I have faith in your judgement! 
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WOW⌠this video was very powerful, so emotional!!! This is exactly how my DD11 & I feel. 
As of now my kids will be going back, I hope are numbers donât go up too much.
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Friends of ours moved from New York to Oregon seven years ago. Today the dad and the 16-year-old daughter are here for a visit. They said their flight yesterday from Oregon to North Carolina was at 100% capacity. From North Carolina to New York was more like 50%. They had to complete paperwork when they got off the plane in New York and the dad had to put an app on his phone. He now is going phoneless while hereâŚ
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Leaving the phone at the hotel?
Which airline?
Oh, my!
I donât know about there, bute when people cross our border and are required to quarantine, there were people also phoning the phone for just that reason. If the phone wasnât being answered, they got in trouble. Make sure he has a good excuse for not answering his phone.
OR is not on the list for quarantine. I should have said that. Heâs appalled that he was asked to download the app. Itâs tracing just to trace.
@stlouie I will ask which airline
@Pod Heâs staying with his mom so phone stays at her house. No quarantine for OR.
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More of the same, but still a recommended read:
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Thanks for posting this, I have a subscription and read it a day or so ago. I thought it was interesting, but reflective of how we are just meandering through one solution to the next⌠or notâŚ
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Thanks for this. I have shared it with my colleague in charge of the facilities part of our reopening plan.
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This past week we presented our proposal for the fall. I generally donât post details that can identify me (a liner has actually impacted my personal life in the past) but I feel like you have all shaped my recommendations over the last few months.
For those that do not know, when I first signed up for Touring Plans I was a principal. I am now an assistant superintendent. I oversee âa little of this, a little of thatâ but mainly teaching and learning.
Massachusetts asked us to plan full return, 3ft spacing, but 6 ft. If possible.
Our approved plan:
Hybrid model: one week in school, one week remote; kindergarten every day half day k (for years we have had full-day); all special education students that receive services for 60% or more of their day will be in every day; all English Learners that have the lowest English proficiency will be in every day; all 1st and 2nd graders will be in every day; all 10th graders and 11th graders not taking AP courses will be in every day (state high stake test that passing is linked to a diploma
All class will average between 11-14 students and maintain masks all day plus 6ft.
Every student in the district will get a free breakfast and a free lunch. We are continuing to offer satellite meal distribution in the fall. Also, we are still working on setting up child care program that might allow us to use some grant money for some families (not all).
The work is not done and all of a sudden our COVID rate is rising. There is tremendous pressure building in the state for all remote. That means I will transition my planning on how I will get some of my families the technology and support to access the instruction we will be planning. We have spent months writing grants for iPads, Chromebooks, and mobile hotspots.
My state is also requiring us to provide a 100% remote option for all families. All remote instruction comes with new rules from the state: daily attendance and grading aligned to in person.
Please keep on sharing because the next 6 weeks will mostly see many revisions to our plans! Thank you for all the articles, plans and ideas! Each of you have in one way or another have touched the lives of 5000 children.
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Our district apparently had an ugly school board meeting last week. The district administrators were proposing 4 day per week in person and 1 day cyber. And of course their cyber school which is completely remote. For in-person, they were doing Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. They chose it that way so it can easily be made into a 2 day a week rotation if it was needed at some point. Everyone but several school board members seemed to be on board. After public questions and comments were over, they suddenly decided to amend the plan and voted to have the HS go 2 days week on a rotation. No public comment was permitted. Needless to say, there are some upset parents. So now k-8 is in person 4 days per week and HS is 2 days on a rotation.
Those who want to do complete cyber have to put in their intent by tomorrow so the school can figure out in person classes. A transportation survey will be out this week. And our school district was approved for 5 days of remote learning for weather and emergencies. This has actually been around since before the pandemic and is relatively new. I guess they figure they might as well apply for it since they are doing some remote anyway.
We start school in 3 weeks, so I donât see much changing unless something crazy happens. Governor Wolf just recently stated that he is going to allow the school districts to do their plans and he is not shutting down schools. We will see.
