Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

Finally a teacher who makes sense! Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

I assume teachers would be teaching remotely half time and in the classroom half time. Having the same teachers for both groups of kids would defeat the purpose, which would be avoiding sharing germs between the two halves.

Hopefully MCPS would prioritize placing kids on the same track as their parents.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

+100000

Do the parents work in a room with 500 other people? Do they walk in halls touching other people, crammed together? Do they all take bathroom breaks together? Do they sit in an office with 30 other people?
What part of staying away from other people during this pandemic have you missed? When did the education system in this country fail so terribly that some people can not follow what it means to have a pandemic?

You can +100000000000 all you want. The coronavirus doesn't give a damn. It's looking for hosts to plant itself and spread and the more people crammed together the happier it is. A happy coronavirus is tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of sick people for Maryland. Public schools aren't set up for un-vaccinated students, remember? Every single child right now is un-vaccinated.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

+100000

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any thoughts about the many people in countries where it has been routine, for quite a while now, to wear masks during infectious-disease season? Are they all sick?

Just because something does no make you sick immediately does no mean it does no make you sick.

Some things do need time to develop. Lack of oxygen causes all kinds of problems. Do you want to argue that? You lost already.

Humans are NOT designed to inhale carbon dioxide as their intake air.


The breath out gas exhaled by a person is 4% to 5% by volume of carbon dioxide, about a 100 fold increase over the inhaled amount.


Because a facemask will restrict the flow of air, a facemask should NOT be used by people who already have difficulty breathing due to an existing medical condition, such as asthma or emphysema.

You don't know what you are talking about. Even N95 masks allow oxygen molecules to pass through easily.

So if teachers are at school full time but their own children are only going to school half time who is going to watch them? I teach 5th grade and have a first and third grader. What am I supposed to do with them? My neighbor works for the city. Who is going to watch her kids for the weeks they are off? The half time plan makes no sense. Everyone should go back full time. It is so contagious it doesn't matter if kids sit 6 feet apart.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it makes sense to have virtual schooling for at-risk groups--medically fragile teachers can be paired with a classroom of medically fragile students "online".

It won’t work out because teachers are not necessarily certified in the needed areas. DH teaches engineering to high schoolers. He is not certified to teach elementary anything or secondary subjects like English, Social Studies or a foreign language.

I think that if they did that across the county there will be enough teachers and students to make complete classes with grade level teachers. Maybe not every HS elective but enough to keep kids on track to graduation (e.g. Photography is the only visual art, or only one level of choir). They would need to combine kids across schools.

Anonymous wrote:I think it makes sense to have virtual schooling for at-risk groups--medically fragile teachers can be paired with a classroom of medically fragile students "online".

It won’t work out because teachers are not necessarily certified in the needed areas. DH teaches engineering to high schoolers. He is not certified to teach elementary anything or secondary subjects like English, Social Studies or a foreign language.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

That’s non-sensical. MS and HS might not be in physical school buildings because those buildings may be repurposed for ES students. Sheesh!

A typical kid at our public high school might have 7 classes, averaging 25 students each. There is some overlap but not a huge amount, so they're exposed to over 100 different people a day, plus 20 more on the bus, etc . . . Many adults have jobs that expose them to many fewer people.

Opening schools is going to be a major task. We've got several months to look for solutions but it's not as simple as "if it's OK for adults, it's OK for kids".

Many adults don't.

Opening schools is no less complicated than many other workplaces that have been shut down or that have had a lot of problems with covid transmission. And it's just as much of a priority, if not more.

Yes and the state is requesting that those who can telework do so, even after we reopen in the first phases. And businesses are figuring out how to have their employees come in in shifts, or telework over the long term, or wear masks, or rearrange seating to be 6 feet apart or all of the above, which my employer is doing. It isn’t easy to sort this out for adults or kids, and coming up with a program that suits thousands of kids in hundreds of buildings is way harder than an individual business sorting it out. It’s complicated for businesses and it’s complicated for schools.

And yet nobody is saying, well, it's too complicated to figure out how to safely operate meatpacking plants and shipping warehouses, so we'll just keep them closed until there's a vaccine.

No people are saying screw the people working in the meat processing facilities, they’re poor and brown and don’t matter, let’s take away their right to unemployment to force them to keep cutting bacon, if they die it’s worth it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

That’s non-sensical. MS and HS might not be in physical school buildings because those buildings may be repurposed for ES students. Sheesh!

A typical kid at our public high school might have 7 classes, averaging 25 students each. There is some overlap but not a huge amount, so they're exposed to over 100 different people a day, plus 20 more on the bus, etc . . . Many adults have jobs that expose them to many fewer people.

Opening schools is going to be a major task. We've got several months to look for solutions but it's not as simple as "if it's OK for adults, it's OK for kids".

