Reply to "Safe" class at preschool

Forum Index » Preschool and Daycare Discussion

Reply to ""Safe" class at preschool"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I got an email today from a parent whose child is entering the same year as mine at our preschool.  They were reaching out as they are trying to find other families entering this grade (preschool year) who are being "very conservative with regards to COVID safety" and are interested in making a "social pact" to continue those practices through the year and be "transparent with each other about changes".  They say that they have gotten agreement from the preschool's director to put this group of kids in a class together if the parents request it.

I really feel like this isn't right on the part of the preschool.  The school has protocols (which seem great, including full time masking and no mixing of classrooms); presumably everyone enrolling for this fall is aware of inherent risks of preschool and agreeing to those protocols as part of sending our kids back, but to facilitate the formation of a class that is somehow claiming to be "safer" than the others at the same grade level doesn't seem right.  The organizing family described high level safety measures that they are engaging in and presumably expect other to as part of their pact (working from home, limiting exposure, wearing masks, not going to gyms/restaurants, etc.).  Nothing crazy, and our family are doing all of those and being careful on our side, but I don't think I need to be justifying our family's activities with 7 other families if we decide to visit with grandparents or outside friends, or discuss why/how we have two kids in different preschool/daycare rooms, etc.  In the end, I'm likely to ignore the email and therefore I suppose my kid will end up in the "unsafe" class where we have not signed onto the "pact".

I also think this is building in a structural bias - e.g. towards families where both parents can work from home, towards families of only children where another sibiling is not in the mix, towards families who are housed as nuclear units without other relatives under the same roof, etc.  Given that there are only 2-3 classes for this particular age group, I see no way that this doesn't have impacts on the other classes as a result of self-selection in/out of the "safe" class.  And which teachers are signing up teach the "safe" vs. "unsafe" class?

Does this seem crazy to anyone else?  I don't really want to stir up trouble and I'm terrified of our director, so chances are I just go with this.  But this feels like the school is facilitating some social engineering based on circumstances.  It's one thing to set up a "pod" with agreed upon rules when your school is distance learning (as I've seen with many elementary schoolers).  But this is like buliding a "pod" within a preschool, which feels explicitly exclusive and outside of bounds for things the school should be facilitating.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics