Remote school? No vaccine for under 12 until mid-winter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

There is a reason school has been mandatory for a century. Not all parents make the best choices for their kids.

Also, why should tax dollars be spent on this inferior form of schooling for anyone but those kids with serious medical issues that are proven to put them at high risk for Covid? You can homeschool if it’s just about your comfort zone.

Where's your source that it's inferior for all kids? That's just your belief.

well, we could start with the fact that there are many thousands of kids in DC that received NO education in DC this year because they logged on less than 10 times all year.

But hey, as long as your kid did well in their pod!

DCPS is going to be in for a rude awakening. Simply mandating kids to return to school isn’t going to result in kids returning to school. Black, Latino families still do not trust DCPS to protect their children. The school facilities are not up to par and they don’t have well funded PTOs to fill in those gaps. The vaccination rate for kids over 12 in Wards 7 and 8 is something like 8%. And DCPS’s reopening plan has kids eating altogether in the cafeteria?

Lots of Trumpers in Wards 7 and 8, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am very concerned now .many covid-19 cases in Summer camps .I can't no send my kid back to school. Covid numbers are increased now .

And are any kids actually sick that you know of?

Is no one concerned about the long term effects of COVID on their kids? Especially the unknown affects it might have on developing lungs and brains, that might not present until later in life? Sure, an infection now may be asymptomatic at best and an inconvenience at most. But I still don’t want my child to get it. I want to send my child back to school this fall. But as a PP mentioned, I’m less concerned with teachers and more concerned with the parents who send their sick child to school.

“Although kids tend not to be so badly affected by COVID-19 and often have asymptomatic or mild cases, we are seeing kids who have decreased exercise tolerance, joint pain, fatigue, and brain fog after COVID-19 infection,” says Katharine Clouser, M.D., a pediatric hospital medicine specialist at Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health.

Although it is not yet clear how many children in the U.S. have been affected by this “long-COVID” syndrome, studies show that up to 40 percent of children in Italy and approximately 15-20 percent of children in England are experiencing “long-haul” COVID-19 symptoms.”


https://www.hackensackmeridianhealth.org/HealthU/2021/05/19/how-covid-19-affects-kids-long-term/#:~:text=As%20more%20and%20more%20people,fog%20and%20other%20symptoms.

I am much more concerned about the impact of isolation on my kid. I don’t love the idea of him getting covid but keeping him out of school would be an immediate disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

There is a reason school has been mandatory for a century. Not all parents make the best choices for their kids.

Also, why should tax dollars be spent on this inferior form of schooling for anyone but those kids with serious medical issues that are proven to put them at high risk for Covid? You can homeschool if it’s just about your comfort zone.

Where's your source that it's inferior for all kids? That's just your belief.

well, we could start with the fact that there are many thousands of kids in DC that received NO education in DC this year because they logged on less than 10 times all year.

But hey, as long as your kid did well in their pod!

DCPS is going to be in for a rude awakening. Simply mandating kids to return to school isn’t going to result in kids returning to school. Black, Latino families still do not trust DCPS to protect their children. The school facilities are not up to par and they don’t have well funded PTOs to fill in those gaps. The vaccination rate for kids over 12 in Wards 7 and 8 is something like 8%. And DCPS’s reopening plan has kids eating altogether in the cafeteria?

that’s what we have CPS for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

There is a reason school has been mandatory for a century. Not all parents make the best choices for their kids.

Also, why should tax dollars be spent on this inferior form of schooling for anyone but those kids with serious medical issues that are proven to put them at high risk for Covid? You can homeschool if it’s just about your comfort zone.

Where's your source that it's inferior for all kids? That's just your belief.

well, we could start with the fact that there are many thousands of kids in DC that received NO education in DC this year because they logged on less than 10 times all year.

But hey, as long as your kid did well in their pod!

DCPS is going to be in for a rude awakening. Simply mandating kids to return to school isn’t going to result in kids returning to school. Black, Latino families still do not trust DCPS to protect their children. The school facilities are not up to par and they don’t have well funded PTOs to fill in those gaps. The vaccination rate for kids over 12 in Wards 7 and 8 is something like 8%. And DCPS’s reopening plan has kids eating altogether in the cafeteria?

DC has received millions over the past year and a half to help with school reopening. Adults refusing to get themselves and their older children vaccinated (at no cost!) and waiting for new schools to be built and covid to be eradicated from the planet is not a reasonable expectation. And those expectations were set in large part last summer with the coffin and body bag protests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

There is a reason school has been mandatory for a century. Not all parents make the best choices for their kids.

