They’ll need to standardize the variables and make sure they get accurate numbers from every state before true comparisons and conclusions can be made.
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100% Florida wasn’t counting snowbirds in their numbers except for negative covid tests. But for deaths they weren’t counting them, so numbers are inaccurate. Also what is skewing the data is that NY, NJ and MA were hit hardest because that’s where the biggest explosion of cases were right away before anything was done. CA was one of the first to lock down and the other states toward the bottom ultimately lagged as well and we knew a lot more so like anything anyone can make data look however they want it to look for their benefit. NY (or NJ) positivity right now I can’t remember which is less than 1% yet FL is still over 8% yet Florida is wide open. I wouldn’t step anywhere near Florida right now, even being fully vaccinated. People I know there still say it’s a mess.
It’s just like when there was a map at the beginning of the year that had colleges and covid cases and it was a joke. Many colleges weren’t even doing testing and in some cases students weren’t testing on campus but were positive so those numbers didn’t go in the school numbers.
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“Most K-12 schools in FL were safely fully open/in-person with every sport and teachers all year since August “
That is not true. While our governor tells everyone that all schools are open bc he likes to score political points with some, our 3 public high schools were open BUT only half (and some less than half) of the students chose to attend high school in person! Majority chose to be online all year.
That is the story that does not make the news.
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That doesn’t refute that the school was “open.” A school that isn’t open would be one that didn’t allow anyone on campus.
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Course registration occurring now speculating on what things will look like in the fall is difficult and I don’t know if they can even change the options. My son will be a freshman and the course registration is showing: 1) Intro to Comp Sci - one big class of 250 seats for all incoming comp sci majors 1credit = all virtual, 2) his first core programming class 4 credits has some sections fully virtual and some sections are two days/week virtual lecture & one day is live “lab”, 3) university wide required writing class 4cr - some sections are fully virtual & some sections one day live w/ two days on line “activity”, 4) required “first year seminar” 1cr some sections live & some virtual. He can fit in a 3cr GenEd and they run from fully on line, to fully in-person (more rare) to mixed which means one day live and two days virtual. I am anxious because he has to get lucky and pull the “live” sections before they get filled, and even then it might be 50/50. He really needs his first core programming class to be all in-person. It is disappointing to feel like fall is a “done deal” before any potential vax mandate or improvement in conditions, yet I understand why the university had to be cautious.
Edit to add I forgot pre-calc or calc = some sections live & some virtual - the live are far less
In our area NE Florida it most certainly is true … for those who WANTED to be in person which I guess is the caveat. Maybe your area not so much.
My point is that schools/Universities have serious decisions to make on how to proceed this fall in terms of “openness” and that the experience our kids have had here has been beyond positive - given the situation. Data shows no incremental harm was done in the process.
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We spent several weeks in FL this winter and didn’t notice any “mess.” In fact, day to day life was pretty much the same w/r/t Covid protocols in comparison to our home state: mask-wearing indoors, social distancing, etc. The main difference was that people were happy and relieved not to be living under lock-downs. Many had fled down there to get away from their own state. Weather was nicer too!
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The phrase “fully open”Implies that students are fully present.
And that is misleading.
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The live are far less because they can put them in smaller classrooms because they’re smaller classes that they know that right now. For larger lecture classes they have to find the space and depending on what the state guidelines are they don’t know if the state will allow in person classes for 200 people or some random number so the modality has to say lecture.
It’s no different than any of the 3 schools my kids are at. If the states change the guidelines then it will be easy to change the modalities to in person. But if they don’t raise the capacities then they will have to keep those classes remote because they can’t get enough kids safely spaced apart in those large lecture halls.
My daughter had one CS class first semester hybrid. 150 students were in the class and 50 went each day to the lecture in person with the professor. Now the state guidelines will allow that many in person so that class should show fully in person in the fall but I bet that the original modality didn’t show that for fall. They haven’t registered yet so it’s all fluid and changing by the minute.
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No it doesn’t. It implies that everyone is invited to return. That some choose not to is a choice, not a restriction. And choice has been a good thing this year.
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That’s perhaps because you don’t have school aged children going to school in Florida and you don’t live year round in Florida to know.
Perhaps. But I’d be thrilled if schools returned to normal and opened up. Would fully support it.
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Now maybe. But 8 months ago, I would strongly disagree.
I guess for people who agree and/or believe that they can send their kids to college in Florida!
I guess it depends on what one’s definition of a mess is. Schools were open here in Texas, too, and while there were certainly covid cases, there were very few if any hospitalizations attributed to the in person classes. Kids learned and continued their activities. In contrast, the Ivy League college one of my kids attended was entirely remote first semester, almost entirely remote second semester with kids on campus, and is a mental health disaster zone as a result.
As recently as last month, Florida ( and Texas) had fewer covid hospitalizations and deaths per capita than NJ. The early onset of covid in metro NYC no doubt caused the draconian school restrictions implemented there, but it remains unclear that those actually helped much in containing covid. I wish they did; it would have made the sacrifice of the school year at least understandable.
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Nope. I supported it for the entire of this school year and it was the preference of my youngest as well. She didn’t get that option and it has still worked, which is good. But speaking to the instructors, a LOT of students are behind because remote learning didn’t work for them - my D is privileged to have parents who were home with her and she was able to keep up with the school work remotely, but for most of her classmates that wasn’t possible. These high schoolers will be ill-prepared for college, sadly.
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Schools in NY have actually been open for quite awhile. So I wouldn’t exactly call it draconian. Furthermore, it’s not just about the death rate as far as the virus. People in Texas and elsewhere have long haul syndrome, I know many suffering from this. NY unfortunately was just the state that had the misfortune to be hit first with the virus and hard much of it due to the density of NYC whereas neither FL or TX are such. But later Texas was hit very hard.
Lots of people kept their kids out of school in Texas too, or sent them to private schools where they only wore masks. My school was open most of the year too. My son’s school was not. There was clearly a safe way to open schools and some were able to do it safely and did. That’s not what’s at issue here. No one is disputing that schools can open. The issue is opening safely. Which is what many schools in the country did not do well at all.
I’m sorry your child’s Ivy League dropped the ball. It didn’t have to be that way. They did not all suck.
One advantage of everything being remote (our state was shut tight) was that we could travel and do all work remotely. My youngest did her instrument lesson, her sport, and her school-work remotely and got to sight see and enjoy a more open, sunny clime at the same time. When Life hands you lemons, make lemonade! (We were by far not the only ones in our state spending our dollars elsewhere this winter . . . ).
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And we have a post concerning SMU - some in TX must have been shaking their heads at what was going on in the rest of the country.
We have a relative who is at an Ivy and she took the year off rather than deal with remote classes. Many in her class did the same. She’ll now be graduating the same year as her cousin (my son) who was at a more open campus and has made normal academic progression.
Reading the stories of those NYC high schoolers - many of them marginalized to begin with - was heart-breaking. Who was there for them? Their schools were shut, their activities cancelled, the public parks fenced off and locked . . . it was horrible.
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Just hoping colleges don’t continue to use the covid and density excuses to keep remote learning and limitations in the future. Yes, things are dense in the northeast. And Florida has a lot of old people, and Texas has a huge number of uninsured Hispanics, all groups which correlate with covid vulnerability. But apparently the SMU kids didn’t actually transmit to grandma in large numbers, given the data, and the kids had a normal year. In other words, they focused on protecting the most vulnerable and letting very low risk populations continue their lives. Given vaccine availability, isn’t it time all schools did that?
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