School in the 2020-2021 Academic Year & Coronavirus (Part 1)

Parents Forum
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Our local K-12 district has set a due date of August 10th for releasing plans for the fall. School is scheduled to start September 8th. Should be interesting . . .

I have been a substitute teacher for 3 years. The other day, I received the annual email requesting my $45 for the substitute permit. I don’t even know if I’ll have a job opportunity in the fall. I guess I’ll hold off submitting payment as long as possible. Pay for subs in our district is not the greatest. Might be time to look at other jobs. So many factors to consider, not the least of which is the virus activity.

We talk about maintaining distance, etc. in schools. Hallway traffic has been known to be a problem even before covid. I have witnessed fights in the halls during passing time. Who breaks those up now? Who deals with the aftermath? Sadly, those kids are often the ones who most need the positive influences school provides.

Lots of things weighing on my mind these days. Such a challenge for those administrators and staff trying to make the best of an impossible situation.

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Well, this isn’t very encouraging…

Westwood Summer School Staff Member Tests Positive For COVID-19

WESTWOOD (CBS) – A Westwood Public Schools employee who was working with students over the summer has tested positive for COVID-19, after initially being told her test was negative.

The district opened Downey Elementary School and Westwood High School for in-person instruction during the district’s Extended School Year special education program. About 100 students participate in the program.

According to Superintendent Emily J. Parks, the staff member started to feel ill on July 3, was tested for COVID-19 and stayed home while waiting for test results. The staff member was told that her test results were negative, and since she was feeling better, she returned to work Monday, July 13. While at school, she received a phone call saying that there had been a mistake, and she had, in fact, tested positive for COVID-19. The staff member immediately went home.

“We share the community’s concern that a staff member in our summer program has tested positive for coronavirus. We want to emphasize that her exposure to students was limited to a three-hour block, during which time she was properly outfitted with PPE,” Parks said in a statement.

Parents and students in close contact with the staff member have been notified, and the Downey School was closed for cleaning.

“It’s fragile under the very best of conditions,” said Max Page, Vice President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. He believes rushing back to school could be dangerous for kids and teachers. The union is calling for a phased education reopening.

“This case in Westwood, it sounds like this one case was handled quite well. But you imagine when a million public school students, our 117,000 members return… that’s what really worries us.”

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@homerdog I also sub at our small school - minimal pay, I do it more because I like teaching science and history. But I have reluctantly told them to keep me off the sub list, at least at first. The last thing I want to do is be called in to sub for a teacher who got sick or has been exposed and has to stay home. It seems there would be a good chance at least one student has it at that point.

Tough times. Our K-12 schools are going to a system of half the students 2 days, the other half another 2 days. A teacher friend has had to resign because she will need to stay home to care for their kids on the off days. I imagine there will be more such.

But hey, our governor says he is going to mandate 5-day school for all, so that will solve the problem in our hot spot! Everyone hopes the school board ignores him.

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Obviously it won’t solve the virus problem, @SammoJ . The question is will it make it meaningfully worse in outcomes for either the community at large or for the kids. That is up for debate.

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For those interested, google Science Magazine July 7, 2020 for reporting on school reopening strategies worldwide.

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@Lemonlee @GKUnion These stories about kids or teachers catching the virus aren’t a surprise. I’m surprised when anyone posts that this is “concerning”…I mean we know kids and teachers are going to catch it, right? No one is saying schools should open because the virus won’t spread there. Of course it will. But aren’t we at the point where we are trying to keep cases down and not looking for them to be zero? And we have to weigh everything that is good about in-person school to the alternative. Very few school districts can do remote learning well and have students who can stay home all day with a stay at home parent.

Looks like our schools are leaning towards some sort of hybrid model but we won’t know for sure for a few more weeks. A few days on and a few days off for each student. I’m sure they figure that we can try it and see how it goes. The school won’t close down because someone is positive but there will be some sort of contact tracing and other kids will need to be tested and presumably stay home until they get a result. This is the kind of thing I see as the reason we may all end up with remote learning. Since there will be cases and those kids are out for two weeks and maybe the kids who were near them in any of seven classes will be out as well, the population at school will start dwindling. Not sure how long hybrid will last and I guess it depends on if those masks work. The teenagers around here who have it were socializing without masks.

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@homerdog The concerning part of my post was the false negative on the Covid test.

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Is this in CA? I saw a story last night that said CA was using a lot of oral tests instead of nasal ones and the oral tests are not as accurate.

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@homerdog That story came from a Massachusetts source.

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Please do not make your daughter a problem for those of us who are supposedly going to be tasked with enforcing our college’s rules on mask-wearing, social distancing, etc.

Once her professors are fired for not getting her to wear a mask, she will be teaching herself anyway, so why bother sending her in the first place?

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@homerdog. The concerning part about my post is that the article was about the rising number of cases in children under 10. Everything I’ve read to date indicated that older teenagers (HS and college age kids) are just as likely to catch and spread Covid as adults, but people still believed younger children were more resistant to catching the virus and/or possibly not transmission vectors. This now appears to not be the case, so yes, that is concerning to me.

