Reply to What needs to be done to repair damage of Covid/school closures/quarantines/Covid policy in DCPS?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "What needs to be done to repair damage of Covid/school closures/quarantines/Covid policy in DCPS?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok, posting this with some trepidation based on how comments about school closures have been received on this board recently. But genuinely trying to start a conversation about both what some of the fallout of school closures and other Covid policies that have harmed some kids and families in the district (I understand not everyone feels harmed by these policies and I accept that -- some people have been harmed), as well as the loss of trust and community as a result?

Looking for genuine, good faith suggestions here. These are some of the issues I think need to be addressed, and I personally think we would do best to discuss them directly and take them seriously. Some of these are based on my personal experience, some based on families I know or at my school. For reference, we go to a Title 1 school in Ward 5, where I think you see more fall out from school closures than you might at schools in wealthier neighborhoods. I mention that not to start a fight, but simply to acknowledge these issues may not be universal:

- The inability of working families to be able to realistically rely on school and after school programs as childcare. This is a problem that has persisted at our school, when aftercare programming was serious stripped down post-Covid and many families were frustrated with the poor quality of care, but simply cannot afford alternatives (very few families at our school can afford nannies, and we have few other childcare options in the neighborhood).

- The intense burden on parents, but especially working mothers, over the last two years, to oversee virtual school at home, secure replacement childcare for their kids, prepare kids for attending school during Covid (masks, testing, teaching them heightened sanitation rules) as well as to handle this year of quarantines. Most of the moms I know are completely burned out and barely treading water.

- The impact of masking on very young kids. My youngest is afraid to go to school without a mask. Even outdoors. He's never attended school without masks. This is a more minor concern for me, but I'd still like to see common sense policy on this, especially for our youngest learners.

Those are the main ones for me, but if there are others, please share. We personally aren't as worried about learning loss as some seem to be (we worked our butts of to avoid it and this is an area where I think our school and teachers have been phenomenal -- major props to them). But if that's a concern for you, do share.[/quote]

Schools are open so it seems like these have been solved. Masking is optional and probably will be for the foreseeable future [/quote]

It seems these specific problems are not solved. If families fear that future closures and quarantines will compromise childcare, they may have to make difficult choices (including people dropping out of the workforce) to deal with that uncertainty.

One thing I'd really like to see is an honest assessment of how closure and quarantine decisions were made over the last 2 years, and then come up with a plan for future issues like Covid (or Covid itself, depending on what happens with variants) so that families are not left high and dry the way they have been for the last two years. It's hard to imagine this happening because of how opaque Central Office and the Mayor are about.. everything. But I think that would go a long way towards repairing trust and helping families plan for the future.

I'd also like to see more family-level mental health outreach. I think a lot of what is happening with mental health right now cannot be addressed just with kids in school. I think we're seeing whole-family dysfunction that is pandemic-related and schools are the main resource for a lot of families who don't have ready access to things like family therapy or support groups. I'd love it if we had parent support groups at our school, for instance.[/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