NYT and school closures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

If you are ok with destroying children for political reasons, I consider you absolute scum.

The schools were trying to protect lives, not play politics. Sit TF down.

You actually believe that? You'll fall for anything apparently.

What “politics” do you think school systems were playing?

My kids were for sure pawns in the Trump battle. A broken clock is right two times a day and it was right to have the kids in school starting in fall 2020.

This. A lot of people decided the way to suck it to Trump and the Magas was to simply take the opposite position from what Trump or Magas said. So if Trump said schools should reopen, or red states reopened schools, a lot of mindless liberals were like "we will keep our children home forever! only when it's safe!" Which is actually much more extreme position than the reopenings you saw in red states. Some of which were poorly handled and not done in keeping with public health guidelines -- I didn't want that either.

But there was a group of people who were like "hey what if we prioritize kids and education, but do so in the safest possible way with masking and measures used in other countries, like schedules with more built in outdoor time throughout the day (studies show that chances of spreading Covid go way down if you don't sit in the same place to long), hybrid or abbreviated schedules (perhaps two days in the classroom a week, or morning class only, to reduce exposure), mandatory testing. Many of these are things that were ultimately adopted by schools when they finally reopened.

But there was this vocal group who decided that the response to Trump and Magas had to be the opposite, even if it made no sense. Even if it was worse than some kind of compromise choice that might actually have acknowledged that hey, kids should probably be in school,, or hey, a lot of middle and working class families don't have the resources to just educate their kids at home for a year and a half. If you said these things, you were a Maga, probably also racist. It was a crazy time.

Yes, kids were pawns in a political game. No question about it.

I didn’t see any of that AT ALL. There were people working to make a safe environment and then there were people who said F it.

Trump made it political at the national level, but schools weren’t virtual out of spite. So ridiculous.

DP. Where do you live? I'm not saying that schools were virtual out of spite, but keeping kids out of schools became the "virtuous" position for the left. Virtue was keeping schools closed to minimize the spread of COVID AND refusing to consider and plan for the consequences of that strategy for far too long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop being hypocrites. None of you give two shits about the impact that school closures had on society or education in general. All you care about is how much it inconvenienced you.

I care about how it "inconvenienced" me but I also care about the many kids in DC who literally cannot read as a result of school closures. I also care about the link between school closures and an uptick in juvenile crime, a huge problem we all just pretend is unexplainable. Hmm, why are so many teens in DC committing crimes now? Could it be that they were essentially abandoned by the public school system for 16 months and many of them never came back or came back with massive truancy and behavioral problems that it's now harder to address because there is ZERO trust between schools and kids at this point?

No it can't be that. What could it be??

They can't read because their parents didn't play a big enough role in their education. I agree that schools should not have been closed for as long as they were, but the massive deficits and subsequent issues with crime and misconduct give credibility to something teachers have been saying for years - a lot of people rely on the school system to raise their children. Schools are not designed to bear the brunt of society's failings, yet that's exactly what we expect them to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

If you are ok with destroying children for political reasons, I consider you absolute scum.

The schools were trying to protect lives, not play politics. Sit TF down.

You actually believe that? You'll fall for anything apparently.

What “politics” do you think school systems were playing?

My kids were for sure pawns in the Trump battle. A broken clock is right two times a day and it was right to have the kids in school starting in fall 2020.

This. A lot of people decided the way to suck it to Trump and the Magas was to simply take the opposite position from what Trump or Magas said. So if Trump said schools should reopen, or red states reopened schools, a lot of mindless liberals were like "we will keep our children home forever! only when it's safe!" Which is actually much more extreme position than the reopenings you saw in red states. Some of which were poorly handled and not done in keeping with public health guidelines -- I didn't want that either.

But there was a group of people who were like "hey what if we prioritize kids and education, but do so in the safest possible way with masking and measures used in other countries, like schedules with more built in outdoor time throughout the day (studies show that chances of spreading Covid go way down if you don't sit in the same place to long), hybrid or abbreviated schedules (perhaps two days in the classroom a week, or morning class only, to reduce exposure), mandatory testing. Many of these are things that were ultimately adopted by schools when they finally reopened.

But there was this vocal group who decided that the response to Trump and Magas had to be the opposite, even if it made no sense. Even if it was worse than some kind of compromise choice that might actually have acknowledged that hey, kids should probably be in school,, or hey, a lot of middle and working class families don't have the resources to just educate their kids at home for a year and a half. If you said these things, you were a Maga, probably also racist. It was a crazy time.

Yes, kids were pawns in a political game. No question about it.

I didn’t see any of that AT ALL. There were people working to make a safe environment and then there were people who said F it.

Trump made it political at the national level, but schools weren’t virtual out of spite. So ridiculous.

DP. Where do you live? I'm not saying that schools were virtual out of spite, but keeping kids out of schools became the "virtuous" position for the left. Virtue was keeping schools closed to minimize the spread of COVID AND refusing to consider and plan for the consequences of that strategy for far too long.

