Reply to The prospect of kids not going back to school until 2021

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "The prospect of kids not going back to school until 2021"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Maybe there should be designated schools for people demanding in person education for their children without any safety, sanitation, or social distancing measures in place. The county can concentrate high quality masks on the teachers in those schools, provide for social distancing for the teachers (not the students) and staff, and perhaps pay them a bit more. Those kids can get up as early as they need to so that they can be transported on crowded buses to the designated schools. Designated schools can have sporting competitions against each other. There will be no health screening to inconvenience parents or students. It will be business as usual with every seat filled.

That will make room for all the rest of us who recognize that no government entity created this pandemic and who have compassion for the adult administrators, staff, and teachers who have to try to formulate the best possible plan with limited funding. These schools schools will flexible scheduling, greater social distancing for all, and nicer kids and parents. Hopefully, in exchange for the inconvenience associated with measures to promote public health, these schools will have the best teachers too.[/quote]

What's with the black and white thinking?  Is it easier, emotionally, to vilify people who have different needs and/or different perspectives than you?  Man.  You get to the point where any benefit to society from not spreading COVID--in theory, at least--is washed away by how judgmental and critical you are of others.  Nicer parents?  Not likely, with this kind of attitude.[/quote]

Then what is your solution?  What social distancing measures can be put in place in a crowded high school where there is no room for additional chairs and every seat is taken?   Maybe I am just frustrated because I don't think we should have such severe overcrowding in the first place, but I can't figure out a way to promote social distancing, small groups, limited exposure, and all the other things the CDC recommends in the high school setting. [/quote]

My solution would be to follow MD"s own recovery plan:
http://marylandpublicschools.org/newsroom/Documents/MSDERecoveryPlan.pdf

Page 8 (page 11 in the PDF) goes over layouts:

"Modified Layouts
• Space seating/desks at least 6 feet apart when feasible.
• Turn desks to face in the same direction (rather than facing each other), or have students sit on only one side of
tables, spaced apart."

High school desks normally don't face each other anyway. They aren't 6 feet apart, but it's not a requirement either. Maybe add partitions on top of each desk like these: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Privacy-Shields-Assorted-Colors/322832919

For between classes, either require masks and/or make hallways one-way only. Or stagger bell-times so one group is out there in the first 5 minutes, and the next for the other 5 minutes.

Yes, every option has risks, but we can minimize those risks. Other school systems are overcrowded, both in the US and abroad, and they are coming up with ways to open. Surely we can be creative here as well.

The recovery plan lays out other procedures as well. Eating lunch in classroom not cafeteria, etc. The tricky one is buses but I bet you'd find a lot of kids who opt to walk/get a ride with parents, so you can keep capacity on buses down if you try. [/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