Anonymous wrote:

Oh come on like Target and Walmart employees are getting paid millions of dollars to go to their jobs. All teachers do is complain about low pay but it's a profession they chose.

Target and Walmart employees have gotten raises-https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2020/06/target-increases-starting-wage-to-15-thanks-frontl#:~:text=Target%20set%20its%202020%20goal,in%20June%202019%20to%20%2413. -whereas teachers have taken paycuts. These employees also don't purchase materials for their jobs to the tune of hundreds of dollars a year or take any work home. They have limited interactions with customers, who are all required to wear masks (or they are kicked out of the store). We are being asked to go back to work in small, unventilated classrooms for seven hours a day without a break, with a group of children who we cannot force to wear a mask. That's not the same thing. They are not responsible for blowing noses, helping customers in the bathroom, tying shoes, wiping tears, or touching customers in any capacity.

Frankly, they also didn't take on student loans or work through six years of school to work there. Sorry, not the same job, not the same risks. If you want us to go to work, then give us hazard pay. Pay me for the prep periods and lunches you want to take away. Otherwise, I don't think so. I am not a servant

Wow. NP here. I have sympathy for your situation, but you seem to lack empathy for the employees at Target and WalMart. The raises that they are getting are minimal, and they are certainly taking on risk, especially since there are defiant and crazy customers who challenge masks and social distancing.

I don't think all teachers should have to return, but I think special education and early elementary teachers should be considered essential workers, the same way that doctors and nurses (also highly educated professionals) are. They're not getting raises because of COVID. And they, like those teachers, cannot effectively perform their jobs from home.

Where I live (in a low col area), teachers with the most experience are making $80-90k. So if they’re married to another teacher that’s a $160-180k hhi. Not “low pay.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thinking of sending my kids to live with grandparents in upstate New York. They will quarantine at home first, I'll drive them up there, and let them do another quarantine officially with grandma and grandpa. They are old enough to be a help to my folks (who asked for them to come). If Maryland doesn't get it together and turn our state around, it's going to be a long, hard winter stuck mostly indoors on our screens.

So we would consider this too (we have one year until our oldest enters kindergarten). That being said, I'll believe it when I see it in terms of schools actually opening up there.

This whole response has been a mess and I don't think we've begun to understand the fallout. A good friend of mine in another state just quit her nursing position when schools announced fulltime distance learning for the upcoming school year. They were able to make it work in the spring as her husband was at home teleworking more and able to shoulder the DL and childcare burden. But now he's back fulltime and makes more- it would also be eaier for her to find a new position a couple years down the road. She said that the continued school closure almost felt like a "green light" to put her family first. Why assume the risks that come with healthcare only to have most of her salary go to pay a nanny? The societal benefits don't outweigh the personal risks- teachers have come to that decision, and others will too. It will be interesting to see how widespread this sort of thing is, because if a parent quits, it is more likely to be the mom, and there are a number of so-called "essential" fields that are dominated by women.

I think the ripple effect of DL on the economy as parents have to quit or take leave from their jobs is going to be large. I just can't see people having any other option in many circumstances other than quitting their jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm thinking of sending my kids to live with grandparents in upstate New York. They will quarantine at home first, I'll drive them up there, and let them do another quarantine officially with grandma and grandpa. They are old enough to be a help to my folks (who asked for them to come). If Maryland doesn't get it together and turn our state around, it's going to be a long, hard winter stuck mostly indoors on our screens.

Is the district your parents live in reopening fulltime? I grew up in upstate NY and the school district I attended proposed a hybrid model- two days in school, three days DL. ESOL and SN students would get to attend in-person 4 days. This is in an area with very low infection rates currently- they have opened up indoor dining, etc., but haven't seen the jump like in other places.

Guess I'm just pointing out that even the places who are doing well and plan to open schools will still be limited- will the grandparents support DL if needed? Hard to see how many places will get to fulltime this year.

Yeah, their schools are going to do a hybrid, even though they have very few cases. I'd still have my own kids do distance learning from their school district down here in MD though. I don't want my kids to go to school in person, even in NY. But, at least in NY they probably won't have to go through another stay at home order.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Can you please take your debate about whether we could or could not open soon elsewhere? There are many other threads for this, and I don't want to debate it. I think it will be years of DL and the question is how to manage it. For this thread, could you just assume that will be true?

Getting back to the main subject, and thinking outside the box, I wonder about going the GED route for the older teens. Has anyone thought about that?

What state are you in?

