Be careful: The same people who are weaponizing school opening are also blocking safe opening

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key is avoiding politicization.

What drives me a little crazy is that when I talk to parents in DCPS, they mostly want similar things. They're mostly reasonable. Most parents are keeping their kids home, and those who are sending them into school have a higher risk tolerance and support older or at-risk teachers staying home.

And both groups are very very happy teachers are being vaccinated. The people who are most pushing back against the WTU are, in my world, the media and in-person, hardcore political partisans.

We don't want that! We want this de-politicized. But if you want to depoliticize it, we have to understand first who is politicizing it, and why. Once I read these articles a lot more about school reopenings became clear to me.

it is politicized because of the blue states and their absolute disregard for children.



there is absolutely no reason schools should still be closed in blue states when its going fine in red ones. its insanity.

What is the source for this data?

Is this the % of total number of K-12 students by state that have zero days in the classroom?

Or is this % of school districts that only offer a virtual option?


The #s seem off....

Sorry if confusing, this is percent breakdown by state for all students nationwide that have zero classroom days.
Source is Burbio: https://about.burbio.com/methodology/

Here's a maybe better or more useful visualization within each state itself. Fulltime in person means 5 day a week.

Damn. That is really stark. It will be interesting to see comparisons of the results of large-scale assessments this year. Sadly, I don't anticipate we will measure up, but the data will probably lead to a good dissertation on a quasi-experimental intervention study on the connection between in-person hours and test scores.

NP and data scientist. I’ve been following this for months here and in the other countries I work with. There are a lot of similar data analysis and done with deeper data with more cuts on degree of hybrid etc. It’s maddening that it’s not reported more widely on how many schools have been open for months and the degree to which they have been opened.

I don’t want this political but transparency on facts widely And fully reported. Also schools have been opened in many countries with lesser guidelines than the US. That should be reported objectively And full data transparency not anecdotal stories or a point in time . Yes some schools in other countries close during extreme Community spread for a few weeks but they reopen and have been over for many more cumulative months . The damage done to a generation of kids - particularly the most vulnerable - is devastating.

[Anonymous]

There has been no transparency by the media - because schools opening is not what they are advocating.

Somewhere along the long schools being open has been construed as "racist" - especially in the DMV - as seen by the stats.

And - the tone of DCUM is that opening schools is for rich horrible white people only!! So - the media, which is intent on making literally everything about race - does not provide the facts - which is Covid is not a problem for schools.

It is insane. Punishing kids - by refusing to open up schools - so as to please a minority of people - is just unethical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone wants schools back in session. Safely. If you can’t do it safely - either due to lack of funds or lack of willpower - the teachers will not come back.

Here’s what you need:
1. 100% masking
2. Social distancing - 6 feet radius. This means you to reduce class sizes and setup new physical spaces.
3. Ventilation - fresh air in every room, plus enhanced circulation
4. Hand washing & disinfecting
5. Vaccines for teachers

Do this and you can open schools. Cant do this? You’ll be in distance learning until your kids are vaccinated.

If you’re pushing against these safety measure or won’t fund them, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

It’s really that simple.

Actually it’s not. States that have full time regular old school are doing just as well as hysterical jurisdictions covid-wise. See FL vs CA. NPR did a whole story about it.

Can confirm. My elementary schooler has been back full time since Oct (public school). It is mostly normal school with masks. Some additional distancing measures (particularly at pickup, drop off, hall management etc- main objective is to avoid mixing of classroom cohorts). No 6ft radius in the classroom. Increased use of sanitizer and hand washing yes. No special ventilation. All teachers who want vax have now received first dose but obviously that is recent.

400 kids back in person since October, 4 cases total (all unrelated- not even in same class) and we are in an area of high community spread.

And yet teachers & some parents are acting like they are marching into a death sentence.