Northern VA. With friends up and down the east coast and many on the west coast. Maybe the spiteful schools were on the Midwest?

Here, we had people who wanted kids to SAFELY go back in the buildings asap vs people who didn’t GAF and the vast majority of those people were totally clueless about the schools/education and irrational about the whole situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

Lol - are you one of the people who insisted that anyone raising concerns about kids' mental health "never cared" about it pre-pandemic? Because that was news to those of us actual mental health professionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Howard County also only offered two days in the building through the end of the 2021 school year, although some students with IEPs and others in need of additional supports were able to attend more frequently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Kids were back in classrooms at almost all schools by March 2021.

[Anonymous]

In DCPS, neither Deal middle school nor Jackson-Reed high school had meaningful in-person instruction until Fall 2021. [Seriously, students were allowed in the building for one half day week for virtual instruction. It was nothing more than a change of scenery.] Students lost 1.25 years of in-person instruction and have been trying to make up for it ever since.

We have family in a very democratic area of upstate NY and they spent most of that year in hybrid instruction - in school 2 full days a week - until they moved back to full time instruction. They had significantly less learning loss. That was what DCPS initially proposed and it seemed at the time like a decent risk-based approached. Unfortunately the DC teachers union tanked it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Kids were back in classrooms at almost all schools by March 2021.

Not full-time, and not all kids. Do people not know this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Kids were back in classrooms at almost all schools by March 2021.

Not full-time, and not all kids. Do people not know this?

OK. Like I said, at almost all schools most kids who wanted to be back in the classroom were back in classroom by March 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Kids were back in classrooms at almost all schools by March 2021.

Not full-time, and not all kids. Do people not know this?

OK. Like I said, at almost all schools most kids who wanted to be back in the classroom were back in classroom by March 2021.

Not around here and it was wildly inconsistent. In FCPS, some schools allowed 4 days a week in person for anyone who wanted it, some allowed 4 days for K and/or kids with IEP’s or who were really behind and everyone else got 2, and some only allowed 2 days in person period.

Even then: 1) 4 days in person is not 5 days especially when the 5th day is “asynchronous” aka do what you want, 2) that’s a full year of very disrupted school, 3) it created an attitude shift in the parents that “school doesn’t matter that much” and now you’re seeing a lot more absenteeism in kids. And that puts kids at risk of being perpetually behind and even not graduating.

I think people were really in denial about the serious and long lasting negative effects of the closures. I think a lot of people are still in denial actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazing took NYT until 2023 to recognize what anyone with a couple of brain cells knew in 2021.

Never should have shut down the schools. No need. Fauci and Weingarten did so much harm, but are revered by many.

How long did they advocate for them to be closed?

I disagree with 'never'. It was a novel virus and it made sense in the Spring of 2020. There were many unknowns and weren't there initial closures in all 50 states?

No schools should have been closed in 2021.

As the vaccine became available, kids went back to the classroom.

Not true. Vaccines were available starting end of December 2020. My kids weren’t back in school “normally” until fall 2021.

My kids went to school part time from Jan to June 2021. My 5th grader had 2 hours a day, 2 days a week. Who thought this was okay??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

Then consider me scum. Police and fire stayed on the job. So did grocery store staff and delivery drivers.

Did teachers lock themselves in their homes for the duration or did they go out to shop and do other activities.

Wife teaches at a private school and was back in person in Fall of 2020 in NOVA. Public schools should have been open then as well.

Yeah what was annoying is when my kid’s teacher told her class she was going on vacation (involving plane flights etc) in December 2020 when supposedly we were unable to return to school for safety reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Janney ES did not have kids back in the building full time for all kids until fall 2021.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes, another “I was ok with experimenting on teachers” thread. Yes, the closures affected learning. That’s because we had a pandemic that killed millions of people. If you were advocating putting teachers back into the classroom prior to widespread vaccine availability and peak deaths (Jan 2021 in Virginia), I consider you absolute scum.

My school district (DCPS) did not full reopen until August 2021, a full 8 months after teachers receive priority access to vaccines. Yes, some schools opened for some kids (not mine, to be clear) where teachers essentially volunteered to come back. But many schools, including ours, were closed from March 2020 until August 2021.

And don't forget all the school personnel who refused to get vaccinated even when vaccines were widely available, but also refused to return to work.

Which school didn’t have kids in the buildings by March 2021?

Full time? Prince William county schools. In March 2021 high school students were allowed to come in 2 days a week. Most didn't bother. My kids were typically the only ones in their classroom besides the teacher. They were literally the only ones on their bus.

Kids were back in classrooms at almost all schools by March 2021.

Not full-time, and not all kids. Do people not know this?

OK. Like I said, at almost all schools most kids who wanted to be back in the classroom were back in classroom by March 2021.

This is patently false.