Anonymous wrote:The surge in Allegheny County started when indoor dining resumed. They never reopened schools fully and had only bright younger grades back when they transitioned to virtual. Case began rising every week after the Governor allowed indoor dining to resume. It is impossible given the timeline for COVID for the entire surge to have been caused by school reopening.

No, it isn't impossible.

This is how it happens:

Aug -Sept. younger Kids return to school, a few spread illness (asymptomatic students so it goes undetected)
Oct : asymptomatic cases spread, start spreading exponentially. A few spread it to older teens and parents who start to show more symptoms. People say -- see? Kids in elementary school aren't spreading it!
November -- spread is widespread in elementary schools and starts getting going with older kids and teens as well. Now we start to pay attention.
December -- starts to peak, restaurants shut down. But people gather for holdiays.

The surge in Allegheny County started when indoor dining resumed. They never reopened schools fully and had only bright younger grades back when they transitioned to virtual. Case began rising every week after the Governor allowed indoor dining to resume. It is impossible given the timeline for COVID for the entire surge to have been caused by school reopening.

Allegheny County finally closed schools in November but by then the virus was seeded in the population, and they had Thanksgiving and Christmas to spread it around. Their rates were sky high.

They shut down indoor restaurants eventually which finally helped.

Allegheny County was off the charts:

Garrett County

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/garrett-county-coronavirus-maryland/2020/12/28/ea3117d0-3fbb-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the bottom line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, in PG county we are being told that hybrid instruction means teachers will teach one group in class while teaching the other through distance learning.

I am a teacher and I also have kids in school. Distance learning is going OK for us.

But if you think distance teaching sucks NOW for your kid, when all the teacher has to think about is kids on one computer screen -- how much better do you think distance teaching will be when that same teacher is in school, in person and wearing a mask, and teaching 15 kids in her class WHILE teaching 15 kids on the computer too? Managing in class behavior and managing on screen behavior?

Fine. Have the districts go back to the State and say that hybrid learning is impossible because concurrent teaching is an unsustainable model. Even better, come up with a different model that does not involve concurrent teaching or recommend that schools remain closed for other year, through the first semester of the 2021-22 school year.

What other option is there?

Work as a state to get community spread below 10 new cases per 100,000 per day.

If that's the goal, that needs to happen at the state level. I'm completely on board with it, but it makes no sense unless we are all working toward that goal. Some of us are, but we aren't getting anywhere.

We don't need that as a goal. Schools being open does not contribute to the spread on a large basis. MCPS has been closed for almost a year now, yet the rates in MoCo spiked this fall, _despite_ being closed. Meanwhile, in Western MD where schools were open, the rates also spiked. Other states have had schools open, and there also appears to be no link between schools being open and community spread.

Rates in Western MD where schools were open were triple or quadruple what they have been in MoCo despite much lower population density, actually.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the bottom line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, in PG county we are being told that hybrid instruction means teachers will teach one group in class while teaching the other through distance learning.

I am a teacher and I also have kids in school. Distance learning is going OK for us.

But if you think distance teaching sucks NOW for your kid, when all the teacher has to think about is kids on one computer screen -- how much better do you think distance teaching will be when that same teacher is in school, in person and wearing a mask, and teaching 15 kids in her class WHILE teaching 15 kids on the computer too? Managing in class behavior and managing on screen behavior?

Fine. Have the districts go back to the State and say that hybrid learning is impossible because concurrent teaching is an unsustainable model. Even better, come up with a different model that does not involve concurrent teaching or recommend that schools remain closed for other year, through the first semester of the 2021-22 school year.

What other option is there?

Work as a state to get community spread below 10 new cases per 100,000 per day.

If that's the goal, that needs to happen at the state level. I'm completely on board with it, but it makes no sense unless we are all working toward that goal. Some of us are, but we aren't getting anywhere.

We don't need that as a goal. Schools being open does not contribute to the spread on a large basis. MCPS has been closed for almost a year now, yet the rates in MoCo spiked this fall, _despite_ being closed. Meanwhile, in Western MD where schools were open, the rates also spiked. Other states have had schools open, and there also appears to be no link between schools being open and community spread.

Anonymous wrote:This is the bottom line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, in PG county we are being told that hybrid instruction means teachers will teach one group in class while teaching the other through distance learning.

I am a teacher and I also have kids in school. Distance learning is going OK for us.

But if you think distance teaching sucks NOW for your kid, when all the teacher has to think about is kids on one computer screen -- how much better do you think distance teaching will be when that same teacher is in school, in person and wearing a mask, and teaching 15 kids in her class WHILE teaching 15 kids on the computer too? Managing in class behavior and managing on screen behavior?

Fine. Have the districts go back to the State and say that hybrid learning is impossible because concurrent teaching is an unsustainable model. Even better, come up with a different model that does not involve concurrent teaching or recommend that schools remain closed for other year, through the first semester of the 2021-22 school year.

What other option is there?

Work as a state to get community spread below 10 new cases per 100,000 per day.

If that's the goal, that needs to happen at the state level. I'm completely on board with it, but it makes no sense unless we are all working toward that goal. Some of us are, but we aren't getting anywhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I completely agree that the health metrics should govern reopening decisions. But unless the plan is to re-open fully, the details of reopening using a hybrid model need to be worked out.

There are only two ways to do a hybrid schedule.