Many adults don't.

Opening schools is no less complicated than many other workplaces that have been shut down or that have had a lot of problems with covid transmission. And it's just as much of a priority, if not more.

Yes and the state is requesting that those who can telework do so, even after we reopen in the first phases. And businesses are figuring out how to have their employees come in in shifts, or telework over the long term, or wear masks, or rearrange seating to be 6 feet apart or all of the above, which my employer is doing. It isn’t easy to sort this out for adults or kids, and coming up with a program that suits thousands of kids in hundreds of buildings is way harder than an individual business sorting it out. It’s complicated for businesses and it’s complicated for schools.

And yet nobody is saying, well, it's too complicated to figure out how to safely operate meatpacking plants and shipping warehouses, so we'll just keep them closed until there's a vaccine.

Well God forbid Donnie misses a cheeseburgers.
Schools though? Who cares!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

That’s non-sensical. MS and HS might not be in physical school buildings because those buildings may be repurposed for ES students. Sheesh!

A typical kid at our public high school might have 7 classes, averaging 25 students each. There is some overlap but not a huge amount, so they're exposed to over 100 different people a day, plus 20 more on the bus, etc . . . Many adults have jobs that expose them to many fewer people.

Opening schools is going to be a major task. We've got several months to look for solutions but it's not as simple as "if it's OK for adults, it's OK for kids".

Many adults don't.

Opening schools is no less complicated than many other workplaces that have been shut down or that have had a lot of problems with covid transmission. And it's just as much of a priority, if not more.

Yes and the state is requesting that those who can telework do so, even after we reopen in the first phases. And businesses are figuring out how to have their employees come in in shifts, or telework over the long term, or wear masks, or rearrange seating to be 6 feet apart or all of the above, which my employer is doing. It isn’t easy to sort this out for adults or kids, and coming up with a program that suits thousands of kids in hundreds of buildings is way harder than an individual business sorting it out. It’s complicated for businesses and it’s complicated for schools.

And yet nobody is saying, well, it's too complicated to figure out how to safely operate meatpacking plants and shipping warehouses, so we'll just keep them closed until there's a vaccine.

20 states have free, online public schooling/cyber schools/virtual schools. Maryland has resisted this, preferring in-person schooling. However, given how poorly and haphazardly this semester has gone, perhaps it’s time for Maryland to offer online school that is meant to be online school for those who want it. An intentional online program would be loads better than the thrown together version, parents could choose to keep their children home and they could still get a free yet quality education, and it would reduce the difficulties of social distancing plans for already-crowded schools by reducing attendance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle schoolers and high schoolers going to school on line is a non-starter. If it's ok for the parents to go to work, then it's ok for the middle schoolers and high schoolers to go to school.

100% this.

That’s non-sensical. MS and HS might not be in physical school buildings because those buildings may be repurposed for ES students. Sheesh!

A typical kid at our public high school might have 7 classes, averaging 25 students each. There is some overlap but not a huge amount, so they're exposed to over 100 different people a day, plus 20 more on the bus, etc . . . Many adults have jobs that expose them to many fewer people.

Opening schools is going to be a major task. We've got several months to look for solutions but it's not as simple as "if it's OK for adults, it's OK for kids".

Many adults don't.

Opening schools is no less complicated than many other workplaces that have been shut down or that have had a lot of problems with covid transmission. And it's just as much of a priority, if not more.

Yes and the state is requesting that those who can telework do so, even after we reopen in the first phases. And businesses are figuring out how to have their employees come in in shifts, or telework over the long term, or wear masks, or rearrange seating to be 6 feet apart or all of the above, which my employer is doing. It isn’t easy to sort this out for adults or kids, and coming up with a program that suits thousands of kids in hundreds of buildings is way harder than an individual business sorting it out. It’s complicated for businesses and it’s complicated for schools.

Anonymous wrote:
So babysitting, then. Paraeducators also aren’t allowed to teach students without a certified teacher present. They’re not even allowed to run a Zoom small group without a certified teacher sitting in.

Yes, more babysitting than a proper education, that's for sure.

Paraeducators -- they will need to be rehired as long term substitutes. Probably get paid more, and would need to have lesson plans from the grade level teachers.

Schools are graduating medical students and nursing students three months early and certifying them so they can work in COVID wards so I guess schools can do this.

Anonymous wrote:

Art, music and PE are also 1.5 allocations, not 2. Those teachers are only there on certain days.

Arcola is also a Title 1 school and receives the highest level of support available. Try this exercise with any non Title 1 school and see if it still works.

Yep. The next school in the alphabet is Ashburton ES. 891 students for 2018-19 (almost certainly more now), 15.0 student/instructional staff ratio.