Reply to If DMV schools don't open in the fall, are you moving?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "If DMV schools don't open in the fall, are you moving?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wish that before re-opening the Mayor would order another 2-week lockdown, she did in the spring. Is anyone else worried that with all schools re-opening Feb 1st this virus will shoot up in DC? Even teachers who have been vaccinated will not have had their round 2 yet,  and there will be lots more kids to manage in a distance way all at once, many of whom it will be the first time practicing mask wearing etc. I am just worried we will go from bad to worse in DC, with just 5% of the population vaccinated--we are a LONG way from 'herd immunity'.[/quote]

No, I am not, because I have looked at the data and studies they have done of spread in schools, and I am confident that schools are not significant drivers of community spread.[/quote]

I have not seen any done on this scale, by a system as generally messed up as DCPS. So sue me that I have way more confidence in, IDK, Germany. I am a former teacher for DCPS (not recent), but what I saw in terms of management, hygiene, yikes. It doesn't appear that DCPS did much maintenance during this hiatus... why would you trust them? NY has been opening and closing schools like whack-a-mole. Not sure there is a case that our large, horribly managed public school systems CAN handle a wide spread reopening well. On top of the surge and the new COVID variants that are hyper-contagious, are we not just asking for trouble here?[/quote]

Germany hasn't done any of the "maintenance" in schools that is being demanded here, at least not at a large scale. Their schools were open at full capacity with just hand washing and opening windows. They didn't even require in-class masking in the fall. They are still open at least hybrid in many places now during the lockdown (now with masks at all times). They did have cases in schools, of course (especially high schools, which are now remote in January), but nobody thinks in-school transmission was a major driver of the spread overall, which is believed to happen mostly at private gatherings. They didn't shut down entire schools, but quarantined exposed cohorts.

So yeah, I'm confident that DCPS could do what they did in Germany, and probably also other European countries. We just don't because we don't want to accept any amount of risk for the sake of kids being in school.[/quote]

This. It's just one thing after another with WTU. Many parents aren't ok with waiting until every societal ill is resolved before our kids go back to school. There's some risk to reopening, and going to school was never risk-free anyway.[/quote]

I'm just going to hedge a bet that German schools were already far better maintained. Have you ever been in a DCPS? Some of them have rats. Skeevy.[/quote]

It's just one thing after another why German schools are supposedly in a fundamentally different situation than DCPS. Yes, I have been both inside German schools and inside DCPS schools (both EOTP and WOTP). While rats are terrible, they do not make a difference with regard to Covid. What makes a difference is ventilation and hand washing facilities, as well as crowding. Many if not most German schools do not have HVAC systems, but they do have windows (I hear there are DCPS classrooms without windows, in which case air filtration systems should be provided). Dirty bathrooms and lack of soap are also a long-standing problem in many German schools, but I am sure that situation has vastly improved with Covid, and I would assume DCPS can solve that one as well. Crowding is also a problem in some German schools.

So no, Germany is not working with fundamentally different infrastructure. What is fundamentally different is that education leadership in Germany has been fighting tooth and nail to keep schools open (sometimes against parents and students, and against the federal government), because they believe it is essential for educational justice and children's well-being, and teachers have not mounted major opposition. If they are closing schools now in particular hard-hit locations or going hybrid, I guarantee you it will be temporary and not for the rest of the year or until everyone is vaccinated.[/quote]

This. WTU's game is to latch onto any difference between DCPS and other schools that are open and claim they're reasons why DCPS can't open. I wish we had good educational leadership here so schools wouldn't have stayed closed for almost a year.[/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