@garland The thread is actually about all schools. It’s just focused on college because due to the nature of College Confidential, people are more interested in the colleges.
“School in the fall & Coronavirus”
We’ve been discussing elementary schools throughout this thread.
As usual, the idiots get all the attention instead of millions of great NJ residents doing their part. And the students will suffer. Looking at the NJ numbers on Worldometer, NJ is doing great- many weeks with daily cases in the 200-300 range. I remember, “flatten the curve”. Meanwhile, I personally know non faculty already being laid off at colleges mentioned here that went online recently. Spring semester, we’ll want to keep removing all risk - so more online and more lost jobs. I also predict layoffs for faculty as college admissions drop substantially after Covid - similar to what’s happening in hospitals now where some of the heros that we clapped for in appreciation have been laid off because the hospital can’t afford to keep them.
Low risk states with low virus transmission need to get students back in school with the highest priority being k-8. There is no reason not to. As the governor of Mass just said -
‘The facts don’t support it’: Baker rejects idea that all Mass. schools should be remote this fall.
States with high virus circulation need to take a slower path.
What are families in GA and MS doing when their students are sent home to quarantine? Schools open in person then someone is exposed to a Covid positive person and suddenly an entire class is sent home to quarantine for 14 days. So parents who are working now have to take time off to stay home with their child? In a household with multiple children that could get old fast.
Just wondering if one needs quarantine for 14 days if can get tested and quarantine until results come back? It seems like if you are exposed, you can go get tested. Just a thought that could alleviate the 14 day rule. (assuming perfect world too where results can be back in 24-72 hours and not the weeks long wait times that other posters have experienced).
Also - just to your point – if classes all online/remote, the parents may have to stay home anyway to be with the children. Such a mess for so many.
Culturally the US was too divided to have a unified response to the virus, so the US got the worst of all outcomes. Any choice to open or not open schools and how (in person, remote, or hybrid) will have a bad outcome, though the different choices may have different bad outcomes.
Actually, the thread is about both, but it often seems like two different threads that happen to be combined into one.
I see. Thanks.
Apologies for the elementary reference. I do think you can’t conflate the situation for young children and for college students–two entirely sets of needs and realities. If you can find a way to socially distantly teach K-3 with teachers who feel they are in a safe place, go for it, but I’m not an expert on that. It’s probably the ages most needing f2f.
Back to colleges. Yes, NJ numbers are low right now. But every time rules are loosened, they tick up again. And every time there is a large gathering, Covid spreads like wildfire (Middletown high school party, LBI lifeguards, huge commercial house “parties.”) Colleges opening in person would most likely emulate that, on a larger scale. Obviously the virus is still endemic in the community, or this would not happen over and over.
Opening up would bring air to the smoldering embers and strengthen the fire . We know that. Why do it when we have a perfectly valid way to teach for the moment that is safer?
So stay closed until there is widespread distribution of a vaccine is your answer? There will never be perfect compliance with masks/distancing, and in some places the virus numbers are very, very good already. If that is not enough to permit college reopening, it would be best to say so now, so students can make arrangements for 2 years or so. Many students expected that places with low case rates and abundant medical care would be able to open. Had they known that was not the standard for reopening, different choices might have been made.
Before our school district made the decision to go virtual until Mid November ( then it will be reassessed), the district was inundated with calls and emails from parents saying their kids would not be wearing masks. My friend said it was non stop. They may be the minority, but they are obnoxiously vocal. This outpouring of refusal to cooperate was a definite driving factor to go remote.
Now these same folks are on social media freaking out.
I agree that kids need to be back in the classroom, but do many of the parents themselves make it impossible.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: I was gone all weekend. Not happy this morning to see off topic posts and bickering tone, even after another moderator cautioned people to stay on topic. It really is up to each of you to keep this thread open. It will not be the moderators’ fault if it is closed.
I deleted some posts but do not have time to look at almost 200.
Why couldn’t the district just say - no mask, no entry and if we see you without a mask then it’s out of school and remote learning for you. That’s what our high school is saying. The plan is to be hybrid but there is an all online option too and that’s your fate if you mess with the mask rule.
I’m hoping there will either be effective treatment or a vaccine by then. I no longer know what’s realistic, and I’m feeling pretty cynical today. I think for everything to be back to “normal”, we probably need a massive, widespread mindset change on the part of those who currently don’t believe in science and/or don’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to shut this down faster.
I don’t think elementary and high schools have the ability to do true hybrid (where you can choose either way on any given day) so the decision has to be made for all. The hybrid I’m seeing most commonly at this level is 2 days in class for 50% of students, Wednesday online for everyone, then 2 days in class for the other 50%. The 2 days your kids are home don’t have online teaching because the teacher is teaching the other class… Those kids will have assignments and busy work and the teacher answers questions via email and online message boards when he or she can.
So for the mask less kids (assuming they wouldn’t come), they would miss the 50% of lessons done at school.
