Schools are gonna be chaos with the new COVID policies in place.
Foreign languages involve splitting homeroom classes into smaller groups and in some cases merging two (or more) of those smaller groups into one. However, this will not be permitted if a student from a homeroom class tests positive. They will have to stay together all day. This means some classes will have more than one teacher if a student tests positive for COVID. Seems like total chaos to me.
Personally, I’m just gonna go with the flow tomorrow. I gave in and slept most of the day. It’s 11 PM and I still need more sleep. Hopefully, the melatonin kicks in soon.
I’m opposed to school closings in the sense of “we need to proactively close schools to keep people safe”. I think that schools should continue to be in person with appropriate mitigation procedures in place. If we’re not willing to close down bars, restaurants, or other businesses, I definitely don’t think we should be closing down schools.
If it’s school closings because there aren’t enough teachers/bus drivers/support staff, then sure close them down if you can’t run them.
This whole thing is going to be a clusterfuck. I start teaching next week and, while I’m not concerned about my personal safety, it’s going to be a nightmare dealing with all of the students who are going to be sick and/or quarantined throughout the semester.
While I’d agree that our prioritization is fucked up, the argument of schools should be open because bars, restaurants and other businesses are is illogical. Bad decisions in other sectors doesn’t make bad decisions in schools good.
The reality is that schools are one of the few places where labor is strong enough to demand that their safety is prioritized, and that’s why they’re able to close down.
We’re at 1 million positive give or take right now. I’ve been hearing from my colleagues everywhere that they’re drowning in our hospitals around the nation. The guard is getting called up elsewhere. The only hope is that this disaster crests in different places at different enough times that we can cope.
It’s the spin-off collateral cases that hit the vulnerable and overload the healthcare symptoms that are the cost of schools, sport game attendance etc.
Refusing people entry to the country is what we do for recreational narcissism here, kind of like the bombing and invading countries thing you guys do. Everyone loves this shit.
Biden administration comments today were that there’s no more money coming for anyone and that vaccinated adults should stop being lazy and go to work since the economy is strong.
Last week Biden said schools already have COVID resources and if they fucked that up thats on the states they fucked it up.
Between that and some of the mouthpiece comments I expect they are going to start coming out hard against the unions if the schools don’t open since they have already victory lapped getting kids in school in person.
I think it would be wise to move school to Spring to Fall for the next several years. Said it last year too because the chance of winter being like this was always pretty high.
Since most don’t actually care about education, they just want the day care and their summer vacations, it won’t happen.
Yeah that’s a fair point since outdoor alternatives are hard. Wish we had a political party that didn’t fucking suck in this country to help support this or other alternatives.
We underestimated Omicron. We can’t keep schools open with reasonable quarantine procedures with reasonable staffing levels. Parents will try to force them to anyway because that’s what they do but good for the Chicago teachers for standing up for themselves.
States do have procedures for this too as previously mentioned. Schools can close now and open on Saturdays in the spring and axe April vacation if they are so insistent that remote learning is a no go. Would be easier with support from the government for people who need to take time now so that the lower income group doesn’t plunge back into recession having already lost their child tax payment credits.
Why on earth would anyone even consider doing something this drastic over just mandating vaccinations for school attendance? We don’t have to plan the school calendar around pertussis season.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted on Thursday morning: “Mr Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled. Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders. No one is above these rules.
“Our strong border policies have been critical to Australia having one of the lowest death rates in the world from Covid, we are continuing to be vigilant.”
But speaking in a press conference on Thursday morning, Mr Morrison revealed there had never been an exemption in place and Djokovic’s evidence for a medical exemption was “insufficient”.
“I want to thank the Border Force officers for doing their job implementing the Government’s policies, they have done their job, entry with a visa requires double vaccination, or a medical exemption,” he said. “I am advised that such an exemption was not in place, and as a result he is subject to the same rule as anyone else.
My dude thought he was going to show up and just be like “yeah I don’t have an exemption, what of it? I’m Djokovic, bitch”. This is just like that time with Depp and the dogs, there is nothing politicians here enjoy more than fronting the media and explaining that someone like this can go fuck themselves. It’s like a second Christmas.
Omicron is currently laying waste to schools ability to function even with a highly vaxxed population. My kids school had as many COVID positives this week as it has had previously since COVID started and most of the school is freshly vaxxed since 5-11 became eligible. Teachers are 100 percent vaxxed and their are staff shortages.
While I think the spring and summer are going to bring relief, the chance of a second Omicron wave with waning or some other mutation next winter seems pretty high to me. Unless we get to the point where we are just sending vaxxed positive kids and teachers to school, I think there’s a real chance we have these 6-8 week periods where school becomes unfeasible when the winter wave hits.
Maybe it isn’t as dramatic as re calendaring the year and is just a return to 2020 policies like strict cohorts, can’t attend school within 14 days of travel out of state, discouraging/ending indoor extra curriculars for the winter season, banning meetings with classmates out of school, etc
The nieces elementary school in Ohio is day to day. Remote on Monday due to lack of bus drivers. One girl has 7/20 and the other 5/20 kids out due to Covid.
I mentioned this early as the policy for Columbus public schools. I think today 17 were remote. They make the call as soon as they know there will be staffing problems. Could even be on the morning of based on a recent email.
Currently 17 schools were remote today. No clue how many there are total, but a pretty big number.
I am in favor of teachers doing what they need to do. But if school opens in person (we’re supposed to start 1/10) I’m sending my kids. We’re all vaxxed and boosted. I assume we’re all getting Omicron and trust we will be protected from serious illness by the vaccines.
Basically everyone is sending their kids and there isn’t a teacher revolt where I am. Just simply the close contact rules and positive cases are making closures and major disruption untenable in many classes and schools. We will start in person tomorrow, I expect to be remote again at the pool testing next Tuesday if I don’t have a pozzed house by then.
We had like 80 pooled tests of ten Monday to facilitate return to school. Pooled tests supposed to only be for non symptomatic students without close contact to COVID. 24 pools pinged positive. How exactly do schools stay open in person for any length of time with that profile?
