https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_9dcb15a4-c53a-11ea-9113-d7e3c5143524.html
Looks like more classes at Purdue are being moved online.
Lots of conversation about course switching on our Purdue FB group. Part of the problem is they are adding sections right now so some kids had their whole schedules disappear and only the online ones reappeared. D’s department sent an emailing telling students not to panic and they would still have all the same courses, just a different times. It does seem that some departments are communicating better than others.
So have several families from kids 7 to 18 all have to make decisions about their schools tomorrow in my office today. No 100% set school plan. One family is sending my child but not the other one. Every family has their reasons. One family said that their decision has to be for the full year not just the semester. This is in Naperville Il.
That isn’t snark, it’s anger. I’m angry that people are making this so much worse than necessary. I’m angry that there will 100% be students flatly refusing to comply with simple rules because of things they or their parents have seen online, or “freedom” or what the ever. I’m angry because those same non-complying people are the ones demanding that everyone get back into the classroom NOW.
I’m angry that people are shrugging it off like this is the best we can do, while other countries are managing to get themselves back on track without having to order refrigeration trucks to store their dead. I’m angry that the country’s leading infectious expert is under attack. I’m angry that the WH just said science should not stand in the way of sending all the children back to school all day every day.
I’m angry at the level of ignorance and the rank unwillingness of the public and many of those in charge to listen to the medical experts, the math experts, the physics experts, the public health experts. I’m angry about the whole damn thing at this point.
So maybe they both get tested like a rapid test and if both neg then they can be closer then 6 ft…LOL… Just make sure the boys are using protection(not assuming anything here) since some studies showed the virus in semen.
OK. now back to our scheduled programming.
Survival mode to me means it is important to implement public policy to promote survival of more members of society than fewer… which means don’t throw thousands of kids back into buildings together and cross your fingers in areas where spread is clearly out of control right now. It shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion that they are home for the year…I mean that schools are supposed to be opening within the next few weeks in many hard hit areas and they are simply ill equipped to protect the community from further spread if they have to open in two weeks.
I don’t truly understand your UK/Belgium comparison. Our per capita death rate is still on the rise with no end in sight. Those are countries which have far greater containment than the US as they prepare to open their schools, and which also seem to have ‘trace and contact’ built in to their protocol when they do reopen. Do you think that those countries would be opening their pre-college level schools in areas with similar spread rates to say CA, AZ, TX, or FL? I don’t think they would.
And if you are going to compare the US to the UK from a historical perspective…during WW2 many children of the UK (depending on where they lived) were not going to school consistently and had significant interruptions in their education when their schools were closed due to damage or lack of resources.
Do you know anyone who has died from Covid? I have 4 friends who have lost family members who were elderly but not in nursing homes or incapacitated. Do you have close friends who might be middle age (early 50s) who had no preexisting conditions and recovered from Covid but still have continuing neurological issues almost 3 months later? I’m married to one. Not looking to be argumentative, but just seems your comments are very dismissive of other points of view. Some of us base our perspective on our actual experience, and not simply because we are hand wringers sitting in the house hoping the sky will fall:). Here’s hoping all of our states start to see improved control of the pandemic spread.
The UK does not have containment, again. to reach the UK’s death equivalent the US has about another 80K people to kill. That will probably be sometime before September. If you want to watch scrambling, watch Australia, a country that really seemed to have a handle, watch the day by day unfolding of any country or state that thought that (or in the US, Fl and Tx etc). A country that is restricting entry of it’s own people to enter their own country, a country that deployed 500 police enforced to blockade public housing. See how they get it under control.
k-12 schools are trying to open here, but several of the urban districts are now delaying for a week. They just haven’t had the time to organized.
But there are other problems too. Few of the rec centers where school kids hang out after school are open. Boys and Girls clubs, if open, are limited. Activities like sports are very limited.
I think things are going to be changing even more in the next few weeks.
I empathize with your experience, @2ndthreekids . But we do not normally make public policy based on any one person’s experience, but the aggregate statistics affecting the population as a whole. I may know people who are older, heavier, healthier, less social, whatever-my personal experience with COVID, while important to me, isn’t terribly relevant. To the families of those who died, even if it was just one person, it will always be one person too many regardless of what was done, and that is understandable. But we are trying to assess the greater good of the most number of people (or I thought we were).
For that equation, we need to consider the harm done to the children and their families (lost education, lost income, whatever) from being out of school, plus any likely adverse consequences. Elementary kids kept home from school are frequently placed in large group after-school/daycare type settings if their parents work. Is the infection rate really better with 2 days school/3 days daycare with a new set of kids than it would be for 5 days of school with the same kids? I do not think it is a clear a decision as some think.
Thank you for sparing me the effort of typing out pretty much the exact same thing myself. 
Pretty much every morning I wake up furious and/or frightened (not so much of the virus for the latter, as we are taking every possible precaution–just at the directions in which things seem to be heading, and that my son is starting his adult life in the midst of it).
That is where my nephew goes to school 
Other countries that had this under control are having a resurgence of cases. Even those who have full mask requirements. Is this country doing a great job of this, no, there is no unity. But to be angry at a parent that is asking a question about something they read about masks? does that mean that they are going to not have their child not follow the rules? Do I believe that masks help reduce the spread, yes, if worn properly. Do I believe that if Every single person wore a mask in public that this would go away, no. Would it be better, yes. do I see so many people wearing masks in public . yes. I have read that much of the spread occurs during family reunions, parties, etc. And those who live in crowded conditions. I really wish people would be kinder to each other. There are many that are.