Right. The thing is: is there a 100% guarantee your kid won’t catch covid? No. Is it possible that it had been pure luck that things have gone well? I guess so. But: if there was a class of elementary schoolers somewhere that turned into a terrible superspreading event...don’t you think the media would have absolutely jumped to report this?? I have seen no such stories. It seems very likely, that at least at the elementary level (1) mitigations work and (2) little kids don’t spread the virus very effectively. Probably both. People can cite all of the conflicting studies etc that they want- no doubt there are studies to confirm pretty much ANYthing- but the fact is, my kid has been full time in public elementary school since October and everything has been fine. Countless other elementary schools across the country have also run smoothly, kids and teachers are fine. The sky has not fallen.

I’m also not saying this would apply to high schools or even middle schools, as there are other challenges to be considered. But elementary schools certainly seem to be running smoothly, by and large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key is avoiding politicization.

What drives me a little crazy is that when I talk to parents in DCPS, they mostly want similar things. They're mostly reasonable. Most parents are keeping their kids home, and those who are sending them into school have a higher risk tolerance and support older or at-risk teachers staying home.

And both groups are very very happy teachers are being vaccinated. The people who are most pushing back against the WTU are, in my world, the media and in-person, hardcore political partisans.

We don't want that! We want this de-politicized. But if you want to depoliticize it, we have to understand first who is politicizing it, and why. Once I read these articles a lot more about school reopenings became clear to me.

it is politicized because of the blue states and their absolute disregard for children.



there is absolutely no reason schools should still be closed in blue states when its going fine in red ones. its insanity.

What is the source for this data?

Is this the % of total number of K-12 students by state that have zero days in the classroom?

Or is this % of school districts that only offer a virtual option?


The #s seem off....

Sorry if confusing, this is percent breakdown by state for all students nationwide that have zero classroom days.
Source is Burbio: https://about.burbio.com/methodology/

Here's a maybe better or more useful visualization within each state itself. Fulltime in person means 5 day a week.

This is not straight up % of all kids k-12. It’s by school district with wonky weighting systems for school size and grade levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there aren’t a meaningful number of Rs here.

There are many conservatives who post here.

+1

Easily 80% of the people I know in my local community/school district who are pushing for "open schools now!" are Republicans. A handful are full-fledge, flag-flying MAGAs.

They push for opening and push back against ANY and ALL safety measures.

Eat outside? No.
Put in air filters? Nope.
Maintain 6'? No way.
etc.

Every single safety measure is the enemy.

I’m a Democrat and most of my fellow democratic friends want schools to resume. It is most definitely NOT just Republicans who want kids to return. Everyone, regardless of political orientation, wants their kids back.

Of course. I want my kids back too. We all do. Some just want to have ventilation & masks & stuff. Others DGAF.

I GAF but I have a different risk / benefit analysis than you, and I think there are real risks to all virtual learning too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone wants schools back in session. Safely. If you can’t do it safely - either due to lack of funds or lack of willpower - the teachers will not come back.

Here’s what you need:
1. 100% masking
2. Social distancing - 6 feet radius. This means you to reduce class sizes and setup new physical spaces.
3. Ventilation - fresh air in every room, plus enhanced circulation
4. Hand washing & disinfecting
5. Vaccines for teachers

Do this and you can open schools. Cant do this? You’ll be in distance learning until your kids are vaccinated.

If you’re pushing against these safety measure or won’t fund them, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

It’s really that simple.

Actually it’s not. States that have full time regular old school are doing just as well as hysterical jurisdictions covid-wise. See FL vs CA. NPR did a whole story about it.

Can confirm. My elementary schooler has been back full time since Oct (public school). It is mostly normal school with masks. Some additional distancing measures (particularly at pickup, drop off, hall management etc- main objective is to avoid mixing of classroom cohorts). No 6ft radius in the classroom. Increased use of sanitizer and hand washing yes. No special ventilation. All teachers who want vax have now received first dose but obviously that is recent.

400 kids back in person since October, 4 cases total (all unrelated- not even in same class) and we are in an area of high community spread.

And yet teachers & some parents are acting like they are marching into a death sentence.

