This was a concern of mine when my D went to school with just 1 roommate. I actually sent an email to the Dean of Students asking this question and was told there would be a lot of empty classrooms the kids could use. I was hoping the school would address this officially but they didn’t. Now that my D is on campus she hasn’t seemed willing to hunt around campus for empty rooms and she says she’s not sure they are just allowed to use random rooms…I wish she’d check. But she says a lot of kids are sitting outside or in their dorm common spaces. Density has decreased a lot on campus so a lot of kids are in singles . Maybe it’s not a big deal for many of those with one roommate (it wasn’t for D’s roommate) but my D is kinda picky about her class/study space. SO…her solution: She is in a suite of 4 (2 doubles connect by a bathroom). But enough kids did not come back this semester that they have empty rooms. She talked to her roommates and they contacted whoever they needed to and asked to split up this semester into 2 suites so they each have their own bedroom for both privacy for class time and to reduce density. They were given the keys to another room right away. But, this clearly isn’t a solution for those living in a sorority. If I had a kid at Butler I would want the school to address this issue for sure!
Also, their Library is still open but it’s not a good choice if you have a class where you need to participate. But it works for studying if you don’t mind studying in a mask.
@“Cardinal Fang” Right. I don’t know. And I didn’t want to be judgey but sending your student back to a living situation like that during Covid doesn’t seem safe anyway. Some people just go with the flow and hope for the best I guess.
Back to my point about watching how schools’ Covid plans and how those can affect the current seniors - Parents and seniors might want to be taking notes. D isn’t looking at big schools but, so far, Michigan State, UVA, and the UCs look pretty good compared to some others.
@“Cardinal Fang” I think a lot of student housing arrangements were made last Spring, before anyone had any idea what Fall would look like – and might not have been very easy to change. My older D (graduated from an LAC in '19) and her SO live in a loft type of apartment with no interior walls except for the bathroom/closet area. When they leased that space they didn’t expect to end up on WFH status. They both have jobs that require them to discuss confidential/sensitive information on the phone or video calls. Each of them has ended up in situations where they take their laptop into the bathroom/closet area to make or receive a call.
@homerdog, I’d add the University of Arizona to your list of state schools looking pretty good right now, given the story about how they used wastewater testing for early detection purposes.
Last Spring you say? Like March and April? When we were in the first part of a terrible pandemic? Oh who could have predicted in April that living seven to a room might be dangerous or that a school might be all remote? Who, it was completely unforeseen.
@homerdog - the ND testing strategy includes random surveillance testing. They started posting results this week. They have tested roughly 2500 students through this process. The positive test rate is about 1%.
In person classes to gradually resume next week. The Freshman and Sophomore classes will start first. My son is a Junior, his level of classes will resume in person on 8/31.
While D’s school has done a tremendous job of putting in place policies and procedures to have a successful on campus experience, I have to say I am frustrated with the actions and attitudes of some of the students and parents. While the policies are restrictive, of course, the majority is making the effort to follow them. The biggest issues are social distancing, mask wearing and staying on campus. We have an online parents group and some are actively encouraging kids to leave campus and go into town for food shopping etc., when the school has a policy of staying on campus unless it is absolutely necessary. Some students are leaving campus to eat out. Some students are gathering in rooms. Some students are not wearing masks. This only works if the entire community pulls together. It’s only going to take one or two, in a small school like this to start an outbreak.
No more like last winter i.e. January/February (which is how DS19 ended up with a lease in a house he will not be residing in for the foreseeable future).
A positivity rate of 1% in random testing sounds way high to me. That means typically a big class would have someone who is infected and every teacher would be teaching infected students. If I were a teacher I would refuse to teach in person under those circumstances.
Sorority houses come in all shapes and sizes. The ones I’m familiar with have smaller bedrooms with 1-8 people sharing the bedrooms, but with many other places to study. The one I lived in had two bedrooms connected by a ‘study’ room (for 4-5 people), but also had 2 study rooms, a huge dining room, 2 living rooms, and 3 or 4 other nooks you could study in. It was surprisingly quiet in the house with 55 women living there.