Anonymous wrote:
It flatly doesn't matter. The virus is here and not going away and even you hysterics are gonna have to learn to live with it. Replace dreaded "COVID" with "Flu" and then imagine the insane notion of SHUTTING IT DOWN. Then look in the mirror and ponder your humanity.

And yet every civilized country has taken strong actions to control this virus, which is NOT the flu, it is a new virus, we have no idea the long term effects. Only in the US are we arguing about whether we should be trying to slow its spread.

OP here. Can you please take your debate about whether we could or could not open soon elsewhere? There are many other threads for this, and I don't want to debate it. I think it will be years of DL and the question is how to manage it. For this thread, could you just assume that will be true?

Getting back to the main subject, and thinking outside the box, I wonder about going the GED route for the older teens. Has anyone thought about that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is asking teachers to have full blown moshpits of drunkin school kids making out with everyone.
All parents are asking is that A. schools reopen. B. They be done so with PPE (masks if needed, shields, distance) C. have a clear plan based on Science and data for how to trace/track and notify if there are positive cases.

Teachers are essential workers. Period. They chose this profession just like Drs, Nurses, Dentists, Psychiatrists, and millions of other professionals. They knew that their job (K-12) would not be a work from home type of job. I have not heard ONE benchmark that hasn't moved for when teachers think schools can reopen. First it was PPE, then it was reduced hours, then it was 14 days no new cases (city, county, state, country, who knows), now it is vaccine?? All the while we have daycares open, checkers at grocery stores, gas stations, janitors at hospitals working and doing their parts. Teachers cry and complain about having to 'go on the front lines'. Front lines?? Come to a hospital for a day honey. That is front lines and not with kids. With actual sick, elderly, injured, infected.
THEN cry to me how 6 months off wasn't enough and you still need more time. Till when? We have a whole batch of new grads that I bet would take yours spot in a heartbeat.

And the teachers aren't in control of B or C. The teachers I know would go back if B and C were true, but they aren't. And that's not on teachers, it's on state, local, and federal government. Frankly, I don't think C is possible until we reduce the spread, because when you have even the numbers we have in DC, you're beyond testing and tracing. We need to drastically reduce cases, while ramping up testing, tracing, and quarantine support. Then you can do C, and schools could open. As a parent, I agree with your A, B, and C, but I don't want to send my kid back without B and C, and right now it doesn't feel like those are in place.

Are you trying to tell me SCHOOLS can't keep track of positive cases and alert parents? Really. They won't know what class the kid has been in or what class the teacher taught. Give me a break.
PPE is readily available and has been even offered to be paid for by parents for goodness sakes. It is just the teachers don't want it because then they would have to work.

Anonymous wrote:No one is asking teachers to have full blown moshpits of drunkin school kids making out with everyone.
All parents are asking is that A. schools reopen. B. They be done so with PPE (masks if needed, shields, distance) C. have a clear plan based on Science and data for how to trace/track and notify if there are positive cases.

Teachers are essential workers. Period. They chose this profession just like Drs, Nurses, Dentists, Psychiatrists, and millions of other professionals. They knew that their job (K-12) would not be a work from home type of job. I have not heard ONE benchmark that hasn't moved for when teachers think schools can reopen. First it was PPE, then it was reduced hours, then it was 14 days no new cases (city, county, state, country, who knows), now it is vaccine?? All the while we have daycares open, checkers at grocery stores, gas stations, janitors at hospitals working and doing their parts. Teachers cry and complain about having to 'go on the front lines'. Front lines?? Come to a hospital for a day honey. That is front lines and not with kids. With actual sick, elderly, injured, infected.
THEN cry to me how 6 months off wasn't enough and you still need more time. Till when? We have a whole batch of new grads that I bet would take yours spot in a heartbeat.

And the teachers aren't in control of B or C. The teachers I know would go back if B and C were true, but they aren't. And that's not on teachers, it's on state, local, and federal government. Frankly, I don't think C is possible until we reduce the spread, because when you have even the numbers we have in DC, you're beyond testing and tracing. We need to drastically reduce cases, while ramping up testing, tracing, and quarantine support. Then you can do C, and schools could open. As a parent, I agree with your A, B, and C, but I don't want to send my kid back without B and C, and right now it doesn't feel like those are in place.

No one is asking teachers to have full blown moshpits of drunkin school kids making out with everyone.
All parents are asking is that A. schools reopen. B. They be done so with PPE (masks if needed, shields, distance) C. have a clear plan based on Science and data for how to trace/track and notify if there are positive cases.

