those who can afford it, will find a way to educate and socialize their kids. The kids who were already behind are now in worse positions. I saw this firsthand with my D who tried to be teacher this past fall at a Title I school. second graders who did not log in remotely during 2020/2021 and still cant read or sound out letters. yet the curriculum says they should write. These kids also have very little emotional control. Very little sets them off . Add in masks where these kids are not learning important social skills,that are part of reading faces. There is no classroom management, and the punishment of suspension means nothing. meanwhile the High schoolers are not returning, finding life on the streets, and in many places crime has gone way up.
the districts are short staffed, and going around finding the ātruentā or unenrolled students right now is not a priority.
Which areas kept their schools open at a top priority. In certain states in 20/21 they were; in others they were not. The argument of ābringing covid home to Grandmaā from school , as studies did show, was that Covid was not spreading in masked classrooms, but rather , covid was coming into the classroom from other places (home, parents, etc). In the same school this fall, despite the economic situation of these families , the school did not have any more covid then those in the richer areas, and maybe even less.
Elderly adults vote in great numbers, so it is not surprising that we prioritized their interests over those of nonvoting children. Just donāt expect the younger generation to forgive or forget it. They wonāt. Most other countries prioritized open education.
Interesting take. Just not how I see it. I raised my kids to live with empathy. I think they believe that prioritizing the lives of others over their short term happiness, i.e. imposition of remote learning, masking etc. was the right call. I guess I donāt believe there is anything for them to forgive and believe they will easily forget. Or, if not forget, find pleasure in the remembering that they sacrificed to keep others safe.
That would be nice if they actually believed their sacrifice had any effect in keeping othersā safe. I can assure you that many believe the restrictions imposed upon them had zero impact on the elderly. Pandemic theater.
I think part of the issue is that some people want to go back to having everything in person but arenāt willing to take steps to protect others. To them, letting (what they assume will just be old) people die is a risk theyāre willing to take. They donāt need to get vaccinated or wear masks because the old people are expendable.
Someday these children who are āsureā to resent the older generation for trying to save as many lives as they could are going to be the older generation. I hope they have better sense than to teach their children that old people donāt matter.
I think a valid point however is that your children are probably from a stable, well maintained , safe home. Comfy conditions for learning from home, parental guidance, enough food etc.
In my area, Philadelphia, remote learning has had devastating consequences for so many children.
my 81 yr old parents (ex-teachers) have been helping a kid in their neighborhood who lives with their grandma and disabled mom. this kid missed a full quarter of school in K when cv hit; then remote for half a year in first grade. Now in second grade she can not read. she barely knows her letters, but the teachers have to pass her through. My parents often take her to school; have met her teacher at open house, and are trying to tutor her. my parents are very worried for her.
sdl0625 - thanks to your daughter for working with those kids. we know exactly what you are talking about.
MY point i guess; my parents are elderly; dad had CV. They are much more worried about that second grader than themselves.
Iām in agreement with most of the bullet points in that article above - mainly because the elderly generally more able to take care of themselves and figure things out more than the kids; the lower income/poor school situation kids have been hurt immeasurably.
We have boiled it down to an argument of whether to prioritize school children over potentially medically vulnerable people, but I think some of this conversation ignores other variables that could have been in play. I have always felt that keeping school open for f2f instruction should have been prioritized over many other things (keeping bars and restaurants open, for example), especially pre-Delta, when younger people werenāt thought to be as impacted by the virus themselves. But we werenāt willing to do that (prioritize education over the economy), soā¦here we are.
I donāt think anyone is saying that except for you. I didnāt see any hesitation by the young to undertake reasonable public health efforts to protect others, at least initially. When more onerous restrictions continued for years, and were largely imposed upon those at least risk, while those at greatest risk were not required to make similar sacrifice, resentment arose.
Many kids were prevented from attending in person school. At some schools, masks are still required outside, and children are distanced at lunch. At the same time, the rest of us can and do go outside without masks and eat out if we wish to do so. It is the same inconsistencies which allows crowded indoor sports games but prohibits in person class. The burden is disproportionately imposed on the young. Particularly once vaccines and boosters were widely available and free, so those who wish protection can avail themselves of it, it is reasonable to ask why the young should continue to be so burdened on behalf of others.
As someone who knows a girl who died by suicide last year, the impact the isolation had on teens weighs heavily. Teens died. And still are dying, and will die in the future (maybe the causes will be indirect, but traceable back to lives being derailed in the pandemic). I mean, while we are comparing whose pandemic experiences were the most devastating, donāt minimize our childrenās sacrifice. It was and is far more than having to endure online learning.
