Yep. I'm seeing people who are covid-weary making questionable judgments. It's going to make for a long, difficult winter.

Our only hope is the vaccine.

I see kids walking to school in groups, no masks.

When is the madness going to end?

We are fortunate that we had plans from the start to go remote after thanksgiving, but we are university level. There should be no students on campus other than those who have some sort of waiver to be in the dorms.

This stuff happens all the time with kids going to school/daycare and why there used to be so much spreading of the flu, but you'd think with the current circumstances that people would be more considerate and not send them. We have a list of symptoms that we are supposed to check for and if a kid has any of those symptoms we are supposed to assume they have COVID and not send them to school. We take my daughters temperature every morning and check the symptoms list before she goes to school. I don't want to be associated with anyone in my family spreading anything.

Agree with Lyfia. Nothing used to make me madder than a mom sending a child to school that "just" had a fever, virus or a really bad cold. Then half the class got sick.

We are a preschool operating outdoors only, but I'm grateful our director decided not to return to school until next week. People just don't get it!

Sad....and....Mad...!!!

Does your school do a temp check upon arrival at school? Our school checks temps and has a list of questions kids have to answer (or parents for the youngers.) The questions include have you had a temp within the past 24 hours, have you had x, y, z symptoms (includes loss of smell, taste, cough, upset stomach, sore throat, etc.) These questions would have stopped both kids in your post from entering our school, and the temp check would have doubly caught the girl. Of course, people can lie, but wow...that would be a person so seriously lacking in character that I can‘t even really comprehend that.

I truly hope your school is able to avoid an outbreak @lascatx. My dd gets 2 days of in-person a week (we are hybrid) and everyone is trying SO HARD to keep it safe so we don’t have to go back to all-virtual.

Ds’s college had planned all along to not bring them back between Thanksgiving and Christmas. He has virtual classes this week and virtual exams next week. They go back the second week of Jan, and must have proof of a negative test taken after Jan 4. Wont catch them all, but at least it’s something. The day they left for T-giving, they gave all the students a t-shirt with the mascot on the front wearing a mask, and in big letters on the back ”WE MADE IT!” to celebrate successfully completing fall semester on campus. I thought it was a cute morale booster. 😊

Ironically, in my state, the highest increase of infections is in remote learners, followed by hybrid schools and the safest place with the slowest rate of infection are schools fully opening. This could be correlation vs causation because less dense towns have lower community spread in general so schools are open in small towns but in my town, which is hybrid and surrounded by four towns fully open and one town fully remote with very similar demographics, the fully remote has the highest rate of pediatric infection followed by my hybrid town and the fully open have the lowest spread of all.

Children fully in school go to school and then home studies show but those in hybrid or remote are shuffled to many different groups, school two days plus daycare and friends or families homes while their parents need to be at work.

In a neighboring county with a large Amish population, an article in this morning's paper quoted an Amish bishop saying that his entire church congregation and in fact the whole of the valley where they live has been infected with COVID. However, "none of them ever had to go to the hospital". Unbelievable.

^^ What, did some of them just die at home?

To me, those who willingly flout guidelines in favor of believing God for their wellbeing are an unconscionable sort. I find their behavior much more offensive than the parent who might have sent the child to school because they are desperately trying to hang on to a job. Not saying that's happening frequently, but I could envision it. People are desperate, in ways most of us will never understand.

What a terrible and trying year this continues to be.

I love choir but even up here (land of pretty good pandemic response) the choral federations, along with the hockey federations and others, are agitating to be back in session. I’m thinking PLEASE take a chill pill for a year! 80 people should not be in a room singing together for a few hours, come on! Yeah we all like our activities but we have to protect work, school and our families. Everything else is an extra.

In my school it is staff who are causing most issues :( . There have been three incidents of teachers meeting outside of school for meals or golf or to watch football and than all of them needing to quarantine when one has been positive. More staff has been infected than students.

My grandson, a HS junior, had the option of hybrid or home, and he has opted to stay home. Says he doesn't trust the other kids.

The choir room comment freaked me out because singing in a group is just about one of the riskiest activities for transmission. It spews a whole bunch of aerosolized particles into the air, because, you know, singing. My church choir has been on hiatus and my community choir has been meeting by Zoom since March. With no plans for anything in person, indefinitely.

Here's an interesting (and frightening) article on why social distancing is not sufficient.

https://scitechdaily.com/social-distancing-isnt-enough-to-prevent-infection-how-to-detect-covid-19-super-spreaders/

"... exhalations are not isolated droplets but in fact come out as a turbulent, multiphase cloud. This gas cloud is critical in enhancing the range and changing the evaporation physics of the droplets within it ..."

😷

Well I'll add our personal experience, as it was rather unexpected. DD's young son still goes to school, as he's being assessed for ADHD, and his doctor says he cannot diagnose ADHD with just feedback from parents. He also needs a school assessment to compare symptoms, before deciding about treatment. So DD sent our grandson back in September, not without trepidation.

Their grade one classroom is not large enough to have all students sit single file, 6' apart. It's set up so 2 students sit at a table, facing each other, about 4' apart. Not ideal, but that's the best they could do. However they sanitize their hands several times a day, and are masked at all times, except the 40 mins. when they eat lunch.