Right. The thing is: is there a 100% guarantee your kid won’t catch covid? No. Is it possible that it had been pure luck that things have gone well? I guess so. But: if there was a class of elementary schoolers somewhere that turned into a terrible superspreading event...don’t you think the media would have absolutely jumped to report this?? I have seen no such stories. It seems very likely, that at least at the elementary level (1) mitigations work and (2) little kids don’t spread the virus very effectively. Probably both. People can cite all of the conflicting studies etc that they want- no doubt there are studies to confirm pretty much ANYthing- but the fact is, my kid has been full time in public elementary school since October and everything has been fine. Countless other elementary schools across the country have also run smoothly, kids and teachers are fine. The sky has not fallen.

I’m also not saying this would apply to high schools or even middle schools, as there are other challenges to be considered. But elementary schools certainly seem to be running smoothly, by and large.

I do think that many schools have handled everything well and have done a great job with reopening. However, I did want to point out that I personally know of a mass outbreak at a daycare-- multiple kids in different classrooms (as many as 4 kids in one class with it), teachers and parents infected, and in some cases, entire families. In some areas there are no requirements to report any of this. All this to say, outbreaks do happen-- I think in this case with younger kids, it's impossible for them to keep masks on and social distance 100% of the time and that may lead to transmission. I'm not saying close the schools, but I do think it's fair for people to want to keep their kids home, for not really fear of death necessarily, but more about long haul covid and all the unknown implications around the potential damage that covid seems to wreak havoc on long term with many organs and systems in the body. Unfortunately I have known quite a few young people that have complications from covid that have not abated, as well as several in their 30's and 40's who have died, sadly leaving behind young children.

[Anonymous]

Enough. Some of us actually are concerned about our children, want them to be prioritized, and are knowledgeable enough about the relevant data to know it can be done with minimal risk. We’re not claiming it’s zero risk, but we are asking the adults in the community to slightly increase their own COVID risk to reduce the harms of indefinite remote instruction to our children.

People who keep opposing in-person learning at this point need to ask themselves what scientific organizations support their position. If they can’t identify any, they need to ask why that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enough. Some of us actually are concerned about our children, want them to be prioritized, and are knowledgeable enough about the relevant data to know it can be done with minimal risk. We’re not claiming it’s zero risk, but we are asking the adults in the community to slightly increase their own COVID risk to reduce the harms of indefinite remote instruction to our children.

People who keep opposing in-person learning at this point need to ask themselves what scientific organizations support their position. If they can’t identify any, they need to ask why that is.

COVID cases are falling and teachers are getting vaccinated.
Those are the two key reasons to keep schools closed.
We will see schools reopening next few months.

Those two factors were NOT TRUE a few months ago.

We had community spread in the US FOR MONTHS similar to what caused other countries to close schools.

For 6 months we did a horrible job of managing the pandemic because the Republicans in charge didn’t care and screwed it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enough. Some of us actually are concerned about our children, want them to be prioritized, and are knowledgeable enough about the relevant data to know it can be done with minimal risk. We’re not claiming it’s zero risk, but we are asking the adults in the community to slightly increase their own COVID risk to reduce the harms of indefinite remote instruction to our children.

People who keep opposing in-person learning at this point need to ask themselves what scientific organizations support their position. If they can’t identify any, they need to ask why that is.

COVID cases are falling and teachers are getting vaccinated.
Those are the two key reasons to keep schools closed.
We will see schools reopening next few months.

Those two factors were NOT TRUE a few months ago.

We had community spread in the US FOR MONTHS similar to what caused other countries to close schools.

For 6 months we did a horrible job of managing the pandemic because the Republicans in charge didn’t care and screwed it up.

I think you forgot that the Governor threatened to sue the teachers unions. There had been zero movement out of the churn of will they/won’t they until that happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The key is avoiding politicization.

What drives me a little crazy is that when I talk to parents in DCPS, they mostly want similar things. They're mostly reasonable. Most parents are keeping their kids home, and those who are sending them into school have a higher risk tolerance and support older or at-risk teachers staying home.