That is our hybrid plan but our completely remote model is an online school chosen by our superintendent and classes are not taught by our teachers. The student will have a guidance counselor from our school who will be their point of contact between this online school and the high school. Anyone choosing all remote gets this option only.
We are starting hybrid but, if those kids go remote, they will revert back to remote class with their high school teachers like spring 2020.
Report on Vault testing, the company Purdue is using to test students before returning to campus:
D came home yesterday (yippee!!!) and signed into the portal. You can’t eat of drink within 30 minutes of taking the test. Her wait time initially showed as 20 minutes but the telehealth session started after only 1 minute. The person walked her through step by step what to do, confirmed her identity, watched her spit into the tube, “break” the bottom of the cap with the blue agent to combine, and watched her place and seal the tube in a biohazard bag and into the return overnight envelope. They even included alcohol wipes for the student to wipe down the outside of the envelope. It will get dropped at UPS this morning. According to Vault, she should have results late Wednesday or Thursday. Negative results are emailed to us . If it’s positive, a nurse calls to review quarantine and next steps, including the re-test before returning to campus. Results also go directly to Purdue.
I wonder if our K-12 could have opened if we weren’t bringing a lot of OOS college kids back. The education of our elementary and secondary students will be negatively impacted by the fall plans and so will the jobs of the parent(s) who have to figure out childcare. I expect women’s careers will be impacted more than men’s.
If colleges were entirely remote, would states with low Covid rates be able to open k-12 schools for in-person classes?
Our ds22 will be going back to HS in an interesting hybrid format. The town (suburban Hartford, CT) has been split into 2 groups alphabetically (so that siblings in different schools have the same schedule), and the students will be in school for a full week, online the next, continuing until October. At that point, the hope is to phase in full in-person instruction starting with K-5 if the numbers support it.
During the in-person weeks, student will be there half days, grab and go for lunch, then head home. Teachers will have lunch, then go online synchronously with the at-home group starting at noon for a half day. Then it flips the following week. Kids can return to campus at the end of the day for organized sports, which are set up a little differently in order to begin the year with some precautions.
Since my husband and I are teachers and are currently scheduled to be teaching in a different hybrid manner (one day remote, 2 days in-person with half groups, etc.), I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of my 16 year old home alone all day for full weeks every other week. He did well this past spring, in large part because we were all home together and could support him in staying on track with all of the distance learning challenges. I’m coming around to it, however. It feels less confusing and more predictable, and I think we can work to set him up for success with some planning ahead. I also like that they are at least setting a potential benchmark for a return to full in-person if it’s possible, even though I can’t quite imagine it happening as the weather cools, flu season creeps in, and staying outdoors as much as possible becomes less and less feasible.
As for me and my husband, I’m worried for us at work. We don’t have underlying conditions, but we are on the older side of our respective faculties. I’m scared of kids who live in families who are willfully ignoring distancing and masking coming into my classroom and having to enforce mask wearing. I think there are a small minority of faculty in that same demographic that make me feel unsafe in terms of having to be in any sort of indoor contact with them (faculty meetings, etc.). I’m worried about being in my un-air conditioned classroom in the heat for hours at a time with 20 twelve year olds who need to move around, and talk, and want to feel as normal as we all want to feel after all that’s happened, and having to police behaviors that could cause further risk…
And now ds20 will be home with us, too, and I worry about his mental health with the recent news that he can’t live on campus at Umass. He seems to have reached acceptance, but I worry about what he might not be saying.
Sigh…sorry for the mind dump, but it’s all just a lot to process right now.
Where I live, public schools are online for fall semester.
I have two kids in high school. They go to two different private high schools, both of which are planning a hybrid model though it is not like the one you outline.
Both schools will have 50% of students physically in school twice a week. The 50% who are home on those two days will attend class via some platform like Zoom, synchronously, so all students will be learning the same material simultaneously, albeit some in class and some at home. They will then swap for two days, so the one group is in class and the other is synchronous at home. The fifth day students will have at home assignments and teachers will have “office” hours for students who need extra help, have questions, etc. Club meetings can occur, etc. My son is in a specialized program at his school, so he will actually attend school that day, for three hours.
Masks are mandatory. Students also have a choice to work 100% remotely, in which case they would have four days of synchronous online classes. My kids are planning to do the hybrid classes. My daughter said some of her friends are planning to be 100% remote as they have at risk family members.
Both schools successfully transitioned to online learning last spring, without taking a single day off as they had planned ahead. They had additional training over the summer to make improvements after surveying students and parents. We are comfortable with what they are planning. We know we are fortunate as our public school system was a mess in the spring.
@CTCape, not all siblings have the same last names.
You are worried about a 16 year old being alone, but what about the 8, or 10 or 12 year olds? I think the 1/2 day schedule every other week sounds like the worst of all options. Day care for working parents? Transportation mid-day?