MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

If you want kids at school, you need to curb your behavior at home to help stop the spread. 6th graders are generally not vaccinated and its very easy to spread it. But, keep denying covid and have a huge school outbreak that impacts others schools, families and our community. Great plans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the dumbest policy in a long line of many. Allergies, asthma, chronic headaches, cold season coming up. It's utter nonsense. Seriously, how stupid can people be and feel like they need to one up the CDC and state officials?

+1 I feel for you ES parents.

my kids are in MS/HS, but DC gets migraines, have had them since 6 yrs old, DC also has asthma. Other DC has terrible allergies, including in the fall.

I have stated before.. MoCo leadership, including the BOE are waaaay too conservative and are driven by fear rather than science.

My kid has chronic migraines. No medical professional on the face of the earth says to go get a COVID test, let alone quarantine a class and take away their ability for in person education and socialization, if he gets a headache. I feel awful for his class if they do that when he gets one in school. He knows when it is a migraine as opposed to sick. They need to clarify. Limiting it to "severe" doesn't help because it is severe. Actually, it's more severe than when he is sick. And it got worse with all the screen time and virtual. So MCPS made worse the problem that is now a quarantine symptom. Self fulfilling prophecy.

The symptom is “new onset severe headache” (same for loss is smell) so I am sure they’ve thought about excluding chronic conditions.

I hope this does deter people from sending in sick kids, although aholes will be aholes no matter what you do.

There is no deterrent as there is no consequences.

IF your child has chronic migraines then your child's neurologist can provide documentation as well as you'd have the medications they are one. This is a silly excuse.

[Anonymous]

If they were this fearful of spread in the schools, they shouldn't have reopened. Otherwise, they need to come to grips with that risk mitigation is not risk elimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure I will be attacked. I’m glad MCPS is taking it seriously though they definitely need more specific criteria so they aren’t going overboard. My child’s principal certainly isn’t doing this. The criteria shared has basically nobody quarantining and allows for uncontrolled spread. Frankly it’s unacceptable to me.

What I’d like to see is mandatory weekly testing. And to clarify, I want schools open 5 days a week in person with minimal disruption. My kids want to be in school. They need to be in school. Sick kids going to school is the reason my kids probably will have multiple disruptions this year.

My only experience is with ES, but I hope many families opt into the pool testing. In the spring at my kid's ES, they had to send multiple messages out to get enough families to consent (of course, there were far fewer kids in the room).

if you want your kids in school you should not opt in for testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

This. NONE of the BOE board members are remotely qualified to be making these decisions. Just follow the CDC. Is this a departing gift from Gayles? Or has someone else taken up his mantle? The county health department has been so anti-kid this entire time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Again - if they do a covid test and test negative - no quarantine, right? So the kid goes home, takes a test, tests negative - everyone back at school within 24 hours. Yay. OR kid goes home, takes COVID test - tests positive, and then we prevent further spread since the kids are all at home and quarantined.

Takes what test?

A COVID test - jeez. Read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here, and it's just a matter of time before some sixth grade kid decides to be funny and impress his or her friends and get them all out of class by claiming they have a "sore throat" or, even better, "diarrhea." Anyway, this policy is designed to make sure schools have the staffing to teach quarantined kids without having to ask multiple teachers to work on Zoom with those kids during their planning periods. I smell an ulterior motive. Not cool. These kids need to be in school.

I had this thought too. Imagine the power to send everyone home the day before a math test...

Yeah, they never really gave a solid idea of how that was going to work. I guess this is their solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are elementary parents supposed to tell their little ones not to ask to go to the nurse now?

Unfortunately, yes. MCPS has created this perverse incentive.

Yeah, I am as cautious as they come but that was one reaction I had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

This. NONE of the BOE board members are remotely qualified to be making these decisions. Just follow the CDC. Is this a departing gift from Gayles? Or has someone else taken up his mantle? The county health department has been so anti-kid this entire time.

But you are qualified to know whether your kid has COVID without a test? I hope Gayles’s replacement is even more conservative. It’s needed for this self-centered population.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to think that after a whole grade at one ES was sent home yesterday and went virtual today because one child had a fever (confirmed not to be COVID), that parents, if aware their child has any of these severe listed symptoms, will keep their child home (at least at that school). The ripples were large for this one but thankfully short-lived.

[Anonymous]

My oldest kid used to occasionally get motion sick on the bus. He doesn't ride the bus anymore, but this means that anytime you do get a bus puker it would not only send the kids on the bus but their entire class home to quarantine?

[Anonymous]

I guess the only good news is that kids will be doing a lot of testing so they will catch asymptomatic cases more. Colleges that are doing surveillance testing are finding numbers much higher than expected even when vaccination is required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently the new “guidance” confirms what we’ve been hearing. If a child has “symptoms” associated with COVID (could be a runny nose) their close contacts (this has been interpreted as the entire class in many schools) are quarantined for ten days.

This is completely ludicrous and not based in science or CDC guidelines.

It’s not “symptoms,” it’s symptom! One symptom!

“ This is particularly important as if your child has any of the following single symptoms they will be sent home and not be able to return to school until they have a negative test, alternate diagnosis, or complete a full 10-day quarantine. During that period of time, all other students who have been in their close contact will have to be in a temporary quarantine while the other families wait on the outcome of that testing for your child. This could be potentially disruptive to your children and families moving in and out of quarantine and to avoid it takes all of us working together. It is a collective responsibility that we exercise extreme caution and be conservative in our approach.

The single symptoms that the health room staff screen for and will result in quarantine are cough, difficulty breathing, new loss of taste or smell, fever ≥100.4°, sore throat, severe Headache, diarrhea or vomiting. Please do not send your children to school with any of these symptoms. This is essential for us to continue to remain in school without quarantine.”

What choice do they have, though? I'm in favor of in-person and my kids went back in spring. But what else can they do?

It also doesn't say runny nose, at least, because then no one would be in school from Nov.-March.

What else can they do? They can not quarantine entire classrooms of masked kids based on one sniffle. They could follow the CDC guidelines for a start!

This. NONE of the BOE board members are remotely qualified to be making these decisions. Just follow the CDC. Is this a departing gift from Gayles? Or has someone else taken up his mantle? The county health department has been so anti-kid this entire time.

But you are qualified to know whether your kid has COVID without a test? I hope Gayles’s replacement is even more conservative. It’s needed for this self-centered population.

No I'm not qualified, so I trust in an institution that actually is. I never said not to test, this goes beyond testing and you know it. If anything this is going to have such a chilling effect because no one is going to want to get their kid's class shut down unnecessarily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest kid used to occasionally get motion sick on the bus. He doesn't ride the bus anymore, but this means that anytime you do get a bus puker it would not only send the kids on the bus but their entire class home to quarantine?

Yes. One more reason not to ride the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest kid used to occasionally get motion sick on the bus. He doesn't ride the bus anymore, but this means that anytime you do get a bus puker it would not only send the kids on the bus but their entire class home to quarantine?

Not the class...he would not have gone to class.