I can’t find our numbers, but our school district was struggling with chronic absenteeism as well and I think it was the main reason we went back to in person. I do remember that people who chose to go virtual only had much lower absences than ones who were supposed to be in person. It also seemed that the ones who needed the most help were the ones missing class.
We will have virtual next year, I think for 4-12 grade if you want it. It’s too bad that the Pfizer announcement came after the window closed for enrollment. Perhaps less people would have enrolled??? Haven’t seen the numbers. I checked out of listening to hours long school board meetings about a month ago.
We have so much to learn from all of this. Just because something works in one situation doesn’t mean it works in all. I never envied my school board having to make decisions for children as all this information evolved. I’m glad they sent them back to in person, but was also glad that my D was old enough to make her own decision on what she wanted to do.
Your school is having virtual for next year AND people had to commit to that now and can’t change their minds? Wow that really is too bad. Everything is changing daily.
I’m with you, I don’t envy our school board one bit Our Supt wasn’t that good about this. He didn’t listen to the science. He was afraid to open and was using unrealistic metrics. Every high school in our area was open well before ours. Finally after some FOIA requests and other issues came to the forefront we rapidly opened for hybrid about 4 weeks before Spring Break. Even then some teachers didn’t understand what hybrid would mean and tried to tell kids it would be bad and not worth coming in. Our district arranged for teachers to be vaccinated so they had no excuse anymore not to come in as that was the main reason they were using - our district is not unionized. Ultimately there were a lot of subs in the building as teachers didn’t all come back and we were open at 50%. Kids went either half day in ams or pms and then alternated the next week. My kid who did fine with remote but i wanted him back in school because I knew it would be safe, didn’t want to go. Teachers were all going to be required to be back after spring break when they would all be fully vaccinated and had time to find care for their kids and elderly parents. Only exceptions were ADA reasons. I know my son was nervous and it wasn’t because all of his teachers weren’t there. He told me initially he was staying remote until after break. Well, it took him 2 days home for hybrid before he went back, after talking to his friends and hearing what they had to say and that it wasn’t that bad. Then 4 weeks in after spring break, we had 80% of the school back in person and they changed it to fully in person, no more hybrid. They did make it that if you opted for remote you couldn’t change. Unfortunately, no one expected them to go back fully in person or this quickly after everything that happened and a lot of people were upset they couldn’t change their modality of learning but the school needed to know numbers for classrooms and spacing etc. My son has 2 weeks left of senior year and many of his classes have 100% of the kids there. It’s been a great way to end senior year. His teachers are also all back in person. They also require every student in person or an activity be tested 2x/week. We haven’t had a positive case in weeks. Most kids over 16 are also vaccinated. The school also had a vaccine clinic for kids. So, after doing a crappy job, they pulled off a great last semester. However, there are a lot of extraneous issues, cheating is a problem, especially with remote kids, kids staying on the zooms and not just checking out, keeping their attention, grades slipping, attendance, etc that the school will have to work on next year, If I recall, there will be no remote option next year offered and I hope for those left things can return to normal. Football is going on right now when it should have been in the fall. Kids had to choose one sport over another. Etc.
The school I work at which is in the suburb next to mine, has been open since October. Had 80% sign up for hybrid and then numbers dwindled. When numbers got exceedingly high in Illinois in November and with a lot of people planning to drive to hotspots or some even fly, they went remote until the end of Jan. Opened back up and kids came back and more and more. Covid unfortunately is going around here due to outside activities and get togethers but the big difference is while there is weekly covid testing available, parents had a fit when the BOE wanted it to be mandatory. It’s a shame because that’s instead caused kids who had covid to come to school knowing they had symptoms and then cause others to be put into quarantine when they were contract traced. Didn’t have to be but it is what it is. They too are not having a remote option from what I understand and attendance and in person now is around 80% again as the year ends. Both schools the expectation is if you’re in person you come every day. Can’t cherry pick which days you are in person or not.
I agree that all situations are not alike. The resources available in one district are not the same in another. These districts spend about 30k per students per year. They can afford to test the kids 2x/week. They can afford to put in better ventilation, hire extra staff, have covid dashboards, daily checks for the students have phenomenal remote learning access, etc. Many kids dont’ even have internet access and get totally lost in the system. I am thankful for the opportunities and school system I have (my taxes have well paid for it) but I know I am very lucky to have that. I also know there is a lot of inequity in the system just like with a lot of other things.
My common sense tells me that having 30+ kids in a classroom is a disease spread risk.
