It’s common practice to send Sick children to school 
BC ppl don’t have enough PTO
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Yeah, I needed to use my /sarcastic font there…
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I clearly need to be done interneting today. My brain is so fried.
I love logistics and planning, but for heaven’s sake I am over it.
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FWIW, like, if your schools actually are allowed to try to be safe…
The feds released this today:
Over the next six weeks, more than 50 million students will head back to school, and more than 20 million students will return to undergraduate and graduate studies. For young people, getting vaccinated right away is the best way back to the things they love – like playing sports, completing their studies, and spending time with friends and loved ones. Today, the Biden Administration announced additional actions to get students ages 12 and above vaccinated and to ensure all students can go back to school safely this fall:
They also referenced this, released earlier this week:
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Our school district will be having the school nurse contact close contacts to discuss recommendations. Last school year, none of the kids or staff that were quarantined throughout the year tested positive. Because of this and the fact that they found it disrupted education (whole classes if a teacher was quarantined and subpar class work for students quarantined). So they are not doing automatic quarantines. Honestly, I’m glad there will be a discussion. The quarantines were not great. One of my kids was quarantined after he had already been in school for 2 days after exposure and he missed out on a lot of school work on the days he was quarantined.
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My DM69 is currently living with us. She’s vaccinated but has underlying conditions and already survived Covid once. It would be nice to at least know they were exposed so we could take some precautions at home.
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Yes, I agree with notifying people of close contact. Both of my 12 year olds are vaccinated. DS9 is obviously not. But they are all 3 going in person and if any of them get exposed, by the time we are notified, it won’t really help anything. We don’t have anyone high risk in our home, thank goodness.
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I would like to cancel all previous impressedness. 
“Two bills that would have overturned the ban on school mask mandates failed to make it past a House Committee.”
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I can’t even…
https://abc13.com/health/baby-with-covid-couldnt-get-care-in-houston-due-to-lack-of-beds/10933199/
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So last year my kids were learning virtually all year and it was fantastic. They both attended schools where the teacher taught virtually and in person simultaneously. As in the online kids watched the teacher who was teaching via video. All kids turned in their work online via laptops provided by the district (as has been the norm for years). This year the state has said they won’t fund students leaning virtually. I’m very frustrated that local school districts can’t provide that option. Particularly for students that may have been exposed and are quarantined to be safe. What harm is there in allowing kids to watch the lesson from home? I don’t understand not allowing local control.
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It might have to do with funding. I think they should be able to accommodate and differentiate
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I think the perceived harm is that it’s thought to be a less effective way of teaching/learning.
I’m glad that virtual learning worked well for your kids. It sounds like you had a good system in place, which isn’t the case in many places. I know that it worked for a number of families though, and I feel like that’s gotten a bit lost. The overriding messaging seems to be that virtual learning doesn’t work well, rather than the more nuanced idea that virtual learning where teachers were figuring things out as they went didn’t work well a lot of the time, but some teachers/schools did it well and it worked well for some students.
I’ve heard a theme over and over IRL and to a certain extent here - we figured some things out last year, why are we scrapping all of our plans and lessons from 2020 and getting rid of both the things that worked and the things that didn’t? It’d be nice if we weren’t still mid-pandemic but we are, and many/most places are still struggling with rising cases. We may have hoped/planned for a more normal 2021/22 year but that’s just not happening.
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Cambridge-educated lawyer refuses vaccine, dies of COVID
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Yes, virtual learning worked for kids enrolled in virtual learning. They jd separate virtual classes for those kids. Those enrolled in person got a different educational experience virtually when quarantined in our district and it was not good. Our one day a week distance learning day for everyone stunk as well.
Our district is keeping the virtual option open, but I think they are changing it, particularly for middle school and high school, where they will be a part of the in person classes. And our distance learning days once per week are no more. It will be 5 days in person for those physically in school and I’m happy about that.
Our state has cyber charter schools as an option, so I imagine that is why the districts are able to keep virtual as an option.
Not all virtual schooling worked the same. In my district we had dedicated virtual teachers. We had multiple teachers at each grade at k-5 and each teacher had a remote class. The remote teachers did not teach other classes. In middle school we had remote teams. High school was more of the combined as students opted in and out of models.
If a class or group of students were quarantined our in-person teachers had access to video bars (these allow the camera to follow the teacher around the room and provided a more natural experience). The quarantined students/classes stayed with their in-person teacher.
Our remote classes worked well. The students/teachers/families developed amazing connections (parents knew exactly what was going on in school every day).
In MA those classes would not count for the students this year. They have to be in the building. I am sure the department of education would also reduce our funding but the message that only in-school instruction counts specifically for student time on learning is our barrier.
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In MA we could have applied to have a district cyber option but that had to be done in the spring and the world was different. Honestly, I don’t know any districts that could afford that (and I am in a district that has amazing funding).
Cyber charters are not run by school districts. They are charter schools. There are some posting saying that their state won’t fund virtual for their districts. It appears PA has no such restriction (probably because cyber charters exist), so some school districts are keeping the virtual available this school year. I can see some doing it permanently, since it will keep money with the school district, rather than it going to the cyber charter schools.
We have cyber charters too but they get the state funds and unfortunately for parents, they are full.
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Here, school districts have to pay a specified amount for each child enrolled in any charter school (the money goes to the charter school). So by having their own, school districts will keep more of their money if families choose the school districts’ cyber option.
Cyber schools are advertising here, so they definitely are accepting new enrollments.