All was well until last month, when DD got a Sunday morning call from our Health Department, saying that her son and classmates were all at high risk of exposure to Covid. A classmate had been tested on the Friday evening and results on Sunday morning were positive. The student never missed any school, as symptoms hadn't started until Friday after school.

The classmates were all advised to get tested, and quarantine for 2 weeks, even if their results were negative. (Maybe as a precaution against a false negative result.) Parents were told to wait 6 days before having their child tested, to make sure the test would pick up the virus if they'd contracted it, symptoms or not.

My DGS still had no symptoms, when he was tested 6 days later. He soon got results that he was negative, and returned to school 2 weeks after he left. Yesterday, the girl who shares his table, sitting across from him, told him that it was her, who had Covid. Every classmate tested negative for Covid. We weren't completely astounded that none of the other students got exposed to Covid, since they are masked all day, except while eating lunch.

But we were pretty surprised to learn that DGS tested negative. He and the infected student shared space within 4' and were unmasked every day for the 40 minute lunchbreak, while they ate. DD feels their family caught a lucky break, but now that they just bought a second car, she's decided to pick up DGS every day for lunch, so he's never unmasked at school. Then when the assessment is finished, she can always pull him out to do online learning instead. So was it just luck, or are children who contract Covid less likely to spread it to other children???

i work in a school. We are hybrid but I have been exposed multiple times since Sept. but because of masks, sanitizing, distance and isolations no cross infection has occurred in any known positive case. We have had 40 isolated positive cases with more staff than kids positive to date so the no cross contamination stats are great anadotal evidence to me that the protocols are safe and schools enforcing them are the safest place for so many reasons for our kids to be. We are one of the only countries not educating our children fully. most of the world chose to close the bars and restaurants in order to keep schools fully open even with infection percentage rates on par with the US per capita.

For those asking -- my son is a teacher and it is the school where he is teaching I was talking about. He is a high school choir director, so he has both parents and students who are very mobile and feeling invincible. He does a temperature check every morning and has had 2 COVID tests already -- both negative. The students are supposed to do a temperature check each morning, but obviously everyone is not doing that -- or staying home when they have a fever for ANY reason.

Their choir room is a good size, and they removed risers and other things to create the 6 ft spacing. They are only able to do 6 ft spacing though and in the larger classes that is because of the students who have opted for at home instruction. If everyone were on campus, they wouldn't have room. They have assigned seating so they can contact trace and the chairs are wiped down between each class. They are all wearing masks at all times and are required to change their mask before or after choir depending on when they have the class.. They did well until the week before Thanksgiving, with remote learners also having more cases reported, but the first signs of cracking appeared before their week off -- possibly Halloween parties. They have had zero spread in the choir room so far. That may not hold as they see more cases on campus.

Cawaps and robo, you are not wrong. We talked all summer about what he would be doing this fall. He had a contract, so he was going to be paid, but he didn't know if he would be teaching choir. He was preparing to teach another subject -- probably math, because they didn't now if they would be allowed to have choir or band or how it would be done. They have spread out, masked up and made it work, but they have not done any concerts. But you will really enjoy this one: the week before Thanksgiving, they held musical auditions. Yup. Musical auditions. Planning on 8 performances and live audiences as always. At the end of the winter.

The week before, one of the theater people came into the choir office and said they wanted to do a musical. My son was saying no way -- but he's an asst director and was outvoted by the other asst and the director. First student who auditioned asked if she could take off her mask to sing. Before my son could say no, one of the theater people said yes -- please do. My son called me as he was leaving that evening and said he was so angry he was shaking. He takes his job as protector pretty seriously -- both of them and of us. I'm glad he called and vented so he could drive calmer, but this is going to be a long winter. I'm skeptical about the musical ever taking the stage. I'll be happy to be wrong, but it's not looking that way so far.

My older son is a also a musician -- no performances since last spring other than one church gig he felt conflicted about taking and a small group videotaped outdoors a couple months ago to be played as part of a holiday concert -- maybe all virtual. Mostly, he's practicing and tutoring high school kids remotely.

Our choir and band are all remotely taught on weds. when our schools are closed for cleaning and neighboring fully open schools only do outside singing in the HS and marching band. String orchestra meets with masks on. Hopefully choir will become remote and safer soon for your son.

Allison, yes! And at hs graduations when they awarded the kid who’d never missed one day of school, I‘d be thinking his parents should be shot!( figure of speech, not literally, of course)

Are you in Texas, @lascatx ? One of our cheer friends moved to the greater Dallas area last year. She participates in the parent group chat we have kept going since our national championship season (an experience like that will bond you for life, lol.) Anyway, the rest of us are still in NC, which is a reddish state with a blue governor, so we have more restrictions than our neighbors to the south and west, but nothing over the top. We have limited school, mask mandate, restrictions on restaurants, etc. Normal things during a pandemic.