There are multiple documented contact tracing cases of social gatherings being super spreader events. Weddings, college parties, the Rose garden!
Kids are not getting tested aggressively enough for the true infection rate in schools to be known.
My hospital tests every inpatient at least weekly, including the paediatric wards and that had been one of the biggest tool for us to control spread in the hospital. Every single colleague with even the most basic infection control training agrees with that protocol.
I prefer actual scientific guidance from doctors to your common sense. CDC and the pediatrician’s groups believe schools should be opened. They looked at the actual data.
I just received a back to back email from Colgate University and RIT regarding plans for their fall 2021 classes. Both schools plan to have in person classes thus requiring Covid19 vaccinations on all students with a few exceptions. Colgate will require vaccination as early as May 17.
DS already has her full vaccine from Colgate. SS is coming home this Saturday and I hope to schedule him early next week. Our youngest son will turn 16 next week so I plan to schedule him right away as well.
Our covid19 cases in the hospital has significantly dropped. We are slowly returning to pre-pandemic operations but we are experiencing a higher than normal delays in getting our products, reagents and supplies from suppliers and manufacturers. Not sure why.
There really aren’t many medical exemptions to this vaccine. There are some short-term exemptions if on or post-chemo(most vaccines cannot be done for a while after) or post-transplant. That is pretty much it, other than history of a severe life-threatening reaction to a previous Covid vaccine.
A highly regulated classroom with spaced out seating, shields, masks, and good ventilation may not be the kind of superspreader risk that social gatherings with typical unmasked mingling would be. A typical less regulated school recess or lunch period may have much closer mingling and contact with attendant spread risk (though recess activities outdoors would reduce the risk there). That may be why some schools “reopened” but with no students staying through lunch or recess periods.
Back to the issue of the vaccine mandate, UIUC announced that they will exempt those who can show proof of vaccination from further Covid testing beginning August 23. One must either have a negative test or be vaccinated to access campus buildings this fall. https://massmail.illinois.edu/massmail/183095375.html
Question - my mother is on chemo and there were no restrictions for her to get it. Is it certain types of chemo that patients are being exempted? She also had no side effects at all which we were not expecting but that’s my mom for ya. She’s also a transplant patient but not recent.
certain types only, and it is only held for certain time-frames, rather than a true(permanent)exemption. It is not because it is dangerous so much as that they may not mount a full response.
Some types of chemotherapy have an immunosuppressive effect, so a vaccine may be less effective.
But what would prevent someone on chemotherapy from getting vaccinated now (for anything that may be needed, not just COVID-19), and then later getting a booster after completing the chemotherapy? The immunosuppressive effect of chemotherapy would mean that getting the actual pathogen would be more dangerous than normal, so even weaker protection from vaccine would be desirable.
True. Unfortunately in her case, the chemo is indefinite because the cancer is terminal but agree some protection is better than no protection and she is very careful, clearly with many immune compromised issues as it is.
@msdynamite85, your question is pointless. I mentioned even our huge public school system had masks, and others could have as well. It worked, and for those guided by science, opening provided important educational benefits at low risk.
It was also heartening to see how schools which were dedicated to teaching came up with novel ways to do so. One nationally prominent boys high school held their classes outside most of the year, with kids in coats. One college I know of used every square inch of space, including the chapel, dining halls, gyms and dorm lounges, as instructional spaces and adjusted class schedules to include weekends and nights to alleviate crowding. Other schools and colleges, including even those with hefty budgets and endowments, did not even try, and some still do not. Lucky kids who attended schools in person this year.
And many schools did it with will and creativity, even if they had little funding. 65k kids here are proof of that.
I looked up the public school demographics in this county. 37% qualify for a free lunch. Not a rich district, just a very diverse one with 65 schools, and a will to open.
A school in an area of the country with bad weather will struggle to regularly hold classes outdoors without outside heaters and canopy’s which cost money.
Many poor schools don’t have much green space or even extra building space to space out kids.
Every school is different with different resources . A poor school in the middle of rural hot Alabama likely could hold all their classes outside for free year round, great but in Alaska or Vermont ?
Northeastern had a very successful in person year. Reduced dorm density, built its own testing lab and gave over 1 million Covid tests every 3 days to students. 99% negative rate all year. My son did not know anyone who got Covid. Just visited U of Delaware. Remote classes all year and students not allowed in buildings.
Our NJ high school was remote all year with tremendous resistance to in person from the teachers Union. My junior went to school for hybrid learning yesterday for the first time since March 2020. Four hours twice a week in person.
