Are you sending your kids to school next month?

Our HS has had 3 positive cases the past two weeks. Unfortunately, all three cases were from 3 different cohorts so there aren't enough teachers not quarantined to teach. Therefore the HS is closed until next Tuesday. All three cases can be traced to a party 2 weeks ago.

Another HS in the area also had a few cases on Cohort "A" so they quarantined the 70 kids who had direct contact with those students. Because they have to now clean those classrooms, another 170 are now on remote learning. It then came out that Cohort "B" also has kids who were in contact with those who tested positive because, surprise! Everyone was at the same party. Now Cohort B is remote.
 
Agreed, it’s the medical version of security theater.
See I don’t think it is really that. No one really knows how to deal with this virus. Every day the news says one thing and then something different two days later. I really think schools are trying to make the best decisions for their populations. We may not agree with them on how they go about it, but I do think the best of intent is there to curtail the spread and protect as many as they can.

Part of the problem is also no consistency. Every district in every state has a different policy. It is an overall nightmare scenario really.
 
We are in cohorts and the only other teacher students see is their elective teacher. I am that elective teacher for the 8th grade cohort right now.

While the students stay in their core class all day long, they do come to the elective classroom. Therefore while a core teacher will see only their 15-20 kids, I will have about 100 kids coming through my room.

I am sanitizing the chairs, desks, and drum sticks (we are bucket drumming right now) after each class. I may not be needed, but that's what we are told to do and it makes the parents feel better. It takes 3-4 minutes of my time after each class. Not a big deal.
 


We are in cohorts and the only other teacher students see is their elective teacher. I am that elective teacher for the 8th grade cohort right now.

While the students stay in their core class all day long, they do come to the elective classroom. Therefore while a core teacher will see only their 15-20 kids, I will have about 100 kids coming through my room.

I am sanitizing the chairs, desks, and drum sticks (we are bucket drumming right now) after each class. I may not be needed, but that's what we are told to do and it makes the parents feel better. It takes 3-4 minutes of my time after each class. Not a big deal.
If nothing else, it should help cut down in colds and other viruses kids spread.
 
See I don’t think it is really that. No one really knows how to deal with this virus. Every day the news says one thing and then something different two days later. I really think schools are trying to make the best decisions for their populations. We may not agree with them on how they go about it, but I do think the best of intent is there to curtail the spread and protect as many as they can.

Part of the problem is also no consistency. Every district in every state has a different policy. It is an overall nightmare scenario really.
You’re right. I didn’t mean to imply any malicious intent on the schools making these policies. It’s most likely what you said — they don’t really know what they’re doing. Closing schools on Wednesday to deep clean to try to kill virus particles that would have already infected someone when they were first spread on Monday or Tuesday and would naturally be dead by Thursday anyway, rendering Wednesday’s cleaning moot either way. That’s the theater I’m talking about. Taking strong, proactive measures that are... mostly ineffective when you think about it. All the information to date seems to point to the idea that the biggest risk is airborne transmission from prolonged contact in enclosed indoor environments. Distance and air flow are two of the best ways to mitigate the risk, but policy makers can’t really escape the fact that classrooms are small, often windowless, spaces where students will be in close proximity to each other and breathing the same air for a considerable amount of time. So, unless they’re going to admit school buildings are a risky environment for transmission by their very nature, the best they can do is 1) try to keep virus particles out of the air in the first place by requiring masks and asking symptomatic students to stay home (and we know neither of those points are foolproof), and 2) do whatever they can to assure parents, students, and themselves that they’re taking it seriously, even if what they’re doing is mostly ineffective in the scheme of things. I’m sure most of these policy makers are acting with good intent, whether that’s because they don’t know any better or because they do, but wiping down surfaces at the end of the day makes them feel better than they would throwing their hands up and saying it is what it is, we’re just taking our chances.
 
My 4 year old's daycare is half closed since two student workers tested positive and that meant that all of the two and three year olds were exposed. Infants, 1 year olds and pre-schoolers only for the next week and a half.

