Should make 5th grade birthday party invite lists, and little league games interesting. Particularly if and when a kid gets sick and there is blame to offer and allocate.
That depends whether there is a difference in testing/isolation protocols and whether the response (ie willingness to go back to remote learning) is different. Itâs likely that parents will be less willing to keep their kids out of school if they only have minor symptoms and quite possible that teachers who are prepared to teach in such a school might be more willing to keep in person classes even during an outbreak.
For some (perhaps many in some states) that will be more desirable than mass quarantines let alone the risk of a return to Zoom school.
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Parents who want to put their kids in a âmask not requiredâ school may be more likely to be those who dismiss COVID-19 as a significant threat (to their kids or anyone their kids may bring it home to). The same may apply to teachers and staff willing to work in that school.
For students graduating high school in 2022 and now making college application lists, and their parents, how important are the COVID-19-related policies* of the colleges and their local and state governments in choosing what colleges to apply to?
*Including vaccination requirements and exemptions, mask rules, quarantine and isolation rules, etcâŠ
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Well, I can tell you Covid policies of the colleges (and the states they are in) were pretty darn important when D21 was deciding. I was keeping up to date on all of the policies as they evolved over last school year. And I was reading as much as I could about the studentsâ experiences too.
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Covid policy had next to no influence, but my son is a recruited athlete so that muddies things.
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My biggest concern is that class be in-person. I am happy for my kid to abide by mask wearing policies and he is already vaccinated (I think they should be mandatory). I donât want to spend anywhere from $20-50k (just tuition, mind you) for my child to be taught on-line. Hybrid schooling for HS was bad enough, but at least I wasnât paying for it.
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Very important for us. Keeping a close eye on COVID policies and numbers in the respective areas (vaccinations/hospitalization/deaths) and government policies (not just relating to COVID). Since thereâs a decent chance of staying in the area after college graduation, I take a more long-term view than just the college years. Itâs made a lot of schools fall off the list, even if the school itself was attractive.
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Those of us in my shoes that have to chase HUGE meritâŠdonât have the luxury of COVID policies being in the mix.
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Just heard that DâS school has no plans to provide remote learning of any kind to students that have to isolate/quarantine because of a positive Covid test. Why are they unwilling to provide this? The pandemic is still with us, the school is still requiring masking and vaccination but no they refuse to accommodate kids who did the right thing and got vaccinated? Iâll be so happy when Iâm done with higher Ed. They really canât find their way out of a paper bag at times.
Seems that colleges which have punitive quarantine / isolation requirements (e.g. test positive â get kicked out of the dorm, become homeless, and miss school for 10-14 days) are likely to have lots of unreported cases, since students will avoid getting tested for any cough, sniffle, fever, etc. other than one that is serious enough to go to the hospital, and they may not want to inform any contact tracer whom they had contact with (what student wants to be the one to cause their friends to become homeless and miss school for 10-14 days?).
Of course, for the vast majority of vaccinated students, the infections (if they get them at all, since the risk of getting infected in the first place is much lower if vaccinated) are likely to be minor annoyances, even if they can be substantially more serious to unvaccinated students and those who have immune-suppressing conditions that make vaccination less effective. Colleges with low vaccination rates and therefore plenty of students for the virus to infect could be particularly risk for the latter group.
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Neither of my kidsâ schools are providing a remote option either, I donât think this is uncommon. Not saying itâs right. Itâs but one of the reasons that students are unlikely to take a covid test if they have symptoms. And for schools not doing surveillance testing, or doing it only once per monthâŠwell there arenât going to many confirmed covid cases.
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Update on Amherst: they clarified some of the rules, and will have some restrictions they expect to ease after September 13 (first two weeks of term; classes start August 30). Here are the restrictions they will have for vaccinated students through September 13:
- Masks required indoors, but no masks required when in residence hall or when in enclosed space. Masks NOT required outdoors EXCEPT in a gathering of more than 25 people in which a distance of 3 feet cannot be maintained between people.
