Your school may change policy before day one. Many here (Ohio) are changing each day. Anyone under 12 cannot be vaccinated and children and adults around them should be vaccinated. Children are still very vulnerable. I think it’s terrible how once adults became “free and clear” there has not been consideration for children. 
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Our catholic schools (and some other private schools) were open last year. They kept a very low profile and just plugged along. I think they changed their specials (music, art, computer, gym) arrangements and maybe had those teachers come to the classrooms.
At least at the school my kids attended, the classrooms are HUGE as they used to have 50-60 kids per class and now have 25. A lot of the distancing could be achieved by clearing out the extra furniture in the classroom (reading corners, sending only one class to the playground or cafeteria at a time, and even splitting up a class to go to the bathroom. I don’t think they did sports (very big basketball and volleyball leagues). I suspect they allowed the students to wear any masks they wanted to, and for kids wearing uniforms. They’d be thrilled to wear a mask if they got to break the uniform rule and wear a Broncos mask, or superman or Frozen mask.
My sister teaches in a public school and families were given the choice of all online or in classroom. They cut her class size from ~27 to 18. They still had several quarantines during the year when they had to go back to online learning.
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As a Global Services flyer with United Airlines I applaud their move to ensure their employees are vaccinated. I’m also hopeful that pressure on the administration will soon result in the feds using their funding powers to requite the vaccine for flyers.
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And then there’s this…scolll down to read:
Union president not pushing for a vaccine mandate for teachers
From CNN’s Elizabeth Stuart
But some unions are onboard…scroll to read:
United Airlines unions urging workers comply with corporate vaccinate mandate
From CNN’s Pete Muntean
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This is just smart.
Same with our local district. They had two options and you had to choose and stick with it - couldn’t go back and forth, because they had to hire so many teachers for the remote academy and couldn’t deviate due to funding yada yada. Turned out that remote had more school days last year because in-person kept shutting down due to outbreaks. No remote option for that group - they were “in person.” So they just didn’t have school. What’s interesting is that some families opted for the remote academy due to fears of Covid, but others because their kids learned better that way! I do hope that educators everywhere clocked outcomes and feedback so that learning modalities in the future can be more tailored to the student’s needs.
Two of my kids will be teaching in public charter 7-12 schools this fall. One in Ramsey County (MSP metro) and the other in Cuyahoga (Cleveland metro). Both schools skew heavily towards under-served communities, mostly African American. It is imperative that they open in person so that these kids don’t fall behind in their schooling, and that’s exactly what the schools are planning to do. It’ll be a challenge however. Unfortunately, vax rates for African Americans are pretty low for MN and that part of Ohio - about 1/3 of the community - as there is understandable suspicion and hesitancy due to past misuse of POC for medical experiments w/o their consent. And of course vax rates among the 12-18’s tend to be pretty low anyway. My teacher-kids are vaxed, as are their colleagues. They are reasonably protected and everyone (students, teachers, admin) will be masking up. Their charges may not have the same level of protection w/o vaccination, however, and outbreaks risk a switch to remote and an increase in the achievement gap. I know that at least one of the schools has an outreach campaign going on to get families on board with vaccination. It’s also my experience that administrators and families at charter and private schools (including Catholic) work together as more of a partnership because everyone’s kind of on the same page. Families seek out those particular schools, usually because the default choice wasn’t meeting their needs. Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed because both schools have a good track record of graduating these kids and sending them on to post-secondary study. Things slipped last year - still very good but not as good as historical - and one year of that is bad enough.
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Administration might not need to do it directly - they can always put indirect pressure on the airlines either behind the scenes or off-camera.
Unions could be interesting to watch in terms of internal conflicting motivations. On one hand, they want to defend all employees against management imposing new directives beyond previously negotiated collective bargaining agreements that are still in force. But on the other hand, they may not want to be beholden to anti-vaccine employees when it is in the interest of both the employees and the business as a whole for employees to get vaccinated.
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From the CNN article with the teacher’s union head:
(Weingarten) said the voluntary approach has worked with teachers so far, but said full FDA approval of the vaccines would mark a point where mandatory vaccination might be acceptable.
“Would it be this month if the FDA goes give full approval?” Berman asked.
“Yes. Yes,” said Weingarten.
AFT represents 1.7 million teachers. My state’s teacher’s union is a NEA affiliate which represents 3 million teachers. I don’t know where NEA stands, but my state teachers union (NEA) is certainly pro-vaccine mandate.
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My son also teaches in a high poverty large urban school in Ohio - as a community member I’m hoping that schools like this trial some vaccination sites for family members or students old enough to be vaccinated.
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My great nieces, nieces and nephews have all been wearing masks in class throughout (except when classes were virtual and they were home). No outbreaks in any of their schools. The kids from daycare through high school & college have all been excellent about wearing masks with no complaints.
The 12+ year olds got vaccinated as soon as eligible and they could get appts. No VAX reluctance amongst my friends or relatives.
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I believe NEA also opposes a mandate at this point. Both unions maintain that their members are already 85-90% vaxed via survey results. However, state surveys seem to come in at lower numbers: 75 - 80% or so. That was as of June. Things might have changed now with the Delta variant and the resulting uptick in overall vaccinations.
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Here’s your single direct reply: A new study has found that unvaccinated adults who have recovered from the virus are twice as likely to get reinfected than adults who have recovered AND are fully vaccinated.
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The Catholic high school brought vaccines in last spring for teachers, students, and parents.
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Thanks for the article. I forwarded it to a casual friend who traveled with his family to MI during a spike and they all got covid so he (and I suspect family) have all been saying they’re now immune. I am concerned because he’s an older male and patriarch.
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Interesting that it noted that partial vaccination was not associated with reinfection. That’s consistent with data I had seen before that there was no additional benefit in previously infected people to have two doses rather than just one.
Both studies were prior to Delta.
I just found more recent study. Fascinating. Somewhat different slant to the one @TexasTiger2 posted which emphasized the need for full vaccination (two shots) while acknowledging two might not be beneficial in one sentence.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13632
Not stirring things up, just noting different emphasis.
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In other words, it looks as if, in terms of antibody response, a prior COVID-19 infection is like a first dose of a two-dose vaccine for others (those who have not been infected before), and a first dose of a two-dose vaccine is like a second dose of a two-dose vaccine for others.
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Yes. I don’t expect places that require full vaccination will take that into account, but practically, in terms of immune response, it’s like two shots, but even better.
I’m so curious what it would mean for Delta.
Two points that got my attention:
Furthermore, in the cohort studied here, people who had been infected earlier tended to respond better to vaccination.
With these data, we hope to stimulate discussion and research on whether individuals after previous SARS-CoV-2 infection or known seropositivity would benefit from a two-part vaccination schedule or whether these currently much-needed second doses could be saved.
The concern for saving doses is not an issue in the US but is of concern in other places in the world.
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I haven’t seen much attention on the safety of boosters but there are trials for them going on to assess efficacy and safety as well, I suppose.
I don’t know what that means in terms of safety concerns for people who have been infected and who are vaccinated with two doses and then get a booster. I suppose some researchers somewhere will be keeping data on that.