And both groups are very very happy teachers are being vaccinated. The people who are most pushing back against the WTU are, in my world, the media and in-person, hardcore political partisans.

We don't want that! We want this de-politicized. But if you want to depoliticize it, we have to understand first who is politicizing it, and why. Once I read these articles a lot more about school reopenings became clear to me.

it is politicized because of the blue states and their absolute disregard for children.



there is absolutely no reason schools should still be closed in blue states when its going fine in red ones. its insanity.

What is the source for this data?

Is this the % of total number of K-12 students by state that have zero days in the classroom?

Or is this % of school districts that only offer a virtual option?


The #s seem off....

Sorry if confusing, this is percent breakdown by state for all students nationwide that have zero classroom days.
Source is Burbio: https://about.burbio.com/methodology/

Here's a maybe better or more useful visualization within each state itself. Fulltime in person means 5 day a week.

This is not straight up % of all kids k-12. It’s by school district with wonky weighting systems for school size and grade levels.

Additionally....

The issue with using the (weighted) # of school districts and using %s for all states is that it doesn’t show the true scale of the number of kids DL/hybrid/full in person. This is visually misleading.

Has anyone seen the data for the # of kids by state by DL/hybrid/IP?

[Anonymous]

For example, looks like Iowa is rocking in-person, but in reality they may have fewer in-person than NY state.

Might be more helpful to see the breakdown (with actual # of kids, not the weighted number of school districts) by suburban/urban/rural. Or by district size or school size.

Or kid/sq ft of school.

[Anonymous]

Run the numbers however you want to. The DMV will be behind most no matter how you look at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Run the numbers however you want to. The DMV will be behind most no matter how you look at it.

But relative to what? Without realistic numbers it’s misleading to discuss scale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone wants schools back in session. Safely. If you can’t do it safely - either due to lack of funds or lack of willpower - the teachers will not come back.

Here’s what you need:
1. 100% masking
2. Social distancing - 6 feet radius. This means you to reduce class sizes and setup new physical spaces.
3. Ventilation - fresh air in every room, plus enhanced circulation
4. Hand washing & disinfecting
5. Vaccines for teachers

Do this and you can open schools. Cant do this? You’ll be in distance learning until your kids are vaccinated.

If you’re pushing against these safety measure or won’t fund them, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

It’s really that simple.

Actually it’s not. States that have full time regular old school are doing just as well as hysterical jurisdictions covid-wise. See FL vs CA. NPR did a whole story about it.

Can confirm. My elementary schooler has been back full time since Oct (public school). It is mostly normal school with masks. Some additional distancing measures (particularly at pickup, drop off, hall management etc- main objective is to avoid mixing of classroom cohorts). No 6ft radius in the classroom. Increased use of sanitizer and hand washing yes. No special ventilation. All teachers who want vax have now received first dose but obviously that is recent.

400 kids back in person since October, 4 cases total (all unrelated- not even in same class) and we are in an area of high community spread.

And yet teachers & some parents are acting like they are marching into a death sentence.

Because this person's supposed personal experience is not universal. My siblings' kids are in full-time F2F (not in the DMV) with masks and distancing "required" (but no discipline offered if not followed) and the high schools and middle schools on their district COVID dashboard routinely have 20-30+ cases at a time, and a significant percentage of those are teachers (yes, I know you people want to pretend that teachers are out clubbing and not getting at at school, but don't bother). There have been outbreaks on both the basketball and football teams of my nephew's school.

"Doesn't spread in school" is a convenient lie supported by editorials to support an agenda. It's nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Both UVA and UMD are having Covid resurgences, and it sounds like it's because students aren't taking precautions.
https://wtop.com/maryland/2021/02/u-md-cancels-in-person-instruction-for-at-least-1-week-orders-on-campus-students-to-sequester-in-place/

Covid will also spread in schools unless EVERYONE cooperates. They don't go on vacations, they don't go out to eat, they don't go clubbing, and they don't hand out inside each other's houses.

What are your bets that most of the people screaming for schools to reopen in person can do any of these things?