Classrooms for kids <12 will close for 10 days w/ any positives; will there be virtual instruction?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, this is a VERY. BIG. reason to not have asymptomatic testing, particularly of the vaccinated.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Because there are also many false positives.

Asymptomatic testing would be a nightmare under these OSSE quarantine regulations. No one will go to school, period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about this, the more it doesn't make sense to keep all kids home for 10 days when they are exposed to each other. They've already by definition been exposed. Do a PCR test of all the kids in the class when there's an exposure, the negative kids can continue to come in, the positives stay home. Everyone tests daily with PCR for 10 days (or whatever). If you first tested positive you follow the DCPS quarantine rules (something like you need two negatives to come back). The kids continuing to test negative stay in.

I think this is right. And you don't actually shut down / quarantine classes unless there is significant spread at some threshold within a school. Which is similar to how lots of other diseases have been treated for years - the bar to determine it's time to shut down exists, but is fairly high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, this is a VERY. BIG. reason to not have asymptomatic testing, particularly of the vaccinated.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Because there are also many false positives.

Asymptomatic testing would be a nightmare under these OSSE quarantine regulations. No one will go to school, period.

True. This is why we shouldn’t test those too young to be vaccinated either. The risk of Covid to them is smaller than the risk of constant disruptions of their schooling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man, I love these Janney threads. Y’all are absolutely bonkers! Godspeed to the staff there lol

It must be so annoying to have to deal with educated parents who know enough to push back against your crazy fearmongering!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not just Janney. Banneker shut down its entire Summer Institute earlier this month after a positive test--and the entire student body is presumably old enough to be vaccinated. No teaching, distance learning, emailed homework, or anything occurred while it was closed.

yes. It does not appear that schools are allowed to (as a teacher said up thread) "keep our wits about us and be reasonable".

If there is a case, anyone in that room is being sent HOME FOR 10 DAYS. Period.

Which is why I'm really concerned. DCPS is not being nuanced about this. They are putting down the hammer and sending home entire cohorts for 10 days with ANY case.

Yep. And to be clear, at the Banneker Summer Institute, kids were shuttled into single rooms to sit all day without any mixing, and 9th graders and 10th graders came in on alternating days, AND THEY ALL GOT SENT HOME. This is not just anyone in a single room--this affected more than 200 kids.

And these were kids who desperately needed the summer institute. This is how they treated the kids who need the most help. I have no faith that they will treat anyone else any better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about this, the more it doesn't make sense to keep all kids home for 10 days when they are exposed to each other. They've already by definition been exposed. Do a PCR test of all the kids in the class when there's an exposure, the negative kids can continue to come in, the positives stay home. Everyone tests daily with PCR for 10 days (or whatever). If you first tested positive you follow the DCPS quarantine rules (something like you need two negatives to come back). The kids continuing to test negative stay in.

I think this is right. And you don't actually shut down / quarantine classes unless there is significant spread at some threshold within a school. Which is similar to how lots of other diseases have been treated for years - the bar to determine it's time to shut down exists, but is fairly high.

This is also probably a better use of testing resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God I'm so depressed by this.

My kid and I literally cannot afford another year of distance learning, or just in-and-out of school. I can't do it financially. My office will start making me go in come September and there's no way I can stay home for 10 days repeatedly throughout the school year. There won't be any "learning camps" for exposed kids -- we are all just going to have to be home. I'll lose my job. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, I don’t know how they think working parents of younger kids will handle such frequent disruptions. I’m assuming there will be lots of kids left alone at home or “quarantining” with their grandparents.

And yes, kids themselves don’t deserve another disrupted school year.

+1

If I had a 3 or 4 year old I would probably pay for daycare for another two years to avoid this nonsense. There are already complaints about a worker shortage and this will lead more people to quit or lose their jobs (and let’s be clear by ‘people’ I mean ‘women’.). If this is truly the policy DC has to pass some paid leave and job protection for parents specifically in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janney's action in sending an entire cohort home is inconsistent with CDC guidelines for what type of "close contact" requires quarantine:

Exception: In the K–12 indoor classroom setting, the close contact definition excludes students who were within 3 to 6 feet of an infected student (laboratory-confirmed or a clinically compatible illness) where
- both students were engaged in consistent and correct use of well-fitting masks; and
- other K–12 school prevention strategies (such as universal and correct mask use, physical distancing, increased ventilation) were in place in the K–12 school setting.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/contact-tracing-plan/appendix.html#contact

yes, it's inconsistent with CDC guidelines but it's consistent with the OSSE guidelines!
That's the whole point of this thread. The OSSE guidelines (as followed by Janney and previously this summer by Banneker) are what led to the quarantine.

The question remains: will the schools provide any instruction when these happens repeatedly during the school year?

The question remains: when is OSSE going to follow the CDC so we quit harming kids unnecessarily?

That is the million dollar question. It's what makes the Janney situation worrisome--it's proof that DCPS is following the policy now. It should be sobering to any of us with kids in DCPS. They're actually following this quarantine policy that is not really compatible with in-person school.

This teacher is equally worried; I get the impression DCPS thought this was all going away before august 30 and now are wildly unprepared for the inevitability of concurrent teaching

Bingo. I'm sure you are correct.
In early June it really seemed like this would be a complete non-issue for the fall. I know people who gave up private school spots then (deposits were due June 1).
And DCPS always seems to clue into a situation about 2 months after the rest of the world and then takes another month to begin to start thinking about addressing it.
So yeah, right around Oct 1 they'll start to think about needing a virtual option for kids who have been in back-to-back quarantines all fall.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God I'm so depressed by this.