But as @Corinthian said, the arrangements were probably made a year ago for current semester. The spots in the sorority house usually go to officers or those with the most ‘points’ (grades, participation, honors all get points). Many people are making spaces work for school online when they hadn’t planned it to be that way. My friend had two kids come home from college in the spring and she then had no place to work but her bedroom (husband and kids took over the other spaces). I’ve thought about what it would have been like when I was in college if I’d had to move home - 3 college kids, 3 high school kids, parents working, grandfather, dogs… no private rooms to be had.
As for looking back to decisions made in March 2020, I don’t think it’s fair to hold college students (or even their parents) to the same standard I hold our elected and appointed leaders. The latter are the ones who should’ve been more aware and proactive.
On another note, my kid’s school just sent out an email update about testing. Along with a lot of other information about testing results, they included the following:
@HamSBDad, I am also frustrated when reading some of the stuff posted on the parent FB page for D20’s school . It is hard to blame kids for breaking rules when they are actively encouraged to do so by their parents. I am having a hard time understanding why these folks are so shocked by the restrictions. The rules were all spelled out in advance. If I thought they were unrealistic for my kid to follow, I would just have kept her home. Freshmen don’t know anything different, parents should be helping to manage their student’s expectations not adding fuel to the fire.
If this school wants to be transparent, it should be transparent, and put this information on an easy-to-understand covid dashboard. If I want to fact-check a rumor, I should be able to go to the school’s dashboard, where I should be able to find the information, and it should be updated once a day, not once a week. I shouldn’t have to email Campus Health and wait around for an answer. Anyone—parents, students, members of the community—should be able to know how many students have tested positive, how many clusters there are, and where the clusters are.
In one of the parents groups we are getting tons of complaints of not enough activities for their freshman kids. They have something this weekend but many events are filled already These parents think that everything should be business as usual. One parent keeps complaining that their kid cannot have guests in their room, but professors and staff are allowed guests in their homes. no kidding. I want to say, well the alternative is that your kid comes home and works from their childhood bedroom.
“Judgemental” here seems not to mean judgemental, merely judgements that you don’t agree with. “Students and parents could have had no idea last spring that schools might be remote in fall so we can’t expect them to have considered what would happen” is a judgement too. Calling me “judgemental,” but not people you agree with is also judgemental.
SUNY Oneonta started classes Monday, many off-campus parties on the previous weekend. Tuesday, 2 positives; Wednesday, 5 more; Thursday, 6 more (total of 13 so far). 29 isolating due to close contact with one or more positive individual(s). Apparently all but one positive case are off-campus students. One sorority suspended. Prior to this week, there was 1 active case in the county. In addition to the SUNY cases, there are 5 new cases associated with a high school party and 5 at the local hospital group (though in an office that does not deal with patient care). It appears SUNY System is “helping the college develop a plan” to set up a testing program. There was no mandatory testing in their original reopening plan, just waste water testing on campus (and a large portion of their student body lives off campus). They have 87 cases to go before reaching the Governor’s threshold for all-remote. This may sound familiar…
@xyz123a D’s school Covid policy is aligned with the school’s honor code which the students had to sign. I’m not giving them any outs on this. They had the opportunity to stay home and take classes online if they didn’t feel they could abide by the policy. I do agree with you that the parents who flaunt the policy are a part of the problem though. Our parent’s FB page is run by a school administrator and I am astounded that some keep pushing back even when the policy is pasted into the remarks. If you need Chipotle that bad, stay home and eat it to your hearts content!
@“Cardinal Fang” Your quote from my post left out the introductory sentence where I said, “On another note, my kid’s school just sent out an email update about testing. Along with a lot of other information about testing results, they included the following” recommendation about how to respond to rumors. Hope College has a readily available dashboard which is updated every Monday – and if you want to know something before the next Monday update, just ask! The email had a lot of other information about the testing results to date which I did not bother to quote because I was focusing on their plea to students to fact check before spreading rumors. https://hope.edu/coronavirus/