same here, tense and fractious. Administrators working 24/7 to get kids back in school, we are 50% hybrid, like homerdog’s school.
Parent/family and teacher relations have been set back years. Not sure how or when healing will commence.
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When our high school was hybrid, the kids ate lunch in the cafeteria 6 feet apart with personal plastic desk shields in front of them. One of my kids hated it and said lunch was so quiet and awkward. The school has now moved to 5 days in-person but they are shorter days and kids are home before lunch. Last two periods of the day are virtual. Seems to be working really well and kids are so much happier.
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I would expect that residents are both 1. Noticing that public schools appear to be functioning close to normally in several populous states without commensurate covid outbreaks; and 2. Deeply concerned about studies showing that tens of thousands of students will drop out virtually and not return to in person school, with horrific long range consequences to their future, including life expectancy. McKinsey estimated a million extra high school dropouts if schools remained closed all year. As a group, high school dropouts do not fare well and die young.
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This model makes sense in so many ways!
What is frustrating to see that schools in some states, such as Texas and Florida, have been in school this entire year, with relatively few issues of covid infection/outbreaks. It’s as if teachers everywhere else refuse to acknowledge that. And then, after refusing to teach in person, they expect to be treated as essential workers, and move to the front of line for the vaccine.
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Where do you live?
We have been able to open 5 days a week full time for our younger kids, k-5 since the beginning of November. We did see a rise in community spread- but, it could have been based on timing/holidays. Weekly our reported cases went up for schools. No clusters though, so it wasn’t being spread in schools.
It’s been interesting that our community seems to get themselves in check after they say no in person school. We get a nice dip in cases. It really could be coincidence or just a downturn time, or maybe less people out in the population?
I have noticed that several colleges who did well in the fall are now struggling and are moving to remote. I think once it gets in a place it gets hard to stop- those that haven’t had this happen yet are just lucky.
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Just an FYI: While it is true that in our Florida town public schools have been “open”‘since the school year started, what is often not reminded when stating this is that MANY students (over half at my S’s school) chose to stay at home and be online!
This was true for all 3 public high schools in our area: half of the “open” high schools are in fact only being daily populated by half of the students.
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Texas. It is also possible that kids at home are meeting up with others socially-I have seen quite a few studies that in colleges, the covid spread is not attributed to in person class, but rather parties and socializing. I dont think LA schools have gone back in person, but social spread continues there, apparently. There are many possible places of exposure, and schools are relatively low on the list.
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Good point. We have the same thing happening here for various reasons. Of course I understand why those who live with someone at high risk would not go to in-person school. There are many complexities and unique situations.
I definitely see growth at the online high school providers once the pandemic is over, once public schools get back to normal.
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And growth in charter, Catholic, and private school enrollment.
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True, but there are many kids in my area who are LOVING online school…have more free time, aren’t getting bullied, can stay in PJs, etc. etc. etc.
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My younger S is one of those. He is in private (whereas older S is in public).
We kept both boys home bc of family risk vulnerabilities.
Our private school son has greatly preferred this year learning online at home compared to being at school. Ironically, his private school has been open (kids in classrooms with masks and socially distanced) all year with few outbreaks.
He has chosen to do virtual next year and so we did not renew contact with private school for next year.
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I agree- going to class is not the problem. I think that’s what is so frustrating for everyone. Colleges think it’s fine to open up dorms and bring kids back, but don’t go to class. It’s all the downtime that leads to congregating and spread. I think a lot of problems with Greek life is not parties as much as it is just living in the houses together.
Same for high school. It’s not class that is the threat, it’s the kids leaving school in their cars packed with kids. A parent brought up Prom on FB and said we should just do it outside. When people mentioned being in a parking lot with masks on doesn’t sound fun, she said- well don’t they just go out to dinner and then the after parties! Thanks for proving why we don’t need a Prom and shouldn’t have one 
Around 50% of our kids chose to stay virtual. That has allowed us to start up HS last week. I also agree with @Mwfan1921 many kids have loved online school. They are more efficient working from home. No wasted time.
For the D in public high school that I don’t pay for- I’ve been fine with no in person. For the D that I pay OOS tuition for, I admit I have been more frustrated. She solved some of that by getting out of her housing contract!
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Some encouraging news for those hoping for a better Fall 2021 college experience.
Amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks. If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we’d call it a miracle pill. Why is the number of cases plummeting much faster than experts predicted?
In large part because natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing. Testing has been capturing only from 10% to 25% of infections, depending on when during the pandemic someone got the virus. Applying a time-weighted case capture average of 1 in 6.5 to the cumulative 28 million confirmed cases would mean about 55% of Americans have natural immunity.
Now add people getting vaccinated. As of this week, 15% of Americans have received the vaccine, and the figure is rising fast. Former Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb estimates 250 million doses will have been delivered to some 150 million people by the end of March.
There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.
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Right? My D was surprised because one of her classes that was supposed to be in person seems to be flipping to remote. The professor asked the kids what they’d prefer and the vast majority wanted to stay remote. D is frustrated because she was supposed to have 2/3 of her classes in person and now is down to 1. She is hoping some will revert back to in person.
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Six weeks ago was during the “Christmas surge” . Of course cases have dramatically declined since then, because Christmas was a unique time where we all broke with typical pandemic measures and mixed in family gatherings. From January everyone went back to being, relatively, normal so cases dropped from an abnormal peak. That was what the expects have always said would happened.
No expect in epidemiology have claimed we will have heard immunity by April.
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Guess we’ll see. And it is his opinion. Given that most of the so called “experts” haven’t gotten much right I’m willing to give him as much credence as I do any of the others.
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In my state, cases have been dropping since early November. There wasn’t a Christmas surge, only a Christmas plateau for the first part of January.
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our district is currently on hybrid with the same awkward lunch set up (well, no plastic shields, but students at assigned desks spaced 6 feet apart, all facing forward. The in-person experience was so far from ideal that our district now has more than 40% opting for all-remote (at the high school specifically, it is closer to 60%). We are moving to 4 days in-person next month with the same kind of plan you described (first 3 blocks in-person, everyone dismissed at lunch time and 4th block all virtual). This seems like a much better option. My D24, who has been remote all year and was planning to stay that way if the hybrid plan remained, will be returning to in-person under this model. Fingers crossed it works as well in our district as it seems to have in yours.
In our communities with high case Covid counts most of the high schools have primarily gone to a hybrid format with a quadmester schedule (2 courses at a time) for those students attending in-person. Students are at school 2-3 mornings per week for 1 class (alternating between the 2) and then have synchronous online class in the afternoon for their other subject. There is no lunch and no “passing periods”. Students arrive at school and go directly to their classrooms and at the end of class they have a staggered dismissal and all students leave the building. In these communities the vast majority of high school students have opted for online schooling so the high schools are very de-densified.
In our communities with much lower prevalence of Covid the schools have remained full-time in person attendance but they’ve gone to an octomester schedule - 1 subject all day for 5 weeks (similar to how summer school runs). While there is a lunch period, there is no movement between classes.
@PrdMomto1 that dynamic is precisely why, at the university where I teach, we aren’t allowed to ask students if they’d like to go remote–even if the weather is bad–professors are authority figures and a question like that can be seen as coercion. “I guess the professor doesn’t really want to be here so I should say it’s okay to go remote.”
Those students who want to be remote can be, those who want to be in class can be. Professors are always in class (with a few exemptions for health reasons). I have feelings about the impact of this version of hybrid on the experience but I understand the rationale behind it.
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