My kid and I literally cannot afford another year of distance learning, or just in-and-out of school. I can't do it financially. My office will start making me go in come September and there's no way I can stay home for 10 days repeatedly throughout the school year. There won't be any "learning camps" for exposed kids -- we are all just going to have to be home. I'll lose my job. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, I don’t know how they think working parents of younger kids will handle such frequent disruptions. I’m assuming there will be lots of kids left alone at home or “quarantining” with their grandparents.

And yes, kids themselves don’t deserve another disrupted school year.

+1

If I had a 3 or 4 year old I would probably pay for daycare for another two years to avoid this nonsense. There are already complaints about a worker shortage and this will lead more people to quit or lose their jobs (and let’s be clear by ‘people’ I mean ‘women’.). If this is truly the policy DC has to pass some paid leave and job protection for parents specifically in this situation.

Thank you, that's a good suggestion. I'm a single parent with no relatives in the area. There's no ex in the picture. If I can't hire someone to watch an exposed kid when these quarantines happen I'll be at a loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God I'm so depressed by this.

My kid and I literally cannot afford another year of distance learning, or just in-and-out of school. I can't do it financially. My office will start making me go in come September and there's no way I can stay home for 10 days repeatedly throughout the school year. There won't be any "learning camps" for exposed kids -- we are all just going to have to be home. I'll lose my job. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, I don’t know how they think working parents of younger kids will handle such frequent disruptions. I’m assuming there will be lots of kids left alone at home or “quarantining” with their grandparents.

And yes, kids themselves don’t deserve another disrupted school year.

+1

If I had a 3 or 4 year old I would probably pay for daycare for another two years to avoid this nonsense. There are already complaints about a worker shortage and this will lead more people to quit or lose their jobs (and let’s be clear by ‘people’ I mean ‘women’.). If this is truly the policy DC has to pass some paid leave and job protection for parents specifically in this situation.

Thank you, that's a good suggestion. I'm a single parent with no relatives in the area. There's no ex in the picture. If I can't hire someone to watch an exposed kid when these quarantines happen I'll be at a loss.

I think you guys are overstating this. I’m a parent at Murch (opened 4 full days a week for anyone who wanted a spot). There were 2 classes quarantined from April until June. TWO.

I don’t think it is going to be as big of a problem as the hysteria here acts like it will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, this is a VERY. BIG. reason to not have asymptomatic testing, particularly of the vaccinated.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Because there are also many false positives.

Asymptomatic testing would be a nightmare under these OSSE quarantine regulations. No one will go to school, period.

True. This is why we shouldn’t test those too young to be vaccinated either. The risk of Covid to them is smaller than the risk of constant disruptions of their schooling.

OK, so maybe what you all need is some covid boarding school on a kids only island.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God I'm so depressed by this.

My kid and I literally cannot afford another year of distance learning, or just in-and-out of school. I can't do it financially. My office will start making me go in come September and there's no way I can stay home for 10 days repeatedly throughout the school year. There won't be any "learning camps" for exposed kids -- we are all just going to have to be home. I'll lose my job. I don't know what to do.

Yeah, I don’t know how they think working parents of younger kids will handle such frequent disruptions. I’m assuming there will be lots of kids left alone at home or “quarantining” with their grandparents.

And yes, kids themselves don’t deserve another disrupted school year.

+1

If I had a 3 or 4 year old I would probably pay for daycare for another two years to avoid this nonsense. There are already complaints about a worker shortage and this will lead more people to quit or lose their jobs (and let’s be clear by ‘people’ I mean ‘women’.). If this is truly the policy DC has to pass some paid leave and job protection for parents specifically in this situation.

Thank you, that's a good suggestion. I'm a single parent with no relatives in the area. There's no ex in the picture. If I can't hire someone to watch an exposed kid when these quarantines happen I'll be at a loss.

I think you guys are overstating this. I’m a parent at Murch (opened 4 full days a week for anyone who wanted a spot). There were 2 classes quarantined from April until June. TWO.

I don’t think it is going to be as big of a problem as the hysteria here acts like it will be.

Please stick this hopefulness directly into my veins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, this is a VERY. BIG. reason to not have asymptomatic testing, particularly of the vaccinated.

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Because there are also many false positives.

Asymptomatic testing would be a nightmare under these OSSE quarantine regulations. No one will go to school, period.

True. This is why we shouldn’t test those too young to be vaccinated either. The risk of Covid to them is smaller than the risk of constant disruptions of their schooling.

OK, so maybe what you all need is some covid boarding school on a kids only island.

No, we just need all adults to get vaccinated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to wait until I see what the plan is when this happens for actual school before I panic about the fact that there's no plan for remote summer school. Remote summer school, after the last year and a half, would really seem more like a punishment than anything else.

You are missing the point. Summer school is following the OSSE quarantine policy which is also in place for the upcoming school year.

And we're all just assuming that they won't change the OSSE quarantine policy before school starts? Haven't they changed all these guidelines multiple times in various ways since the pandemic started?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to wait until I see what the plan is when this happens for actual school before I panic about the fact that there's no plan for remote summer school. Remote summer school, after the last year and a half, would really seem more like a punishment than anything else.

You are missing the point. Summer school is following the OSSE quarantine policy which is also in place for the upcoming school year.

And we're all just assuming that they won't change the OSSE quarantine policy before school starts? Haven't they changed all these guidelines multiple times in various ways since the pandemic started?

Yes but they also do it like 4 months too late. Time to start emailing your representatives again.