Teachers are essential workers. Period. They chose this profession just like Drs, Nurses, Dentists, Psychiatrists, and millions of other professionals. They knew that their job (K-12) would not be a work from home type of job. I have not heard ONE benchmark that hasn't moved for when teachers think schools can reopen. First it was PPE, then it was reduced hours, then it was 14 days no new cases (city, county, state, country, who knows), now it is vaccine?? All the while we have daycares open, checkers at grocery stores, gas stations, janitors at hospitals working and doing their parts. Teachers cry and complain about having to 'go on the front lines'. Front lines?? Come to a hospital for a day honey. That is front lines and not with kids. With actual sick, elderly, injured, infected.
THEN cry to me how 6 months off wasn't enough and you still need more time. Till when? We have a whole batch of new grads that I bet would take yours spot in a heartbeat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. As background, in early Feb. I liquidated some equity savings because I thought there would be a market crash, and I bought some extra sanitizer and bleach cleaning products. I also moved up my routine health appointments when I could. When school ended in March, I told my kids they would likely not be back in in-person school until 2021 earliest. In other words, my track record isn't perfect and I got some stuff wrong (I thought grocery stores/restaurants might be closed for longer periods of time), but my predictions have been generally correct so far. I think that there won't be regular in-person education for years. It would be great if I am wrong, though!

What I am struggling with is what now. I know I am likely right, but what do I do with that? I don't want to move to a place that is pandemic-ignorant or pretends it does not exist. Mask-wearing is essential. But I believe with adequate distancing and PPE, schools could open, at least some smaller private schools. I am just not sure how to find those.

Those of you who have suggestions, thank you. Much appreciated.

I think you are absolutely right. If COVID spread is low, schools can open with masks and social distancing. You need to look for the "green" counties and for states that are aiming to turn most of their counties green through public health orders.

The problem with the "yellow" counties is that it takes too much effort to keep them "yellow". The nature of COVID is to spread easily. So when you have any outbreaks you need to intervene quickly and shut the whole town or city down for 2 weeks to squash the spread. Otherwise your contact tracers are spread too thin. As states are figuring this out, they will get stricter and stricter for a while with their yellow counties, and might not allow schools to be open there -- but that's actually a GOOD sign that they have learned the lesson, and will do what it takes to keep counties "green" as much as possible.

States with "orange" counties that are still having indoor restaurants open "at 50% capacity" are nuts. I'm talking to you Maryland. It's not going to work.

OP here. Thanks for this and the posts immediately above. This is all really useful.

OP here. I really don't want to debate whether teachers should or shouldn't go back in this thread. Please take it as a given for this thread that schools will be largely DL for years, possibly with the exception of smaller private schools that can implement strict masking requirements/distancing/contact tracing, or schools in areas that remain green. PPs, thanks for those links, that's a really good point about green areas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
But then as soon as states open, the rates go back up. The only way to keep it at 2 per hundred thousand is to keep everything at spring closure levels indefinitely, or be isolated like Hawaii. I think we need to accept a slightly higher rate- I don't know what that it is, but policymakers need to have this debate.

Before someone shouts "Europe!" there are reasons to suspect some of the numbers coming out of certain countries right now.

No. Apparently keeping spread to less than 1 per 100,000 per day means you can control with testing, quarantine, and contact tracing. You need to stay vigilant, though, and you really can't have a lot of travel from the out of control states or countries.

You don't need to have stay at home orders as much. You might need to keep wearing masks indoors.

PP doesn’t understand you just can’t go a ‘little bit higher’ bc exponential growth gets out of control real fast and our tools can’t maintain at that level.

How do you explain NY then?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I would consider mental health treatment for yourself

Not Op, but I think you are the one who needs help. OP is being realistic. If you talk to experts in the field the vaccine is not nearly as likely to be available and be effective as the newspapers make you think. Bury your head in the sand if you wish. OP is just trying to plan.

No you! lol
Burying your head in the sand is promoting the idea that under these conditions we stayed locked down. Not the opposite. It's here, that's it, and years of shut down is ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:Here's news from the sports world. This was with lots of precautions, and testing and "podding"

Now imagine this repeated over and over again in the schools.

It flatly doesn't matter. The virus is here and not going away and even you hysterics are gonna have to learn to live with it. Replace dreaded "COVID" with "Flu" and then imagine the insane notion of SHUTTING IT DOWN. Then look in the mirror and ponder your humanity.