A) Teacher teaches half the class in person one day and then half the class in person the other day. On days at home kids do asynchronous activities.

B) Teacher teaches half the class in person AND half the class online at the same time.

Private schools can choose some version of (A) but in MD, public schools cannot, unless the state of MD decides to allow asynchronous learning hours to count for attendance purposes. They will not do this, so MD public schools are going to have to choose option (B) which I can right now guarantee to you will absolutely suck. It will especially suck for kids with special needs.

Our kids are in private this year, and they do (B). It works fine. The class size is about 10-15 in class and 5-10 online. There's a camera in the classroom. Total class size is 25. How many are online varies depending on the situation, like one girl in my daughter's class had her college-aged brother come back for break, so they kept her home on DL for 2 weeks to make sure the brother didn't bring anything.

This is the bottom line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, in PG county we are being told that hybrid instruction means teachers will teach one group in class while teaching the other through distance learning.

I am a teacher and I also have kids in school. Distance learning is going OK for us.

But if you think distance teaching sucks NOW for your kid, when all the teacher has to think about is kids on one computer screen -- how much better do you think distance teaching will be when that same teacher is in school, in person and wearing a mask, and teaching 15 kids in her class WHILE teaching 15 kids on the computer too? Managing in class behavior and managing on screen behavior?

Fine. Have the districts go back to the State and say that hybrid learning is impossible because concurrent teaching is an unsustainable model. Even better, come up with a different model that does not involve concurrent teaching or recommend that schools remain closed for other year, through the first semester of the 2021-22 school year.

What other option is there?

Work as a state to get community spread below 10 new cases per 100,000 per day.

This part!

Anonymous wrote:

I disagree with the Gov. about vaccinations. When we are this close to getting teachers vaccinated, why should they be forced to return to school buildings before they have the benefit of this protection? The problem, though, is that after teachers have been prioritized and vaccinated, we hear that they can't return because their kids, or family members aren't vaccinated, meaning that there can be no in person school until every member of the community has been vaccinated. A decision needs to be made with input from public health authorities about whether schools remain shut down until everyone who wants a vaccination has one, including children, or whether there is some point before that when the harm caused by keeping schools closed outweighs the risk of reopening. If the answer is the former, then perhaps more innovative solutions are needed for the education delivery model.

A big problem can't be solved at once. I agree with the PPs who said that we need to start small, with special needs or other small groups, and work from there.

Anonymous wrote:I think one reason our rates of spread are pretty low in the counties close in to DC are that our schools have been closed and colleges have been online. Our hospitals aren't overwhelmed as they are so many other places.

I agree.

All of this! The remainder of the school year will result in loss of learning due to the amount of time and stress of teaching and reinforcing new rules and procedures. Academics will not be a priority. Also note that in schools where they have gone hybrid teachers are quitting at higher rates. In districts that are already suffering a teacher shorter with no qualified subs this is going to pose a long term problem that goes beyond DL.

Anonymous wrote:There is no way that PGCPS will go back by March 1st. They set metrics that need to be met and the county isn't even close to meeting them.
Although it sucks in many ways, we have hit our stride now. Our kids know when to go on line, what is expected of them and the technical glitches seem to have been dealt with. If we go to hybrid, the kids will need to learn all new routines, classroom behaviors, etc. I'm not sure it is worth the disruption at this point. My kids are in 1st. 4th and 7th.
IMO- they should bring back kids with special education needs full time and leave the rest in virtual learning.

Exactly. A routine has been established. It is going to cost MORE money to go hybrid. What is the rush? Why not wait until next school year?

Anonymous wrote:https://wtop.com/coronavirus/2021/01/maryland-coronavirus-update-january-21

I disagree with his assessment that there is no health reason for schools to be closed.
My daughter is in 10th grade and although I wish school were in session, it is not going to be back to normal.
I prefer a consistent distance learning to whatever hybrid schedule + online schedule schools will put into place in March.
I don't think the online version will be as good as it is now (it's not great, but it's been OK).
Requiring teachers to teach two groups of hybrid classes PLUS one group of fully virtual is a mess.

Anonymous wrote:
Make that decision and make it know that all schools remain in DL until that metric is met. Do schools reopen fully, 5 days per week for anyone who wants it when that happens?

For Prince George's County, that's when some in person instruction for vulnerable groups can begin to occur. That's been announced since August -- until we are at 10 new cases per 100,000 per day we have been all virtual.

If we get down to 5 new cases per 100,000 per day I think we can do hybrid.

Here is the CDC's guidance on how risky it is for schools to be open based on new cases, per 14 days, per 100,000.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/indicators.html#thresholds

Note that I stated risk in terms of new cases, per DAY. Not per fortnight! So you have to multiply my number by 14.

I said that we can open to SOME vulerable students when new cases per day per 100,000 are 10. That wold be 140 per fortnight. That puts you in the orange zone according to the CDC's chart -- higher risk of transmission.
So yes, at that stage you could begin bringing absolutely necessary students such as special needs kids.

PLEASE NOTE that in MD right now we are at about 40-50 new cases per day per 100,000. We aren't even CLOSE to the 10 we should be at.

50 new cases per 100,000 per day x 14 = 600 new cases per 100,000 per fortnight. On the CDC chart that is RED zone. Greater than 200. HIGHEST risk of transmission.