The 7 year old's school has had one case.

Numbers have jumped in my city since the University started again. They've had 300 positive tests on campus this week.
 


We had an incident the next town over. High school kid tested positive for COVID on Saturday. Parents sent him to school on Monday. The school didn't get notified about the positive test until Tuesday, and now 40 kids and staff are quarantined.

This is exactly why I kept my kids full remote. I am trying hard to do the right thing, but can't rely on others to do the same. It's so frustrating.
 
We had an incident the next town over. High school kid tested positive for COVID on Saturday. Parents sent him to school on Monday. The school didn't get notified about the positive test until Tuesday, and now 40 kids and staff are quarantined.

This is exactly why I kept my kids full remote. I am trying hard to do the right thing, but can't rely on others to do the same. It's so frustrating.
I think that's pretty reprehensible. There's no excuse, but I am curious. Do you know if he had the test on Saturday or got the results on Saturday? Still shouldn't be going with a test pending, but a lot of places are having some pretty long delays with results. And a lot of people aren't being treated for symptoms, but out of an abundance of caution.
 
Update for us - we definitely made the right decision to pull our kids and homeschool them. Our district had two options - 100% virtual or 100% in-person. The school that my kids would have gone to had they been in-person (not something we actually considered) was closed for the first 8 days because 16 teachers were exposed to COVID on the day before school started (5 tested positive). So they would have started out missing over a week of school anyway. They've made it 3 days so far, but an elementary school in our district just had a teacher test positive so I'm sure more cases (and closures) are coming. Teachers at the in-person school weren't trained in online teaching, so when schools shut down the education sort of shuts down as well.

The virtual school, from what my friends tell me, is a train wreck. Many of the Chromebooks didn't arrive and won't arrive for weeks. They've packed the classes with the maximum allowable number 35 and double up if a teacher has to take a day off, so there can be 70 in an online class. Those classes have been going on for two weeks and apparently no content has been covered - and they planned it that way, apparently.
 
Beginning Week 3 here in New York, and so far so good as far as virus. There is a strict mask mandate and physical barriers installed between desks, so we are set up for every day whenever we get the green light, but for now desks are distanced, masks are worn, and physical barriers are up. Our system of submitting a wellness check every single morning is a pain, but it's working. Anyone with a cold symptom cannot be in school. This has happened to 3 of my kids' teachers so far and all 3 had tests on Day 5 of symptoms and all were negative, so they were able to return to school in their masks of course.
 
I think that's pretty reprehensible. There's no excuse, but I am curious. Do you know if he had the test on Saturday or got the results on Saturday? Still shouldn't be going with a test pending, but a lot of places are having some pretty long delays with results. And a lot of people aren't being treated for symptoms, but out of an abundance of caution.

According to the reports, they got the results on Saturday. There are parents who are talking about filing a lawsuit over it - I have mixed feelings about that but there is grounds for negligence if one of the close contacts gets sick.
 
According to the reports, they got the results on Saturday. There are parents who are talking about filing a lawsuit over it - I have mixed feelings about that but there is grounds for negligence if one of the close contacts gets sick.
Personally I think it should be criminal to knowingly expose someone to a deadly disease without their knowledge. But I don't think that is the case yet.

I'm home for the next two weeks with at least one kid, maybe both. The 4 year old was exposed at day care last week by another 4 year old that had a positive test result come back yesterday, so he is quarantined. The 7 year old was in the same group as an 8 year old that tested positive on Friday, but according to the YMCA is not considered a "close contact" of that child at the moment.
 
So still no covid cases at our school as we come up on the one-month mark... but about a dozen students, including my 12yo, are out with something else, which certainly doesn't seem to bode well for the precautions being taken! It seems there is no stopping the "change of weather" head cold, no matter how often we wipe things down or how diligent we are about wearing masks. Maybe it is just a really common allergy? I normally wouldn't keep DD home over the mild symptoms she's having - runny nose during the day/congestion at night, bouts of sneezing, and watery eyes - but it makes her mask really uncomfortable for even short trips to the store so wearing it all day for school isn't going to happen until she's feeling a bit better. We didn't pursue covid testing because the symptoms don't match up, but two of the other families with sick kids and one sick staff member did and they all got negatives.
 