I am upset, depressed, sad, etc. Here it is July and we are worse off than April. And even in places that have had this under control, it goes out of control again. A vaccine may not ever work, as even having it people are getting it again two months later. Our kids futures suck. The economic downfall of this will go down in history. Could this have been stopped from the source? Why now did this hit? How did we ever get done with the 1918 pandemic, and will this ever go away or part of the rest of our lives.? Will we ever have answers. Will our kids ever get to hug their friends again? Will we ever see our parents again. But I will not codemn anyone on any sides of this manner. WE have a family friend that is not wearing a mask. We will protect ourselves and not see them. But will we no longer be friends with them?
Back to the topic. As time has gone on and on it seems like going back to school for the most part, or having classes in person is less and less going to happen. I wonder how many colleges will be left a year from now. I am more concerned for my Sophomore. Will he be able to get his degree from a school that has been around for a while. on a town hall with RIT the finances did not look good . they lost a lot of international graduate students. they are rated B- for Forbes. Will Harvard survive yes. They can afford to go online. the wealthier LACs as well. the top public schools will survive. Lets see a year from now what the state of education is. I also feel for all those parents who still have K-12 kids, Especially all those lost kids who will not be found for their online education.
Not to further depress you, but the LA Times just reported that 50k public Black and Latino middle and high school students did not participate in any online learning last spring. There is no reason to think they will do so this Fall, when LAUSD resumes online. Is LA an outlier? Unlikely.
OK, but how many people should die or be permanently injured to get those LA kids back to school? Seriously, that’s the tradeoff you’re proposing—more kids in school, more deaths— and I’d like to know how many people you’re willing to sacrifice.
Thanks for letting me know we’re trying to assess the greater good of most of the people, because I thought it was all about just me. My entire career was risk management so assessing risk is not a foreign concept to me. We don’t all assign the same value of loss to the event of impact (i.e. in this case the impact of death or serious illness) vs. value of loss for related events (loss of income, child care, etc.) which is why our risk/return models are not going to align for many ‘what if’ scenarios involving Covid and returning k-12 to schools. As I posted previously, I live in a county where the Dept of Education says no masks, no decrease in density, and no social distancing is recommended for the classroom. I’ll leave it at that. I think we agree that is not a clear decision.
How many kids are you willing to sacrifice to a lost uneducated generation?
The key question is why did those Black and Latino students not participate in online learning. Did their families own a computer and have internet access and did the kid have enough access to it if they did? Did they they have to share it with siblings and parents? Was there language barriers? Did they have to spend the time babysitting younger siblings because their parents couldn’t work from home?
The solution might not just be pushing face to face learning. A cash injection to provide more computer access in low socio-economic households would be valuable. Government incentives to employers to give more time off to parents of under 13 year olds. investing in translators to ensure that the kids with english as a foreign language can understand the material ect…
I bet no one will utter a world about it in the right state of mind. A Democrat or Republican politicians will say zero, but reality may be thousands of kid will suffer in USA. I may not be surprised if the numbers touches in millions here in this most developed country. Do I feel bad, yes I do. We have five months and yet no one was planning to do anything. Just paper pushing and blaming others. Unfortunately in the developing countries these numbers may reach even in much higher multiples.
My prediction is only very lucky folks will have access to good education in coming few months if not longer. We may face this situation probably till vaccine is developed or everyone wears mask and obey social distancing like Japan.
This is my hypothesis and I could be 100% wrong. I will be very happy if I am total wrong.
3Sailaway, we have a somewhat similar circumstance. My daughter, an incoming freshman, faces similar restrictions with the option to study from home. We are going for it.
Of course, R&B is very expensive, so this would be an easier decision perhaps for someone on full financial aid who isn’t paying ridiculous prices for R&B. We are stuck with the bill, and find it offensive. But nonetheless, we decided to send her. Since she doesn’t yet have friends on campus, she will meet more future classmates there than at home. Hopefully tents will abound to enable outdoor socializing regardless of weather (with lighting until 2 am and heaters when the weather turns colder). Yes masks and SD will make everything much much worse than normal, but still seems better than nothing. And they can go into their college town and eat at outdoor eateries, go for walks around their town together etc. I certainly hope they are quite good about protocols no matter where they are, but the fact that college will be testing everyone every 3 days with a few hour turnaround (from Broad Institute nearby) makes me much less concerned if some kids slip occasionally and eat a meal together at an outdoor eatery without being 6 feet apart.
At home, this daughter is working as a waitress, wearing a mask at work, but around so many people at work. She sees friends, pretty much just her group of 5 best friends (in a normal summer, she would have been to many, many parties with dozens or even hundreds of kids; that has not happened this covid summer, and under normal circumstances she may have even kissed a few boys, hee hee hee, and again sadly that isn’t happening. I laugh, but honestly I think this is mildly tragic. Youth deserves all of these gorgeous moments). I do not think her social life at home is so much more vibrant than it will be at school, even with restrictions (of course, at home she has US, but I do not think even fabulous parents are what 18-20 year olds are seeking). I do worry about the quietness of the dorms, but I imagine they will not go back to their dorm room until they are ready for sleep. They will get more fresh air this year than ever!!
Milgymfam, of course when you say, “but her friends parents were more classist than I ever would’ve guessed”, it is such a teaser…I can’t be the only one who wants to hear the story!!!
The plan has developed since this article. Chicago is providing every family with internet access for the school year and beyond so their ipads will work. Last spring they drove busses into neighborhoods as access point for internet in certain communities. We all (yes, I am speaking broadly here) are all very fortunate and lucky since misses a Netflix show or our Hulu live might stutter, but there are real disadvantaged families out there. I am proud of my city’s response to this issue. I truly hope it betters someone’s life.