Also, why should tax dollars be spent on this inferior form of schooling for anyone but those kids with serious medical issues that are proven to put them at high risk for Covid? You can homeschool if it’s just about your comfort zone.

Where's your source that it's inferior for all kids? That's just your belief.

well, we could start with the fact that there are many thousands of kids in DC that received NO education in DC this year because they logged on less than 10 times all year.

But hey, as long as your kid did well in their pod!

DCPS is going to be in for a rude awakening. Simply mandating kids to return to school isn’t going to result in kids returning to school. Black, Latino families still do not trust DCPS to protect their children. The school facilities are not up to par and they don’t have well funded PTOs to fill in those gaps. The vaccination rate for kids over 12 in Wards 7 and 8 is something like 8%. And DCPS’s reopening plan has kids eating altogether in the cafeteria?

that’s what we have CPS for.

DC's willingness or ability to handle chronic truancy even in a good year is limited. This is a city where we're reluctant to punish kids for theft or assault, no one is going to do much if a lot of kids in schools where there were already major attendance issues aren't showing up. Maybe the city tries to persuade the parents it's safe, but if it doesn't work and there are a lot of those families, they're not going to escalate in any way that's effective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

It’s an issue of resources. The way DCPS is offering remote is by each school making a plan. That is incredibly ineffective and a waste of manpower. There are also issues around who would choose virtual school and those kids missing two and a half years of education, but that is a lot to explain on an anonymous forum.

Yes, this is the problem. If central office offered one virtual academy that would be great. But as usual they are putting it on individual schools... which means potentially each school would need a teacher in each grade to work with the very small handful of kids who actually qualify for the remote learning. Of course, they could do simulcast, but that makes it much harder on the teacher and makes the quality of instruction lower for the in person and virtual kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

It’s an issue of resources. The way DCPS is offering remote is by each school making a plan. That is incredibly ineffective and a waste of manpower. There are also issues around who would choose virtual school and those kids missing two and a half years of education, but that is a lot to explain on an anonymous forum.

Yes, this is the problem. If central office offered one virtual academy that would be great. But as usual they are putting it on individual schools... which means potentially each school would need a teacher in each grade to work with the very small handful of kids who actually qualify for the remote learning. Of course, they could do simulcast, but that makes it much harder on the teacher and makes the quality of instruction lower for the in person and virtual kids.

But this “virtual school” is exactly what they are doing for kids with a medical need. The in person waiver form says that kids may not be taught by the teachers at the child’s school. So why not extend that option beyond kids with medical needs?

[Anonymous]

I thought any remote school through DCPS would be through a centralized academy, no?

Neighborhood schools wouldn't have to mess with any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

It’s an issue of resources. The way DCPS is offering remote is by each school making a plan. That is incredibly ineffective and a waste of manpower. There are also issues around who would choose virtual school and those kids missing two and a half years of education, but that is a lot to explain on an anonymous forum.

Yes, this is the problem. If central office offered one virtual academy that would be great. But as usual they are putting it on individual schools... which means potentially each school would need a teacher in each grade to work with the very small handful of kids who actually qualify for the remote learning. Of course, they could do simulcast, but that makes it much harder on the teacher and makes the quality of instruction lower for the in person and virtual kids.

But this “virtual school” is exactly what they are doing for kids with a medical need. The in person waiver form says that kids may not be taught by the teachers at the child’s school. So why not extend that option beyond kids with medical needs?

The fact that they say “may not” means they have no plan and will probably end up foisting the responsibility on individual schools, just like they did with reopening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought any remote school through DCPS would be through a centralized academy, no?

Neighborhood schools wouldn't have to mess with any of that.

Based on recent communication we received from our charter, it sounds like there is a centralized academy. If students at our school are medically exempt, our school has made it very clear that the form is good for one semester (until January 2022), and the student will not have our teachers, and they will not be able to participate in any in-person school activities (including athletics, clubs, extracurricular activities, or other programs). Maybe DCPS hasn’t communicated this out yet…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a huge opposition to 100% remote school.

Indeed, as there should be, since most adults in our area are vaccinated and children can wear masks in school.

