@FourAtShore
I saw the Times “tool” earlier today. My county has 5 million people and 566 school districts. There is wide spread variability in district numbers and even the state separates out the suburbs of our county from the city.
Our rates are way lower than Purdue’s county in IN but the Times school opening tools shows us as not being able to open and Purdue’s county as some schools safely able to reopen. As such, I’d take this with a grain of salt.
Remember way back in May when the California State University system immediately went 100% online? That was a big tip off about what we are seeing now. The CSU system is an incredible value (cheap) so they don’t need to worry about students going somewhere else and they don’t have R&B money to lose.
being on ground level already at school (duke) in my dorms, its different than you’re reading about. it’s better, it’s really great. it is so much better than i expected, it’s everything i imagined it to be. even if all live classes go online, it will be ok. it will be like this o-week. i’m never alone, there are so many new friends and people and we’re making it work. so add in online classes if that happens, and it’s still better than staying at home. it’s still my college experience, and it’s a great one. i just hope we can make it and stay open thru the semester.
@Luckyjade2024 - i hope you make it to tufts. it’s so awesome here on campus, i hope you get to experience it too. hoping for u!
In that NYTimes article, my county (Santa Clara County, California) is a little bit of orange (can open elementary and middle schools) in a sea of red. I wish they would open the elementary schools in my district, but I understand why they are not.
@calif2020 Love your positive attitude in these uncertain times!
So happy its working out for you - all you new freshman deserve it! Thanks for uplifting this thread!
That is so great. This is what I am talking about. Being with like minded students. So now your our field reporter at Duke, so we expect so reports on that’s “really” happening there… Lol…
Have a great experience and dude. Your at Duke. Capitalize after a period… ?.
Don’t you mean “You’re at Duke?”
Haha… Yes… I blame it on my phone… Lol… No question mark though. It was a statement not a question… Thx
I was flamed here a few months ago by the “adults in the room”, and I suspect I will be after this post. But it’s my reality, my opinion, and quite frankly something I need to say out of frustration.
I’m heading to Vanderbilt next week for freshman move in. I’m excited to do so, and happy that Vanderbilt has decided it is safe to move us in. Yes, there are tons of restrictions- many of them “theater”- but almost all of us are ok with them. I live in NY, we’ve been wearing masks for months everywhere we go, and life is fine. We do that to protect others and ourselves, and outside of a few outbreaks here and there the NE has done extremely well (that’s sort of the point here, though…).
My great grandfather is still alive. He was a child during the depression, a teenager in WW2. Lest you think this is political at all, he’s never voted GOP in his life, was in a union for over 40 years, etc. He believes we are acting crazy, that we’re shutting down the world in total when we should simply be changing our behavior… and I wholeheartedly agree with him.
Masks work. Distancing works. This is an insidious disease, but the way I see it we basically have two choices. Stop life as we know it and twiddle our thumbs for a vaccine, or take precautions that have proven to be effective and live relatively normal lives while doing so. The latter has risks…but those are 100% risks that we should be taking. I can already see the eye rolling by some of the people here, saying “You’re a teenager. Of course you only care about yourself. What about those who are at risk?” You know what? I do care about them. But they TOO have a responsibility to act in their own best interests. I was talking to my grandfather and great grandfather the other day. They haven’t left their homes for months. My grandfather is ok with that- it’s his choice to do so. He made a point that what the country is doing right now is akin to not allowing the rest of us to eat peanuts because he is allergic. Should we eat peanuts in front of him? No. But to change behavior for a select few (and EVERY single study shows that the VAST majority of deaths are occurring within the compromised community) is silly. Yes, I understand that some people are getting sick and dying who are not in that category. To that, I say…a little bit of propaganda. Of course it is occurring. People get sick in normal times and die when they shouldn’t. I have an aunt who is an infectious disease doc in NJ and my uncle is an oncologist in FL. Both have said that the “normal” people dying- the younger, non-compromised- are at a rate not dissimilar to normal times with sickness. The difference is the overwhelming numbers due to the contagiousness of this disease make those numbers higher. But that’s as much or more of an issue with the idiots not wearing masks or distancing…
I just re-read the above, and it sounds tremendously insensitive. Is it, though? The vast majority of us have had our lives ruined. Students, parents, everyone. The world has ground to a halt. We now have measures to combat that. Wearing masks, distancing, and being relatively smart about things slow the spread and protect people. Therapeutics have significantly improved, making death a possibility only in more extreme cases. Before you say it, no, I’m not “ok” with people dying so I can have my life back. Trading deaths for happiness is not something that can be excused. But what if it isn’t exactly that? What if we’re to the point where we DO HAVE the ability to mitigate this risk, where those who are most at risk simply continue to act responsibly and take the precautions needed, and there’s a compromise? It seems there are two lines of thought- OPEN UP!!! and STAY SHUT DOWN!!! NO SCHOOL!!!. The world is grey. Acknowledge that.
Now that you’ll be at college, I suggest a course in logic. Pay particular attention to the fallacy of the excluded middle. You say, there are two choices, stop life as we know it or take precautions and live a normal life. (Of course, that “we” isn’t everyone; you don’t think your grandfather should live a normal life, and you don’t think various posters on this board should live a normal life. “We” means yourself and others your age. But I digress.)
I say, the rest of the world would like a word. Somehow, other countries have managed to drive down the level of disease, so that people of all ages, not just 18-year-olds, can return to a more normal life. We could have done that. We still could do it.