My ādataā is way off?? You have no idea where I live.
Your anecdote does not support your point on the topic of kids attending K12, or at least K-8.
Where is āthe scienceā, aka the data, that shows 8-year-olds are bringing COVID home to kill parents or grandparents?
Iām not convinced that the collective āweā is correct. IMO, schools would be open if the teachers unions wanted them open. Also, in my opinion, we are doing the opposite of prioritizing school children.
Parents of those 8 year olds happily sent them to schools when they were open, so a subset of kids in private, charter, or religious schools, or those in certain communities, were able to continue in-person education. I have not heard of an abundance of private school parents dying from covid and apparently those parents were largely willing to assume the risk by sending their kids to open schools. And no, not all these schools are wealthy and had mitigation available. The vast majority of Catholic schools are not wealthy
Hence the need for studying which mitigation measures worked, and which did not. Almost everyone agrees vaccines worked quite well. At least some types of masks, in some indoor situations, worked in some places, I think. Did other mitigation measures matter? The outdoor crowd limits? Closed public schools? Indoor crowd limits?
Similarly, it seemed cash incentives to get vaccinated worked well here, but did not in other places. A guide to which incentives worked would be helpful( lottery style? Scholarships? Sports tickets? Cash? More mobile vax trucks?)
I am 100% in agreement with you on this.
In our suburb (Metro Atlanta), the teachers want to teach and have the schools open. My wife (high school chemistry teacher) saw the trauma (academic, social, and mental) that the original isolation from March 2020-May 2020 had on her students.
She went back in person (All 23 members of her department came back instead of opting out or leaving) before any vaccine was ready in August 2020 and have taught in-person ever since. I just donāt see many in my āneck of the woodsā who have your opinion, so I am trying to understand your point of view. Is there just too much risk?
I have a grandkid in preschool and one in kindergarten. The preschool misses much more school due to potential Covid exposure- fellow students, staff, etc. I donāt know what the difference is in the standards or testing between the K-8 and the preschool, but itās a noticeable difference.
I also just found out that the kindergartener ādoesnāt really talk to their classmatesā as āwe sit so far apart.ā That makes me sad, I was feeling pretty good about their level of attendance this year and then realized how abnormal things are in the classroom. Every state seems to do things their own way, my grandkids are in very blue areas, their cousins are in very red areas, I think no missed school and most likely no masks. It will be interesting to reflect back on experiences/outcomes in a few years.
Blockquote I think a valid point however is that your children are probably from a stable, well maintained , safe home. Comfy conditions for learning from home, parental guidance, enough food etc.
In my area, Philadelphia, remote learning has had devastating consequences for so many children.
100% true. And I believe what you and others are saying - the consequences have been devastating for many. And I also agree that before we chose to keep kids remote we should have chosen to shut down many other - in my view as well - less important things. Bars and restaurants definitely fall into that category although, again, I do realize that would have been devastating to bar and restaurant owners and workers if they werenāt somehow alternatively compensated. My point was more that we donāt know what might have happened if schools had been in-person in the very beginning. People here point to private and other schools that stayed open. But to compare apples to apples we really need to evaluate whether public schools could have mitigated as effectively as those that stayed open - that had the money to buy air filtration systems and distance kids in classrooms, etc. And Iām not sure that we donāt know that some kids brought covid home or to others who subsequently died. Our contact tracing, particularly in the beginning, was pathetic.
I agree that the impacts of the pandemic have been awful - Iām just not sure itās so easy to conclusively say that it would have been better ifā¦
"Your anecdote does not support your point on the topic of kids attending K12, or at least K-8.
Where is āthe scienceā, aka the data, that shows 8-year-olds are bringing COVID home to kill parents or grandparents?"
Iām afraid I donāt have the science because the truth is our contact tracing has been lousy throughout the entire pandemic. My anecdotes are all I have (I understand anecdotes do not equal data) and given that my kids are 20 somethings that is my universe moreso than 8 year olds. The difficulty here is that it is possible, if not likely, that if the 8 year olds did contract covid they would have been asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic (thankfully) and so they may not have been identified as the vector of transmission even if they were. We never did enough testing either so to conclude that schools were not a major source of transmission is again difficult to assess and prove. So no, thankfully I donāt have data that shows kids ākillingā (your word) parents or grandparents; my point was I canāt imagine the mental health impacts if we did.