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Why wouldn’t people be concerned about a deadly virus we don’t really know how to treat and can’t immunize against? I know plenty of college faculty who are concerned enough that they aren’t showing up on campus at all next semester even though students are returning. It doesn’t surprise me that elementary and high school teachers may be reluctant to go back.

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Honestly, don’t overthink it. Have her get a few types of masks that she feels comfortable wearing. Any mask with proper social distancing is key. My son will have several cloth type masks with the medical loop ones to wear. He can put in shop paper towels as a filter if he wants to. He doesn’t want to bring a face shield. He would rather use a mask. When he and my daughter went to some protests they used a medical loop masks with their fun cloth mask over it. He might do this when around lots of people

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Uncontrolled pandemic spread is occurring, right now. Didn’t have to be this way but without a national response, this is how it is with no end in sight. I think it’s more likely that kids will continue to circulate on the streets with the same kids they have been circulating with all summer, which is. It the same as circulating with hundreds or more in classrooms, hallways, etc. I am not a doomsdayer but we are in survival mode. So yeah, I hope those areas with crazy spread right now wait it out instead of spreading the virus further…I believe that by October we will see the results of countries that followed science and pandemic protocol before have successfully opened schools…By which time government elections will be looming and those of us looking a change in leadership can vote for those who might lead the way to better local/state/national pandemic response.

During this time, I often think of certain dear relatives (on both sides of my fam and husband’s, none related to one another)who had anything but typical schooling ages 8-18 for different reasons: 1) orphaned 2) struck with polio and becoming a ward of a state hospital for years due to cost 3) abandoned and sent to work on a foster farm, and 4) lived through years of bomb raids as a child, left a war zone and immigrated to the US. Their non schooling years varied from 2 - 8 years. All four graduated from at least high school, two had college (up to a PhD.). This isn’t ancient history as 3 of these are our grandparents. Unless you believe in some type of crazy odds there is no way that they are somehow all exceptionally intelligent self learners. They had no homes with parents, period, and they endured and ultimately productive happy lives. So while I am all for public schools using any resources they can to support the home lives of its students children if they delayed returning to school for a few months, it’s a little patronizing to assume that those less privileged are incapable and irrevocably harmed by being out of the classroom until pandemic control improves. I know school counselors who made home visits all through spring socially distanced/meting outside…school districts that continued to make meals available and delivered them when possible…ideal? No. But every bit helps.

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I would be interested to know how many people were determined to be in close contact with the teacher (less than 6ft apart for greater than 15 minutes)? Hopefully not many.

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(Posted on the other thread but this one seems more active).

Kids are clustering together without masks whether they are in school or not. (My observations at the park yesterday). So how much of this is about CYA and not blaming schools for any rise in the number of cases? The long terms effects of keeping the kids out of school are more nebulous and less likely to be blamed on the decision makers who will be out of office that far down the road.

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@sylvan8798 - no need to be snarky. I was looking for information and not evaluating masks vs no masks. I’m looking to keep my daughter healthy and the studies I have been reading indicate that cloth masks serve no purpose and could be detrimental to her health. She goes to school in the Boston area where flu always occurs (she had a bad case her freshman year- no surprise) so I’m looking for information to help my daughter when she returns for her senior year. Period. End of story.

@Knowsstuff - thanks for the helpful info. I appreciate it. I like the suggestions and the lack of snark in your reply.

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@roycroftmom Yes, cramming more kids together will likely have a worse outcome. The virus will spread more quickly and our regional hospital will be overwhelmed, which will likely lead to a higher death rate. The hospital in a county north of us is already there.

And when the numbers get too high, the schools plan to go 100% online. 2 days of f2f a week for a year seems more effective for learning than a month of full time followed by virtual.

No option is perfect, but I think helping the schools limp along with some in person is overall preferred.

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“survival mode”? good grief, no one should be in survival mode unless they are over 80 and/or substantial medical fragilities. The mortality rate is way, way, way under 1%, but even if it were, society, and almost all of us, would survive. Maybe that is why many other countries have better perspective on this-more people have died from COVID, per capita, in say, the UK or Belgium, but both those countries have experienced actual catastrophes in the last 75 years, so it changes the perspective.

For the record, I do not think just inner city/less privileged children will suffer from a lack of in person schooling. Reports from affluent suburban districts of a lack of student engagement were alarming as well, and those kids are just as likely to socialize in big parties with others out of school. As you noted, the highly motivated (and the highly affluent) can often overcome school disruption. Not always, though, and most public school students are neither.

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I’m a little confused because schools aren’t opening like it’s a free for all. Why would cases spike? The plans I’ve seen have everyone wearing masks and at least trying to distance. Lunchrooms being evaluated for distancing or kids eating in classrooms while distanced and no teacher in the room. In some cases, school is only half a day so there is less time spent together. No one, as far as I know, is going back to regular school.