@ny2020ny thanks for your perspective. One thing to keep in mind is that many daily activities are going on (i.e. essential businesses are open and always have been since March).
Regarding college life, there are alternatives like online instruction (here’s the compromise), so it’s not as though you cannot get a college education, it’s just more restrictive and not what typical residential college students normally would experience this academic year. We adapt and we move forward.
Secondly, students’ activities not only effect themselves but they can and do put other adults at risk (older faculty, staff, maintenance workers, and administrators) who all contribute to the functioning of the university.
Thirdly, if you don’t like what the college is offering you can (or could have) taken a gap year. You are the consumer and do have some control of how you live your life and how you spend your (or your parents) money.
Andy Thomason, Chronicle writer, is aggregating college covid-19 dashboard links on his twitter account.
@ arthomason is his twitter handle (remove space between @ and the ‘a’
“Open up as long as there is an appropriate infection control protocol in place and everybody complies “ is the general consensus and is something that I think everyone agrees with intellectually.
The issue is that the practicalities of getting to that place isn’t easy. A college that had dorms of triples suddenly had to reduce capacity by 1/3 - 2/3rds and turn away students who wanted to live on campus. The funding and staffing level isn’t there for the required staff to student ratio in K-12 and those kids have issues wearing masks all day so the teachers don’t feel safe going back into those class rooms.
Delighted to hear it is going so well at Duke, and fingers crossed for all the other colleges returning now as well.
While I appreciate the life lesson, you’re saying that we should all react based on the most at risk? I am not advocating for a freestyle life of normalcy. I believe we should maintain distance, not spend time indoors without proper masking, etc.
Of course shutting schools is the “safest” thing to do. Nobody in the world always does the safest thing to do- we’d never accomplish anything. My argument is that we can create an environment where professors, workers, etc. are reasonably well protected from exposure (while those more compromised can stay home as they are doing now).
What is mind boggling is the extremism on the sides of this argument. Doctors are amazing human beings, by and large. But doctors and lawyers should never make policy. They are going to err on the extreme sides of caution and liability.
Couple of comments… Those taking a gap year are doing so in almost all cases to “preserve the college experience”. It would be 12 months of sheer boredom, as there are few (if any) opportunities that would make any sense.
As far as online, it is not even close to the same environment. Not just the online portion of the teaching- the experience and motivation of being around like-minded college students in an academic setting. The “experience” that many of us refer to is not the parties. It’s living alone, amongst other young adults, and gaining that valuable experience.
As far as putting others at risk…That was my point. Those who believe there shouldn’t be school…well, those employees would either be out of work or teaching online. I haven’t heard of many institutions where professors are not able to teach online this semester if they so choose. In fact, three of my five classes are fully online. So that leaves the daily employees and admins… They’d be out of a job without on campus activity. In fact, many HAVE been out of a job for months. So coming back to campus allows them a choice- go back to work and maybe take on those risks, or stay home. If campus is closed, they only have the latter choice.
Doctors do not always err on the side of caution and liability. Try coming to one of our reopening meetings. Unfortunately…this has become very political. I work in a very, very red district within a blue state whose numbers are good. Doctors (parents) here say there is no risk to children, children don’t get sick, and we are all “overreacting.” No mention of teachers. They spew political talking points without the data to back it up.
Doctors/parents in my district are once again calling this the “flu.”
We are making progress. At least now masks are mandated inside a school. At least now we have plexiglass and social distancing. Now we have to work on gym…Is it safe for the gym teacher to be inside all day with different cohorts…all unmasked? No it isn’t…yet the doctors in our community think it’s perfectly safe.
The state where I work just said if there are 2 people with the virus who are in 2 different classes…the school can shut down. I give it 2 weeks.
This is exhausting.
Schools without money fears (concerns…sure, but not scared for their own existence) made the more conservative decisions. Smaller, private schools that had no way to gauge if 98% or 48% of the accepted students would commit were in the difficult position of balancing money and safety.
School leaders are not used to these types of decisions. Business leaders, who know they can’t outrun bad luck or actions, would have been a lot more conservative/aggressive than many school Presidents.
@ny2020ny , your lives are hardly ruined. In fact, those who have undergone horrific traumas and losses often feel their lives were not ruined from such catastrophes and lived wonderful and fulfilling years thereafter. Then there are those who feel a trauma that most of us consider small , ruined their lives. It has to do with ones perspective and there often is some control over that.
I sympathize greatly and am very saddened by those most affected by this pandemic. I am glad my kids are past these college years as this has added a whole other layer of stress to an already stressful endeavor to many. I think it will change the way we are doing things, hopefully, for the better in many respects. I think it has accelerated certain trends.
The problem with COVID19, as I see it, is that we do not know what the long term and far reaching consequences are with this virus. Those I know in research in medicine, some specifically studying this, just do not like what they see. They see an uncertainty they do not like. For the most part, they are safeguarding their families and trying to keep them away from exposure. A radiologist I know told me he doesn’t like the pictures he’s seen from the recovered patients, and when he first encountered the films of Covid-19 patients, even before they were diagnosed, he felt a chill going through him. He’s finding agreement with many colleagues. The military has an automatic ban on anyone who has had COVID19 in terms of recruitment and enlisting. You have to get a medical waiver if you’ve ever been COVID+. This did not come up with the flus. Something is bothering g those who know these things best. Nothing verified, no proof, but bothersome to them.
So, while I can, I’ll err on the side of safety and hope in the next year or two , we’ll have a better handle on this, more information. I think it’s the wise thing to do.