You have named all of the pros and cons. This offer from WUSTL is being offered by most schools and there are many reasons to take it. I have 3 at state schools on it is only my freshman that I wish would stay home (I think this is going to be a harder year to adjust). Unfortunately he still has 2 classes in person and that is therefore not an option (to begin with I still say they will be remote before the semester is over). If campus is happening and he has the chance to join clubs and meet friends then he wants to give it a try. Every school, area, and student is unique. It is discouraging that the smaller private colleges that others have discussed on this board have not been successful at their plan. If they can not do it I do not believe the larger state schools will be successful. I am not sure why anyone is surprised by the behavior of these students on campus. I have seen the same behavior from adults all summer.
@homerdog Those plans in Illinois do sound overly restrictive. Do they give any metrics for when they might be able to do some in person learning? Is the in school SAT off the table too?
What parts of Illinois is the virus impacting most? I see that the daily numbers are pretty stubborn and don’t seem to be coming down, but am assuming it’s in pockets not everywhere
@nywestie Your rant is warranted! Tough for these kids at schools where some are chosen and some are not and hard to see most of the NESCAC invite everyone back, but not your own school. But class of ‘22 should be back in spring and I bet ‘23 and ‘24 will not.
My thoughts on a return to campus are mostly negative. I think the experience will be somewhere between frustrating and awful for many.
That said, I think there is value for new students to get a feel for the school. Walking the campus, and knowing that it’s “yours”, is a pretty powerful thing. Connections will be limited, but they will be created between students and in some cases with professors. Depending on a few factors, I might roll the dice and head to campus as a first-year student. Those would be:
- The general health of my child (are they generally healthy, or are they the student who missed 2 weeks of high school per year with the flu)?
- Fear of COVID. Will masks and cleaning and isolation be too much?
- Maturity. Will your kid follow (at least most of) the rules, or are they going to be looking for every party they can find...masks and distancing optional?
- Ease of extraction. Can your child leave campus this afternoon if you received a call this morning that school was closing? Do you live close enough that you can get to and from campus by car in a day? Do they have to expose themselves to risks to get to and from campus?
Weighing those types of issues against the possible benefits is how I would make the decision.
The big thing to note…there is no right answer here. There is no way to know what to do, so don’t churn on it. Do what you feel is right, stay in touch, and attuned to what’s going on, and adjust as necessary. If your child goes to campus and hates it, bring them home after a week…or two…or whenever. For a first-year student, I think it might be worth the risks, even for a short period, to build some connection to the school and the other students.
@wisteria100 here are the words from a presentation last night that explain why we need to be remote. New guidelines include.
● Redefinition of a ‘Close Contact’
○ Redefined as ‘anyone with or without a face covering who was within 6 feet of a
confirmed case of Covid 19 for at least 15 minutes throughout the course of a day.
○ The period of close contact begins two calendar days before the onset of symptoms.
● Expectations for COVID-like symptoms for students and staff
○ All students and staff must be sent home with Covid-like symptoms and must be
diagnostically tested and remain at home until test results are received (sore throat, headache, runny nose, cough, and so on)
● Definition of an ‘Outbreak’ in a school
○ Two confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections occurring within 14 calendar days of each
other in individuals in the same classroom would meet the case definition for an outbreak.
And here are the new guidelines in a document from the state. Seems that only the first set of guidelines was changed but it was enough for our school to change course. We have no guidance on when we can go back into school.
https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IDPH-School-FAQs.pdf
Percent positive cases in our county have held steady. I believe around 4 percent. Pritzker divides the state into zones and I thought the point of that was to have different restrictions in different zones but these new guidelines affect the whole state. We do have some upticks in other zones.
And here’s a story today about children in Illinois presenting with that syndrome caused by the virus.
So this is now circulating with regards to Villanova’s first week on campus. A few hundred hanging out together on campus. Not good…but not unexpected.
@homerdog - I don’t like the changing goalposts or the lumping of every region in the state together. There are plenty of towns in IL with very low positivity numbers, where there is compliance with mask wearing, and social distancing. It will be interesting to see if private schools reverse course now too.
