As an elementary school teacher, I promise you that kids are falling behind. Also the learning gap between kids who have parents who can work from home and help them keep up and families where their parents are grocery store clerks, McDonald's druve=thru workers and other essential workers who cannot stay home with their kids is huge. I say that as someone who does not support opening up at the start of the school year. But I would rather be honest about it rather than pretend no harm is done. Elementary absolutely does not move at a snail's pace.
My wife has problems even getting kids to wear their badges in school. Mask wearing will not happen without heavily punishment for the kids and living in Texas those kids follow their parents politics closely like parrots. Many kids will refuse because their parents tell them it’s a hoax and it’ll be a big issue. The right wing Parents in my wife’s school district are nuts.
And what if there is no vaccine or if vaccine is 3 years away? No, you can’t wait and you don’t have to. Open in person school once community spread is low and with precaution and safety in place. In places with high community spread, like many part of the US, good luck - it’s a bit of a lab experiment. Most studies are on school opening after successfully containing the virus. Focus on reducing community spread and putting in precaution and safety so the risk is drastically reduced. Funds should already have been allocated and provided to schools district for this. Even in places with high infection rate, if you open up for in person education, you must then have safety plan in place and enforced. Again, funds should be allocated for this. yelling let’s just open up no matter what plus not doing what’s needed to reduce spread and putting precaution and safety plan in places is the trump way - avoid the stupid gamble
Also even if a vaccine is approved in Dec by the FDA, it’ll take at least 6 months to vaccinate just the first lucky few who get the vaccine. The federal government is likely asleep at the wheel in building an infrastructure to create that kind of ability to mass product at that level. Also it’s likely the vaccine will only be partially affective. We are still going to be dealing with Covid for years... YEARS. So the US needs to get its sh$t together and start planning and implementing a new normal for safe societal functioning for the long haul. This “wait for a vaccine” approach will destroy our economy, our children’s learning, and definitely our health and safety.
There have been school studies talked about in other countries too, where Covid-19 was basically non-existent compared to the US or even Texas. These studies are misleading and manipulating people into believing it is safe. Germany has 83.8 million people, so compared to those other studies it might seem more pertinent in comparison, so I read the article. That study was taken over 13 schools in a far western region of Germany in the districts of Dresden, Bautzen, and Gorlitz. Here is the Germany Covid-19 chart of cases by month. The columns are total count for 3/13, 05/08, 06/05, and 07/14. The last column hasn't been figured in yet. They had no cases in any of those districts. https://www.citypopulation.de/en/germany/covid/ There never was a pandemic situation there, unlike the US or Texas. To make people think it will be safe here because of that study is dangerous. Our cases are skyrocketing in the US and Texas. From June 13th to July 13th the USA added 647,059 new cases, Texas added 105,574 new cases, and Harris County added 31,305 new cases. Nobody in their right mind would even considering reopening schools at this point. Countries across Europe shut schools down, locked down borders, and closed businesses during a time their numbers were far far less than this.
Yeah I looked up the numbers after I posted about it. Saxony has 4.08 million people. They’ve had 5,473 total positive cases. That’s a positivity rate of 0.13%. In the study they tested 2,045 students and teachers and found only 12 are carrying the antibodies. That’s a positivity rate of 0.58%. So despite the really really small number of students and teachers that have gotten sick, it’s still a higher rate than the actual population, albeit not by much.
So what happens when a class dies from covid? Who's willing to sacrifice their kids and how would you feel if one of the kids is yours? As a parent sending your kid to school in a hor zone such as Houston is like playing Russian Roulette with your kid... As far as kids falling behind... Kids are like a sponge and they can catch up. But hey, all of my kids are over 18 and I don't have to worry about that decision... But if I did.. No way in Hell I'm letting my kid go to school.. If something happened to them there is no way I could forgive or live with myself. T_Man
The schools they tested in were in Dresden, Bautzen, and Gorlitz, who never had reported cases at all, and still don't, according to the German website which tracks all cases. https://www.citypopulation.de/en/germany/covid/ Anyway, we are nowhere close to safe numbers here to experiment with people's lives. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of teachers, children, and school personnel experimenting with their lives in the midst of the worst possible time. Even in Texas daycares we had over 2,000 cases, with a third of those being children. Those numbers have increased 110% in the past 2 weeks. When you are talking entire school districts, you have far more children, and far more higher risk adults. That's crazy.
Different subject matter all together, by then we could have more than 200k dead by the virus and kids and teachers dying daily.....would rather err on the side of caution and extend summer 4 months. DD
I agreed with everything other than this statement - we have slowed our elementary schools down over the last 40 years, what we teach now is so much less than what we taught 40 years ago - a kid could EASILY miss a year and catch up in a couple of months - generally speaking. However, I do agree with you about kids in less than ideal circumstances - all kids are not in an equal situation, but if we delayed the start they would be. DD
What, now you’re backpedalling and throwing up straw men? Zero people are suggesting school open “yesterday”. Your position was that schools should open, it’s totally doable, you can stuff kids into classrooms, there’s plenty of space for 6 feet distance, you can have thousands of kids roaming hallways and have teachers and staff just wear surgical masks, not N95, and enforce kids wearing masks, all while the Covid pandemic rages across Harris County and across Texas. So all of a sudden, you’re not advocating for schools to open? So what is your position? Reopen While covid is raging, it’s fine because we can Enforce masks and find space to distance miraculously? Our current threat level Red? Do we reopen only after covid is on a downward trend? Or threat level Orange? Can we get a Yellow? Or Green? The problem with Trump and people who think like him is that they wish for things without actual plans, thoughts, and action backed by science. It’s just stupid demands or positions like, Open the Economy! Open up Schools! The responsible adults, medical professionals and educators that are actually working this problem are incredibly tired of this level of noise and stupidity and incessant ranting. We have way too many people who are rarely right, but never lacking volume or conviction.
Not in 105 degree heat, not with tablets, not on rainy days, not on windy days, not when using computers for research or programming and coding,. So basically, no.
whats with all the discussion of N95 masks? People hate wearing those things. I bought several and used one for 5 minutes before I went back. I wear the kind with the vent sometimes pre-pandemic but those are germ spreaders.
I don’t even know how to respond to this and don’t quite understand your point. N95s work to Protect the wearer because are effective to filter out a lot of airborne particles. So of course there will be the negative pressure when you inhale...meaning it’s tougher to breathe in. do people hate wearing those things? I don’t know, I guess it’s a comfort v protection calculus people need to make. I have no idea what you mean when you say they are germ spreaders, but suffice it to say that ;95 masks are not germ spreaders and nobody should think that. We do not need false information out there.
Yes people hate those things. My company handed them out months ago and people instantly trashed them. Those people made the calculus and decided on cloth/surgical masks. N95 masks with vents (as I noted) are germ spreaders.
in the school reopening setting, if I were a teacher, I would want to be provided the option of being given N95 masks. At least it’s my choice on the comfort v protection calculus. I don’t know what the N95 masks with vents are. Seems to me that vents would wreck the effectiveness of filtering, unless the vents make exhaling easier, so the wearer is spreading germs. I don’t know how that alleviates the discomfort of negative pressure when inhaling, which is the cause of the discomfort usually.
Bro get a life. I already responded to Glynch yesterday that we shouldn't open right now and the European countries were in a better situation The O.P. doesn't give s timeline. So I said you can't wait on a vaccine. Excuse me for not having a specific plan. Never claimed to be a CDC official. Jeesh