- âIn order to avoid densely packed spaces during this three-week period of timeâ 50 percent capacity on all non-classroom indoor events. No indoor parties. Students are allowed to visit each other in residence halls but no guests who are not living on-campus. Outside food delivery allowed.
- Dining hall will operate at 50% capacity. Large tents will be installed outside the dining hall so all students who wish to do so can eat together. âTwo service locations inside Valentine will provide robust menu options and serve both dine-in and to-go food. Those locations include the main service area of Valentine and Lewis-Sebring. In addition, during the busy lunch period, a grab-and-go self-service station will be open in Keefe Campus Center. We expect this will be the arrangement through the fall but will monitor conditions and, if warranted, will allow more dine-in seating in Valentine as the semester progresses.â
- Testing two times a week (will probably be reduced to one time a week after September 13).
- â Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 will be required to isolate for 10 days or, if vaccinated, until they have tested negative two days in a row after five days. A vaccinated individual identified as a close contact through contact tracing does not need to quarantine if they do not have any symptoms, but will be required to wear a mask at all times and take meals to-go only for eight days with a negative test on day seven.â
- Students will be able to âtravel freelyâ within Hampshire County, but must follow local protocols. If a student is going to travel outside the county, they must notify the college by filling out a form.
- Visitors to campus are only allowed outdoors.
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Are the students allowed to take classes at the other colleges this year? Are they allowed to eat and hang out at the other campuses? Seems like that will complicate things.
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Sounds like itâll be a crazy Greek rush in the South, especially LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss and MS State where Covid is the worst.
Thatâs a totally incoherent approach from a public-health pov, and appears to be some sort of political negotiation aimed at dealing with parents/student/fac/staff yelling. Mixed with DADT.
What a nightmare. Itâs the same sort of thinking thatâs been running CDCâs messaging, too. What a pity we did so much PR over the last 70 years about American know-how.
@twoinanddone Yes, they can take classes at the other colleges in the Five College Consortium this year. And they can eat and hang out there too, as all Five Colleges are in Hampshire County. But all colleges in the Five College Consortium also have vaccine mandates for students.
I agree. My kidâs going to complain lots when she figures this out and Iâm texting her for her semiweekly result. Fortunately sheâs just ethics-minded enough to recognize that if sheâs sick, it affects her roommate, and so I think sheâll probably take the hit rather than lie to me about testing and endanger the roommate unknowingly. I donât think sheâd want to live with knowing sheâd infected the roommate when she couldâve given a heads-up. But yeah, itâd be one more unfairness for her to absorb. Fortunately faculty here tend to be extremely accommodating and will respect and appreciate (and remember) the responsibility. I imagine that as long as she wasnât feeling very sick, sheâd go to her dadâs to ride it out and isolate-ish there, rather than staying in the isolation dorm.
ETA: could mitigate risk to her dad by going by the (a) viral-load curve established so far for delta. The likely fast drop-off helps. Maybe a couple of days in dorm isolation, then the rest of the isolation time at her dadâs.
This is a college mandating the vaccine for all students, faculty, and staff. They do offer medical and religious exemptions, but my understanding is they have not granted many to students (99% of students who lived on-campus this summer were at least partially vaccinated by the end of July). The only unvaccinated students they really have to worry about are international students coming from countries where it was not feasible to be vaccinated, and these students are being required to get vaccinated as soon as they get to campus.
Thatâs good. I really wish we had a way of getting a handle on actual breakthrough rate with delta, though. I was just looking at very recent numbers from Vermont, and theyâve got what looks like an alarming proportion of sick-infected reporting vaccinated status, but thatâs also a very highly vaccinated population. So I have no idea how you translate that to other parts of the country, and of course weâre missing the whole unreported-infected breakthrough population.
It really didnât have to be this wayâŠwe do know how to do these thingsâŠ
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