@circuitrider what am I missing? I thought all students were going back to Colgate.
^They are. I was misinterpreting something @wisteria100 had posted.EDIT to add: She was actually referring to Amherst - not Colgate. END of edit. NVM.
I think we prioritized the wants of college students over the needs of our elementary and secondary school students and now we’re seeing the effects of it. Hundreds of college kids gathering together for a couple of hours in close quarters, house parties, and other unsafe behavior are all having an impact on local communities. I’m not surprised schools are pivoting to remote learning.
I understand the perspective of parents with college aged kids. My spouse and I have one at a public university, one at an Ivy, and one starting at a cc this fall, so I get parents’ desire to get their money’s worth. But elementary and secondary school parents are paying too, and school taxes aren’t cheap. My children could spend all of 2020-2021 learning remotely and they’d do just fine, and it wouldn’t impact anyone’s ability to work outside the home either. But those are luxuries many families with younger children don’t have. I wonder if primary and secondary schools would have felt more comfortable allowing their students back if college students weren’t being invited to return and bring with them an increased risk of community spread.
@nywestie I agree that the administration’s repeated (and deluded) insistence that remote learners will be on an even playing field compared to those on-campus is ridiculous. For those not from Amherst, the quote from nywestie (“remote learners will not be at a disadvantage”) was actually a near direct quote from Catherine Epstein in the July 2 town hall. When my wife heard that, she said “well that’s a load of crap.” D immediately rolled her eyes when Epstein said that.
That being said though, one of D’s labs is remote for students on-campus as well as those studying remotely.
S checked his school portal to see if he had any changes to his schedule. His one web based class was changed to in person. Interesting since most of his frienSo as of now, all his classes are f2f.
My son actually has 100% in person classes. Not many students at his school do, but he does. In fact one was originally web-based but has now moved to in person. He is NOT a person who learns well online. If he had mostly online classes, we would’ve probably recommended a gap year, though also not ideal. He’s a freshman so he won’t know what he’s missing as much as my D, a junior, who has decided not to return to school. S will meet new friends, live independent from us, and get an in-person learning experience with his professors. To me that makes it worth him attending.
Also, students who are going to break the rules at school are going to break the rules in their home communities. There are outbreaks all over from young people getting together.
Good advice and grateful for organized approach! Thank you for replies!
I think the perspective is from someone involved in college conversations.
Parents with smaller children are engaged in significantly different discussions, as the potential “spreaders” in the family live at home, and often rely on older adults to care for them.
There are some similarities (the divide between rich and poor, public vs. private), but the developmental impacts and concerns are completely different. If you ask our extended family what worries them about school in the fall, the answers will be very focused on the grades of their children (from K through college senior). I think the general conversation in the country around getting back to school is as much about parents and working as it is about education, and accordingly, I doubt college has been prioritized over elementary and secondary schools.
EDIT: I think colleges are generating a tremendous amount of communication, mostly because they are much more concerned about their careers and incomes than many in K-12 education.
^^
Categorically no. I don’t think what colleges/universities are doing at ALL have anything to do with K12 decisions. K12 public districts are driving the decisions and anything public with elected officials etc has its own decision making process/agendas/etc.
I don’t think public k12 school’s decisions on returning to f2f instruction were influenced in any way by what colleges were doing.
We haven’t seen much in the way of K-12 going back more carefully yet with distancing and masks here in the US. That Georgia case was obviously over the top with thousands of kids in school with no masks. I hope there are districts out there that will go back in a safer way so we can learn from them. In some ways, though, it does seem like it’s such a local issue and depends on everyone in the community taking precautions. What works in one school district might not work in another unless the communities surrounding them are also doing their part.
It’s a stretch.
Our superintendent said our district’s decision to go remote was driven primarily by local virus numbers and teacher/staff concerns. They did a survey and most teachers reported they would not go back to the classroom due to their own health conditions or that of close family members and/or if they did they would be asking for significant accommodations.
The superintendent also cited a shortage of the PPE that would be needed to keep schools safe. Not $$ issue – literally can’t get enough supplies b/c of backorders.
There was no mention of community spread from colleges’ decision making for the Fall, and we have lots of nearby universities.