Positivity rate in my town is under 2%. Average for my state is 3.4. Summer camps restarted after Memorial Day. Athletes back on campus in mid June. Stores and restaurants open.
Everyone is mask wearing, social distancing, hand washing, and de-densifying. We continue to follow the rules.
Our HS had a good hybrid plan with 25% of students in the building at a time but the union said “no” and now it will all on line.
IMO the goal posts keep changing. If an area is clearing meeting the dashboard metrics, then school reopening with all the precautions should be on the table.
The argument that it should be all schools or none reopening for equity seems disingenuous. People with means are already hiring tutors, moving to home schooling, or to private schools that are opening. This will widen the gap, not make it smaller.
@momofsenior1 , yes, your area is definitely one of the ones who can consider reopening. Is the contact tracing in your area robust? Return of testing result times? What does the public health director for your area say? (Do all areas of the U.S. have public health districts or something similar, and are they weighing in on school reopening?)
And then there are the school protocols. Masking required? Social distancing? Plenty of supplies? HVAC systems up to the covid-19 standards?
Where would all those students go? There may be ~3,000 colleges in the US, but to hear people on this site talk only the top ~50 are worthy, and even that number is stretching it. There aren’t enough seats at those schools for all who want them in normal application cycles. If there’s a run on popular schools because of Covid, acceptance rates will only get lower. Families would have to expand their definition of what an acceptable school is to ensure an acceptance, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
People are paying for online now. I don’t believe that parents who are willing/able to pay ~$30k/year or more per child for a college education are going to say that no college degree is better than what those selective schools are going to be able to offer.
Some of the already popular universities will probably see an increase, but I don’t think that most people who want a private school education for their children are going to settle for a public college. A lot of people seem to think state schools are okay for the neighbors or those who can’t afford anything “better,” but they have no intention of sending their own kids to one. I don’t think that attitude will change.
I know plenty of people who are balking at paying $50k/year for online, even some at Harvard. While I agree that the top 20 or so colleges can continue to get away with it for brand value, one doesn’t have to go far down the list before the value proposition changes for most people. Would one pay for Lehigh online if Penn State is a fraction of the cost?
Cardinal Fang: "The colleges have put out their offerings. Now it's up to parents to decide whether they wish to buy the experience the college is selling. "Worthy" doesn't come into it. You buy, or you don't buy."
Campus closed, fully online, living at home, tens of thousands of dollars, and a Class of 2020 high school graduate who has lost all of her senior year still wants to do this. As a parent I don’t feel it’s worth it, but when you have a senior who already has been disappointed in so many ways, there is significant pressure to allow DD to do this. Is this another important item “taken away” from DD? If DD wanted to take a gap year, I’d be fine with that. She doesn’t. She prefers online at home to other options. I’m the parent balking at paying for the “Yugo” by paying for the Mercedes. It’s a difficult position to be in.
I don’t know if those who demand schools be open regardless of infection rate in the area have thought about what they will do if their teachers get infected? Remote classes may not even be possible then.
Is the contact tracing in your area robust? Yes and people are very compliant.
Return of testing result times? 48 hours and free testing sites for anyone who wants to be tested (no symptoms or scripts needed anymore.) There used to be just pop up free testing sites but now there are two that are permanently open M-F. (D might use it herself if her testing kit from Purdue is delayed).
What does the public health director for your area say? We are in phase 4 where schools should safely be able to reopen.
And then there are the school protocols.
Masking required? Yes
Social distancing? Yes - they were only bringing back 25% of the students at a time and doing a hybrid model. Basically the school year was supposed to start out as each student being in the HS 1 week/month and the rest of the time asynchronous learning. Far from bring everyone back but even that plan was scrapped.
Plenty of supplies? Yes, there are no shortages here.
HVAC systems up to the covid-19 standards? This one I’m not sure about but… This is a state of the art HS with labs like colleges’, a planetarium, film studios, etc… The HVAC system was entirely redone in the last few years so I’m suspecting that they are in a much better position than many other schools. It’s an extremely well funded public school.
The students would either sit out and go nowhere for a gap or transfer to a cheaper option, especially OOS or international students. Take online classes at a CC and transfer in a year or two when things hopefully get back to F2F.
I’m not saying no college degree ever. Just punting until better times. Sure, some parents will pay no matter what as long as their kid gets the degree, especially the ones going to T20 type schools. However, the second part of the equation are the kids. If they hate the experience I’m sure they’ll let their parents know.
Some schools like Williams have dropped tuition this fall. Even they realize that the online experience isn’t what parents and kids are looking for in a college experience.
Kids and parents probably gave the online experience from spring semester a mulligan. It was a cluster all-around. However, this fall will be different. They won’t get a mulligan. The schools charging same price for tuition better deliver. Schools have had time to put together a plan and prep for online classes. Shame on them if they haven’t. If the kids and parents feel that this fall’s online experience isn’t worthwhile they’ll look at Plan B for the spring.
We’re paying OOS tuition this fall for most likely an online experience. We’re guilty of paying for name brand. However, if this year’s online experience is poor and next fall is still in limbo because of Covid, I’m sure thoughts of deferral or transferring will come up. What kid or parent wants to pay full-price with the possibility of never stepping foot on campus.
One of the top students in my son’s class turned down Penn to go to Pitt on full-scholarship and guaranteed admission to med school. Lots of other kids in the class are going to state schools on scholarship. It’s making more and more sense.
Williams dropped tuition because students will be taking fewer classes this year. There is no jan plan, so max classes this year will be 8 instead of 9. Williams is also recommending students only take 3 courses instead of 4 each semester, so to incent that behavior, tuition was decreased 15% rather than 11% (jan plan proportion).
Union attorneys are now involved and it’s going to get ugly. Teachers will not remain in class for 7 hours with unmasked students, and they will not do lunch duty. Every surrounding district is doing some kind of hybrid, fully masked, no lunch.
I agree that for now parents may pay what they perceive as “too much” for an online experience, but will not continue to do so if the quality is poor…unless they have no choice. My D is a senior and therefore basically stuck due to required senior colloquia. Once her college reneged on their earlier in-person plans to move to remote only, we still looked around for options to somehow continue her education elsewhere. However both our state flagship and the local CC will also be remote for the fall. Worse, we still couldn’t choose to substitute those cheaper state or CC remote for the premium LAC remote because the LAC’s policy is not to accept transfer credits for online courses. While I think they wanted to prevent students from submitting scammy online courses for credit, unfortunately the policy would now preclude courses from very reputable institutions.
@roycroftmom the Penn State vs Lehigh is a great example. I know a few students (and their families) who are giving their private schools this semester to show the goods, but if online is inadequate they are ready to jump ship to a less expensive state school.
^^^this district is just about 40 minutes away from us. Our district just announced its hybrid plan. Size of the student body is about the same - 3000 kids or so. In our plan, 50% of the kids at a time go to school. Half go M/TH, the other half T/F and Wed is remote for all. No lunch so shortened periods and school day over at 12:50. No synchronous teaching on the home days so I don’t really get it. In math or science, all kids will miss half of the lectures. Plus, with shortened periods, how do they intend to get through all of the material for AP classes? And school only goes until 12:50? I assume there will be a lot of homework then since school is usually 8:00 - 3:00 and then D would have 3-4 hours of homework. I guess I’m glad they are trying to get kids into school but I’m pretty worried about the rigor.