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By the middle of March most of the rooms in my house had portable air filters, with HEPA filters. I was reading everything I could and aerosol seemed important. Theyâre still running, we keep the filters changed.
By the end of May Iâd resumed my usual hand washing habits.
Clean air for schools is problematic because of mitigation for shooters. But whatâs the higher risk?
The Atlantic article didnât mention the German auto parts company and the contract tracing done there which focused on touch, specifically two employees whose only contact was passing a salt shaker in the cafeteria. This is clearly not how these two exchanged that particular covid RNA altho trying to trace aerosol contact this long after the fact is probably not happening.
This article had some interesting points about super spreader events which were helpful in explaining questions Iâve had for months.
Interesting also are the comments about confusing influenza virus mitigation with what is known about how corona operates even amongst medical experts.
Thanks @adusca for posting the article.
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Thanks for posting. I donât think any schoolboard anywhere is going to get it exactly right. But I know you (and your colleagues) are doing the best possible with an evolving situation. Five years from now, some pundit for some newspaper will have all the answers and will tell us where our school system went wrong. We can all only do the best with the information (and funding) we have.
Our province, which has really good covid numbers (so far, letâs see after Sept, though) is sending all elementary students back in the classroom. For high school, the more urban or high density school populations will only go half days. I think the boards get to decide how that will look. Ours is leaning towards 2 cohorts each in for half the week, then trading off the next week.
In case itâs of any interest or help to you, this is what our Education Minister put out:
Your plan brings up a good point I hadnât thought about. Our grade 10s also have an English test they have to pass for their diploma. If they donât pass, they have to do it in grade 11. This past yearâs grade 10s missed their test (school closures), so now both grades will be writing next April. I worry (my son is in grade 11 and still needs this credit) that with their half-remote learning they wonât get the support they need to be able to do well on the test. I think your plan of sending those grades in full time makes good sense.
Also, how are you going to be handling kids with IEPs? Or will that just be up to the boards and teachers?
Iâm not sure what to expect from my sonâs CERT this year, but maybe with half weeks in school, things will be better than they were last year.
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We will be providing all special education services but there might be extra during the remote days. We will be able to schedule those services and staff. The 100% remote IEP services will be provided but we are telling parents we expect they will not be as robust as in person.
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We are in MA also and our school district announced their proposal last night. They are going with a hybrid plan too. Cohort A (last names A-K) will go in person Monday & Tuesday and remote Thursday & Friday. Cohort B (L-Z) is the opposite. All are remote Wednesdays).
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Our pediatrician just shared that they are in the process of installing a new ventilation system at her office (small private practice). She said that removing used air from exam rooms and replacing with outdoor air is better than UV systems and air purifiers.
An aside, but related. The science building where I had class had a great ventilation system because there was a lot of granite used in the building. Granite can release a lot of free radicals and they didnât want those lingering in the building. I had a professor who had real issues with all the granite used in home construction today without proper ventilation n installed.
Sounds like the whole world should move towards better ventilation which I think would improve health all around. It just took a pandemic.
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A lot of districts are doing that: 2 days on 5 days off. Have you heard some of the teacher concerns?
I am sure the teachers have concerns but they havenât been very public about them. My DDâs grade two classes and one of which has an open teacher position so it will be interested in seeing how easy that is to fill. The school sent out a survey to teachers and students and most teachers seemed to want in person lessons with masks required. The family survey results indicated most would not be utilizing the bus.
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A teacher friend of mine in UT just shared their Elementary sch plan. Students divided up alphabetically into A and B days. Fridays all are home virtually. One teacher already found a flaw in the alphabetical w/ unequal distribution of enrollment numbers. With A students on that day they deliver planned lessons and check on B students virtually, rinse and repeat on B day. Sheâs concerned about what to do w/ her own children on Fridays and their days off and keeping up w/ the work load of managing live and virtual during contract hours.
But another district in UT is all virtual until end of first term, Oct 30th cuz if C-19 numbers
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