So still no covid cases at our school as we come up on the one-month mark... but about a dozen students, including my 12yo, are out with something else, which certainly doesn't seem to bode well for the precautions being taken! It seems there is no stopping the "change of weather" head cold, no matter how often we wipe things down or how diligent we are about wearing masks. Maybe it is just a really common allergy? I normally wouldn't keep DD home over the mild symptoms she's having - runny nose during the day/congestion at night, bouts of sneezing, and watery eyes - but it makes her mask really uncomfortable for even short trips to the store so wearing it all day for school isn't going to happen until she's feeling a bit better. We didn't pursue covid testing because the symptoms don't match up, but two of the other families with sick kids and one sick staff member did and they all got negatives.

I hope you will reconsider that (bolded by me) stance in the future beyond this pandemic. People shouldn’t be sending their kids to school or going into work with cold/flu symptoms. It may be inconvenient for a sick person/family to stay home, but it has the potential to inconvenience many other families to stay home.
 
I hope you will reconsider that (bolded by me) stance in the future beyond this pandemic. People shouldn’t be sending their kids to school or going into work with cold/flu symptoms. It may be inconvenient for a sick person/family to stay home, but it has the potential to inconvenience many other families to stay home.
Those symptoms the person described were what I got a lot when I had allergies. They weren't cold or flu symptoms to me at all and I knew myself well enough to know if it was July it probably wasn't allergies if my environment didn't change but if it was spring or fall my seasonal allergies would kick in. Similarly winter I didn't have allergies much at all.

Maybe allergies isn't what the person's child had but those aren't necessarily cold/flu symptoms only as if that's the only thing it could be either.
 
Those symptoms the person described were what I got a lot when I had allergies. They weren't cold or flu symptoms to me at all and I knew myself well enough to know if it was July it probably wasn't allergies if my environment didn't change but if it was spring or fall my seasonal allergies would kick in. Similarly winter I didn't have allergies much at all.

Maybe allergies isn't what the person's child had but those aren't necessarily cold/flu symptoms only as if that's the only thing it could be either.

I have long suspected it is allergies, because it happens every single year around the same time which is a big part of why I haven't kept her home in the past. We've never had her tested because it is usually a pretty mild and short-lived thing, but it always seems to coincide with our annual apple picking outing so I know it is seasonal to within a window of just a few weeks. When she was little, either she would get sick right before we went and I would debate cancelling until she begged to still go, or she would get sick right after and I'd think I should have dressed her warmer and not planned as long a day. And this is no different - the variety of apple I like comes in around this time, so we're going picking next week and she's under the weather right now.

It only struck me as possibly being something different this year because several of her schoolmates are dealing with the same thing at the same time, and because we're so much more aware of illnesses right now. Maybe that is just coincidence - her band director, who is the only staff member out sick, just got a diagnosis today of allergies aggravating his COPD (I know his daughter and she let me know because she knew the kids were worried; he's all sorts of high-risk but came out of retirement to start our program this year despite the pandemic), and so did one of the families that went for covid testing - but the number of kids having similar symptoms naturally made me think it is something contagious.
 
We are now full virtual for the next three weeks. Not surprising with how numbers have looked for the last week and a half.
 
DD17 is going back Tuesday. She goes to a very small school. They have a great plan in place to keep kids apart, mandatory masks, etc. I'm excited for her.
 
My kids are going back in person on Monday of next week. ODD found out yesterday that for her math class, it'll be just her and 2 other students and the teacher in person. The math teacher said, "It's basically going to be like a private tutoring session every day." YDD's math class is a very similar situation. 70% of the kids' parents opted to do online. So I'm pretty happy with our decision. My kids are going to get a heck of a lot of very small group instruction with all of their teachers this year.
 

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