Trump to defund schools unless they reopen for on-person instruction

trump preventing CDC officials from testifying at next week's House Education Committee hearing on school openings... so much for the "science is on our side" lie...

 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...idance-reopen-covid-15420584.php?t=fbd6342675

Houston-area school boards consider changes to reopening plans following new TEA guidance

More at the link above

 

Trump is just worried that too many of his supporters will be in the ICU on election day. He's trying to take more "maskies" out of the game.

 

Whats good for me is not for thee...

Scott Wants Schools Open But Not for His Grandkids

https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/21/scott-wants-schools-open-but-not-for-his-grandkids/

 

The school systems are admitting the teachers are at risk. Period. They've already admitted it.
Now wait for the lawsuits. Some teachers who told the school I am afraid this will kill me will actually die from the virus. Then the school system will be sued for knowingly endangering its employees.
And the school system cannot say it did the best it could. Because the schools and school buses will not follow social distancing. And the school will not clean classrooms between periods. Some classrooms see six sets of students in one day. The desks will not be cleaned in between. Ventilation systems are inadequate. Many classrooms have no windows. This is all known. The schools are not ready and that is a known fact. The health risk is a known fact. The lawsuits will be class action.

 

the model I've seen for schools is students stay in one classroom all day long, teachers rotate and/or teach multiple subjects. Lunch is brought into the classroom. Not saying this is the model everywhere, but that is what is being discussed in NYS

 

Has any Teacher Union filed a lawsuit to "stop" in person education yet? I think that would be happening now if they believe they have a case.

There is no such thing as no risk, but who is it to determine the level of risk? And frankly, no one know - especially if we do have in-person education in community with huge caseload of covid19 (no one is doing this in the world AFAIK). We will know better after the fact, after our or someone else live experiment.

I do like the idea of options and perhaps... there should be remote school and in person school with choice from both parents and educators (with hazard paid to compensate for their risk). Some parent and teachers will take the risk and some don't. School starts in a few weeks so this type of system probably cannot be put in place, but then... if only the gov and school districts had planned for a bad fall (which many have warn that it could be) since April...

 

Florida teachers sue as DeSantis distances himself from school openings

https://www.politico.com/states/flo...istances-himself-from-school-openings-1302355

 

Desantis is a weasel, going straight from the Trump playbook of passing the buck.

 

lotsa unhappy parents out there

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/dc-area-schools-not-opening/

 

OK, then the middle school and high school teachers can act as the virus collectors and distributors between sets of students.
Then there are all the surfaces that kids can't stop touching, and the bathrooms, the buses.
The classrooms still don't have social distancing. They still don't have ventilation.
In colleges, you still do have several sets of students occupying one classroom in a day, up to four or five sets. Didn't you ever file into a classroom after a previous class let out and feel "The air is not fresh in here"? Well I have. Go ahead and sit in the desk where two or three reliable college students sat before you today. Now enjoy a fifty-minute shower of the teacher's breath, not from behind a mask, but a face shield, so his/her mouth can be seen by students.
We can't trust college kids to buy beer, but some people pose "How dare we not trust our young people with this important task?"

And, of course, there will be the anti-mask students who take the mask off in the classroom. . . . What then? Call the cops? After you evacuate the classroom, or what? Anti-mask students will presumably be physically barred from schools and campuses?

 

Solid article.

 

Yikes. Bro, how much more would you have hated going to school if you literally had to sit in one room all day ?

In-person is gonna be hard to design a "safe" system , and have it be somewhat enjoyable / productive.

And i do think some school are gonna try to re-open in person. There's a legit cost-benefit with working parents, the spread of the disease, etc ... and for areas that either lack the ability to go online , or there are low case #'s , or some other factor ... i can see it clearly being the OK choice.. and there are probably some areas that will make the decision to re-open (maybe without a careful analysis) and end up regretting it. There are prolly also systems that will go online and it will disadvantage some of the population they are serving , education at the expense of health ( and or work for parents )

When you think about it tho ... the problem isnt unsolvable . Its not like the student population got larger, or that all the teachers quit. The problem was that public education was already clunky . But , especially in an area like houston you have a very large part of the student body that has internet acesss and if you have those that can "learn" from home then there should be enough building space to run a relatively distanced in-person setup. Whatver you do , you gotta make the "school day" shorter. IMO

Also IMO , this is a much bigger problem for k-5 than it is for 6-12 . I've been a teacher , i would have no idea of how to do virtual learning for younger kids. My best guess, assign videos to watch / stuff to read and then use classroom time to have a discussion. But thats also the methodology i use for teens/ college , Im probably a little too hopeful that works for younger kids

 

It is known that the levels of risk are different for different people. So they give consideration to people over age 65, for example. Well, what about age 64: same as age 34? Hispanics and Blacks suffer more from the virus; it's known. Does the employer want to ignore that? Men are at a higher risk of death from the virus than women. That's a fact, though the data is hardly reported. So, these facts do exist, and employers have to sort through all of them, or just blow them off.

Like your suggestion, the NBA allowed an opt-out from the bubble. Schools aren't doing that. It would sure save them some legal hassles.

And some schools have online-only teachers as well! Assigning online-only classes to some teachers while other go face to face is a life-and-death responsibility now. Who wants it?

 

This is a huge issues........ This is an issue WIDELY known for many months. Before we "opened up" there were studies and findings that AC systems only spread the virus. We knew indoor restaurants and church services and bars and clubs were a disaster from what we say in other parts of the world. Yet we opened up, no call for improved filtration at all...... so we open up and it explodes, and the tracing of credit card purchases substantiated it was from areas with poor ventilation and recirculated air.

So now we had to take a step back and....... our response is to send kids to school without proper air filtration? We are putting people at risk and wasting so much money. Make masks mandatory......... increase testing.......... make schools and businesses invest in better air filtration.

We are just so incredibly short sighted......... we had virtue signaling with "hug an Asian/huge events" by liberals in areas before lock down, then we have criticism of the president for stopping travel to China (should have been Europe as well), we have the President doing ZERO preparation, zero leading and refusing to act in the best interest of the company...... have governors that are more concerned with tourism and "business" than helping people, and the irony is that we are PAYING financially out the nose AND still have the pandemic raging because of the complete lack of common sense by both parties, but primarily by that fat sack of orange **** in the White House.