Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand this conversation about how we had to close schools because otherwise kids would get Covid and give it to vulnerable family members.

Perhaps you all can afford nannies/tutors/SAHPs so school closures mean your kids are not in group care? That’s not how it works for most families.

Our friends got Covid (as did their parents) because their kindergartener was in daycare (old daycare offered spots for older kids who needed it, and they both work so they needed it). Kid gave it to parents and grandparents. Fortunately everyone came through okay but school closures didn’t prevent anything in their case. They have to work. They need childcare. A full time nanny wasn’t an option.

We knew another family who did have a nanny, they still all got Covid (nanny caught it from her son who she lives with who got it from his in person job). Again, school closures didn’t help at all.

My kid was in group care through the entire 18 mo closure. We never got Covid, though there were a few outbreaks in my kid’s classes. Again, we work do we didn’t have a choice.

The thing I never understood was why it was okay for our daycare and camp teachers to risk possible exposure, but not teachers. Daycare providers generally make a lot less, plus they have really limited protection in terms of sick leave or other things.

We just shortchanged kids on school to protect one well-educated, higher paid group of people, by keeping kids with a lower-paid, less respected group of people. We didn’t prevent spread of Covid, we just shifted it to others.

Spot on.

The people who claim school closures “saved lives” are so incredibly privileged and ignorant. No, they did not. They just shifted the burdens to the most vulnerable populations.

THIS!!! I was saying this the whole time. Our district closed schools and then opened up "learning centers" for students to go for childcare and chromebook class. Somehow it was ok for the district to pay "monitors" to watch kids at a low salary, but it would be attempted murder to send teachers in the classroom to teach in person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand this conversation about how we had to close schools because otherwise kids would get Covid and give it to vulnerable family members.

Perhaps you all can afford nannies/tutors/SAHPs so school closures mean your kids are not in group care? That’s not how it works for most families.

Our friends got Covid (as did their parents) because their kindergartener was in daycare (old daycare offered spots for older kids who needed it, and they both work so they needed it). Kid gave it to parents and grandparents. Fortunately everyone came through okay but school closures didn’t prevent anything in their case. They have to work. They need childcare. A full time nanny wasn’t an option.

We knew another family who did have a nanny, they still all got Covid (nanny caught it from her son who she lives with who got it from his in person job). Again, school closures didn’t help at all.

My kid was in group care through the entire 18 mo closure. We never got Covid, though there were a few outbreaks in my kid’s classes. Again, we work do we didn’t have a choice.

The thing I never understood was why it was okay for our daycare and camp teachers to risk possible exposure, but not teachers. Daycare providers generally make a lot less, plus they have really limited protection in terms of sick leave or other things.

We just shortchanged kids on school to protect one well-educated, higher paid group of people, by keeping kids with a lower-paid, less respected group of people. We didn’t prevent spread of Covid, we just shifted it to others.

Spot on.

The people who claim school closures “saved lives” are so incredibly privileged and ignorant. No, they did not. They just shifted the burdens to the most vulnerable populations.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I finally had a chance to listen to the episode yesterday. It was sobering but unsurprising. The stories about the people they profiled were a drop in the bucket but oh man. There are going to be a lot of ripple effects.

The student Maricela (?) who is being promoted to high school despite missing most of middle school is incredibly sad.

I think back to the days of "we're all the same boat!" and it enrages me. We were never all in the same boat. Disadvantaged kids just got left further behind.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand this conversation about how we had to close schools because otherwise kids would get Covid and give it to vulnerable family members.

Perhaps you all can afford nannies/tutors/SAHPs so school closures mean your kids are not in group care? That’s not how it works for most families.

Our friends got Covid (as did their parents) because their kindergartener was in daycare (old daycare offered spots for older kids who needed it, and they both work so they needed it). Kid gave it to parents and grandparents. Fortunately everyone came through okay but school closures didn’t prevent anything in their case. They have to work. They need childcare. A full time nanny wasn’t an option.

We knew another family who did have a nanny, they still all got Covid (nanny caught it from her son who she lives with who got it from his in person job). Again, school closures didn’t help at all.

