunch or going out together for maskless social events after work?
How well are the ventilation measures in these schools?
Are vaccination rates low among students and staff?

The extremes of the spread in some schools but relatively low numbers of COVID in other schools seems odd unless there’s an underlying risk for higher rates of transmission in specific schools.

Honey, these teachers have been on winter break. Same as families. Travel, socializing, restaurants. Majority of staff are vaccinated. We need to stop relying on vaccines to save us.

Perhaps it’s time to also point out those who want schools to close because of exposure risk, but then go out to eat and watch a moving on a theater.

Mandatory testing to get back into school would fix all that.

And then a kid catches it 3 days later and comes to school. It doesnt fix anything