The question is: how will the kids eat lunch indoors? This will be the daily spreader event. I strongly advise all schools to buy those plexiglass or hard plastic partitions and install them on lunch tables. They're better than nothing and were used to great effect in Asian schools last year.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have any data so my comment is based solely on how this approach appears to me as a teacher who observes 150 elementary students in a cafeteria at once. But how could the dividers possibly prevent droplets from coughing, sneezing, shouting, etc from traveling throughout a small cafeteria? Elementary students probably should not eat all together in the cafeteria this year. Eating in rooms or outside (which we did even in February last year - it was fine) is probably best. The problem will be in finding enough staff to cover all of these non-aggregated lunches. Teachers need a lunch break and planning time that is mandated. This is a sticky wicket but might be solvable with longer outdoor, aggregated recess time and individual classroom-teacher-supervised lunches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have any data so my comment is based solely on how this approach appears to me as a teacher who observes 150 elementary students in a cafeteria at once. But how could the dividers possibly prevent droplets from coughing, sneezing, shouting, etc from traveling throughout a small cafeteria? Elementary students probably should not eat all together in the cafeteria this year. Eating in rooms or outside (which we did even in February last year - it was fine) is probably best. The problem will be in finding enough staff to cover all of these non-aggregated lunches. Teachers need a lunch break and planning time that is mandated. This is a sticky wicket but might be solvable with longer outdoor, aggregated recess time and individual classroom-teacher-supervised lunches.

PP above you. Yes, you're absolutely correct that eating lunch in classrooms would be safer, because at least the kids are with their classmates and it reduces viral spread between groups. In the same vein, It might be best for elementary schools to avoid the teacher switch for upper grades: where each 5th grade teacher teaches one subject and the kids rotate between classrooms. I don't know if they do that in your school, but the goal would be to minimize viral spread by keeping each classroom separate from others.
The partitions on tables has been shown to reduce viral spread from direct droplet transfer at shared tables, but obviously it doesn't prevent all infections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

It’s an issue of resources. The way DCPS is offering remote is by each school making a plan. That is incredibly ineffective and a waste of manpower. There are also issues around who would choose virtual school and those kids missing two and a half years of education, but that is a lot to explain on an anonymous forum.

Yes, this is the problem. If central office offered one virtual academy that would be great. But as usual they are putting it on individual schools... which means potentially each school would need a teacher in each grade to work with the very small handful of kids who actually qualify for the remote learning. Of course, they could do simulcast, but that makes it much harder on the teacher and makes the quality of instruction lower for the in person and virtual kids.

But this “virtual school” is exactly what they are doing for kids with a medical need. The in person waiver form says that kids may not be taught by the teachers at the child’s school. So why not extend that option beyond kids with medical needs?

Because while you might take virtual learning very seriously and your child may login in every single day, there are plenty of parents who will choose it because it means that they don't have to parent their kid. They don't have to get their kid to school and their kid
can just sit at home and do nothing or run the streets. There were several thousand kids that this happened to this year--kids who were enrolled in a school but who only showed up 10 times all year. Then there are the extremes to this scenario: parents who are abusive to their kids and don't want another adult laying eyes on them.
The harsh reality is that many parents do not make decisions that are in the best interest of their kids and in-person school is protective for them--either because of abuse or some degree of neglect (including educational neglect).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a remote option from DCPS? How's does that harm you in any way? Go in-person if that's what you want.

It’s an issue of resources. The way DCPS is offering remote is by each school making a plan. That is incredibly ineffective and a waste of manpower. There are also issues around who would choose virtual school and those kids missing two and a half years of education, but that is a lot to explain on an anonymous forum.

Yes, this is the problem. If central office offered one virtual academy that would be great. But as usual they are putting it on individual schools... which means potentially each school would need a teacher in each grade to work with the very small handful of kids who actually qualify for the remote learning. Of course, they could do simulcast, but that makes it much harder on the teacher and makes the quality of instruction lower for the in person and virtual kids.

But this “virtual school” is exactly what they are doing for kids with a medical need. The in person waiver form says that kids may not be taught by the teachers at the child’s school. So why not extend that option beyond kids with medical needs?

Because while you might take virtual learning very seriously and your child may login in every single day, there are plenty of parents who will choose it because it means that they don't have to parent their kid. They don't have to get their kid to school and their kid
can just sit at home and do nothing or run the streets. There were several thousand kids that this happened to this year--kids who were enrolled in a school but who only showed up 10 times all year. Then there are the extremes to this scenario: parents who are abusive to their kids and don't want another adult laying eyes on them.
The harsh reality is that many parents do not make decisions that are in the best interest of their kids and in-person school is protective for them--either because of abuse or some degree of neglect (including educational neglect).

+1000

This is exactly the reason this cannot become an option for all in DCPS. I recognize many people who post on this board don’t have experience with the true realities of education in this city.