My kid was in group care through the entire 18 mo closure. We never got Covid, though there were a few outbreaks in my kid’s classes. Again, we work do we didn’t have a choice.

The thing I never understood was why it was okay for our daycare and camp teachers to risk possible exposure, but not teachers. Daycare providers generally make a lot less, plus they have really limited protection in terms of sick leave or other things.

We just shortchanged kids on school to protect one well-educated, higher paid group of people, by keeping kids with a lower-paid, less respected group of people. We didn’t prevent spread of Covid, we just shifted it to others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Also a dem here, glad my kid is back in school, but if I were a teacher, or my kids were (grown up) teachers, I'd want to support their choice not to go back into an unvaccinated environment.

My husband is a teacher and went back in August 2020 to a private school. Got vaccinated in January 2021 and he was fine. Even from an educator family, I will always loudly say that Democrats failed kids because we chose teachers.

Are you living under a rock? Do you not realize how much safer most private schools are? Smaller classes, the funds to upgrade their systems, weekly testing, socioeconomic groups that are more likely to be telecommuting, if you are multigenerational household, etc. It’s like comparing apples and oranges

And yet throughout the U.S., there were public schools operating as well beginning in August, and they didn’t have all those things.

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

That's what you're hiding behind - but I was mad then and I'm mad now. I knew it was going to be horrendous socially and educationally all along. Anyone with one iota of common sense knew that.

Anonymous wrote:What the democrats did closing schools was terrible and I'm basically an independent now because of it.

Anonymous wrote:Folks who are angry now must have forgotten what it was like the first year of the pandemic. No one knew what the virus was capable of - what it would do to adults and kids alike. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Our leadership makes decisions based on the information available. It is unfortunate kids were out of school for so long, however, it’s now up to us to come together and help our kids and not expend unnecessary energy on the blame game. If it was your son/daughter who died because schools were open, you’d sing a different tune.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll be honest, I’m really pissed schools were closed for so long. It was done because unions refused to let their teachers return to school. Before anyone says I’m a Trumpie, I am not. I’m a lifelong Democrat! But that’s what happened and we can’t pretend otherwise. It made me change my opinion about teacher unions, for sure. I’m sorry for all the millions of kids who are behind in the US and no one cares. Affluent parents will just say “kids are resilient” - remember that line?

Also a dem here, glad my kid is back in school, but if I were a teacher, or my kids were (grown up) teachers, I'd want to support their choice not to go back into an unvaccinated environment.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand this conversation about how we had to close schools because otherwise kids would get Covid and give it to vulnerable family members.

Perhaps you all can afford nannies/tutors/SAHPs so school closures mean your kids are not in group care? That’s not how it works for most families.

Our friends got Covid (as did their parents) because their kindergartener was in daycare (old daycare offered spots for older kids who needed it, and they both work so they needed it). Kid gave it to parents and grandparents. Fortunately everyone came through okay but school closures didn’t prevent anything in their case. They have to work. They need childcare. A full time nanny wasn’t an option.

We knew another family who did have a nanny, they still all got Covid (nanny caught it from her son who she lives with who got it from his in person job). Again, school closures didn’t help at all.

My kid was in group care through the entire 18 mo closure. We never got Covid, though there were a few outbreaks in my kid’s classes. Again, we work do we didn’t have a choice.

The thing I never understood was why it was okay for our daycare and camp teachers to risk possible exposure, but not teachers. Daycare providers generally make a lot less, plus they have really limited protection in terms of sick leave or other things.

We just shortchanged kids on school to protect one well-educated, higher paid group of people, by keeping kids with a lower-paid, less respected group of people. We didn’t prevent spread of Covid, we just shifted it to others.

Anonymous wrote:If you want to do shoulda coulda woulda on who opened schools and when, surely you also have to pull in the death rates, no?

DC has HALF the per capita death rate of Mississippi, Arizona, and Alabama.

I don't think anybody is arguing that virtual school is great. The choice was never "in person or virtual school, which is better." The choice was "virtual school or killing grandma, which is better."