Anyway, we are all gobsmacked on a regular basis by how NORMAL her dd’s hs experience has been this fall. She does school cheer, and not only are they having their Friday night games, the cheerleaders are on the field, cheering and stunting as usual. They had HoCo, with a DANCE and everything! 😳 All of our girls here are so confused (and pretty jealous) as to why things are so different there. I just can’t believe that there aren’t outbreaks all over those schools. Anyway, your name made me think you might be in Texas!

Roarah, music is big in Texas. Band is really big, owing in part to football, but that boosts other music options too. We wondered if they would suspend the options this year, but they didn't.
I understand band is broken into sections, so it is a lot different, and I'm not really sure how it is working. But they are doing it.

Couldn’t it all be held outside? Outside is so much safer and spacing is easier too. Winter inside sports are suspended in my state but fall sports were held.

"Nothing used to make me madder than a mom sending a child to school that "just" had a fever, virus or a really bad cold. Then half the class got sick."

And most likely the teacher, too, who then has to find a sub and write detailed plans even though he/she feels like death warmed over.

Roarah, outdoors would be beyond challenging. There is so much technology that is strained just to do the hybrid campus and remote learning and adding more on top to take all of that plus their accompaniment outdoors and then have weather, traffic noises and other distractions, starting before the crack of dawn at times, while other schools have not begun and cars and busses are making the rounds, then the auto shop and athletics are going too -- and I'm not sure about them having suitable space. Or budget. And their booster parents didn't want to spend the money to get rechargeable batteries for the mikes. You'd think this year would be like the video with the woman shopping at Target and going through all the supplies and saying she will buy them for anyone taking her kids all day. I think the younger campuses and the academic core classes are getting more support. I hope they are.

Outside? We had 6.5 inches of snow on Monday!

Rather bee, in Texas???

We had snow flurries in central Alabama two days ago.

Our kids are both out of college now, so I'm not up to date with online school, but as far as I know, public schools in California are closed to in-person instructions. We live next to a public HS and it's been quiet. One street over is a Catholic school, and they're open. Not that California is any better than other states when it comes to covid. Heck, our whole state is in purple tier.

Pre-covid, a lot of parents would lose their jobs if they stayed home with a sick younger kid--that's why they would send a sick kid to school. They aren't evil or selfish. They just have no options.

Covid hasn't really changed any of this.

Even in Texas, we had a freeze Monday and have had 3 days of rain in the last week.

This summer, as cases hit their first peak and we were in near shut down, I noticed that I would hear helicopters coming and going against the quiet that had settled in while people were staying home from nearly everything. We are a few miles from 4 different hospitals and it didn't take a lot to put realize that these were life flight helicopters picking up the most serious patients and bringing them back, sometimes with greater than average urgency. It seemed I would hear 2 or 3 on the worst days. I have already heard at least 4, if not 5, already today. I don't like that at all.

I just re-read the last sentence of my earlier post, and realized it makes no sense, lol.

"So was it just luck, or are children who contract Covid less likely to spread it to other children???"

What I should have asked was:

'So was it just luck, or are children exposed to Covid through another child, less likely to contract it, than if they are exposed to it through an adult???'

Our local school district in our city in So Cal, the schools are open. My daughter is a teacher in a different district locally where they are still virtual, currently there is a goal of returning with a hybrid model in March. A close friend works in yet another local district, they returned to school on a hybrid schedule mid-November, as of Monday they are returning to virtual education through at least January. They were on campus less than a month. This change is due to the recent rise in cases. Although our governor has indicated that schools already open can remain open when our new stay-at-home order is activated, it is up each school district.

My daughter is immune compromised and will not be returning to teach at the school this school year. Very thankful that she will be able to teach from home, the situation lasctx shared is my fear and very likely to happen at schools across the board. That said I have a lot of sympathy for the working parents with everything constantly changing on them and trying to balance work and children’s schooling.

In study after study in all countries and counties it has been shown again and again that school and daycare infection rates are far lower than the same corresponding community rates. If we were to really follow the science schools would be fully open in the us as they are in the rest of the world...

This is about NY but as the worst hit area in the world at one time it is important data. Studies in the uk, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and a very large study in the us run in March using over 40000 daycares country wide and another similar Yale study all show the same results. https://www.newsday.com/amp/opinion/coronavirus/andrew-cuomo-covid-19-pandemic-coronavirus-schools-lessons-spread-1.50082609

I have a clotting disease with persistent antibodies of ones that has been linked to the majority of covid deaths and I still feel I am safer in the school working than I am shopping or eating out or even seeing my own non household family on thanksgiving. We need to follow the science not fear and denial. I find we either deny too much or fear too much in our country with very little meeting in the middle. We are the only country not educating our kids. Other countries with higher per capita rates than us, Denmark and Sweden have compulsory in school attendance. France, Spain , England, Germany many had high rates on par per capita or even high this fall and closed restaurants but not schools. How can we keep our children from school going on a full year. It makes me so sad and upset...

My son teaches high school in a small community. His school district is doing a modified virtual/face-to-face model. Their covid-19 numbers are climbing and multiple teaching staff have had to quarentine. They are being told they have to use PTO to get paid for time missed. HOWEVER they are expected to continue teaching their classes virtually from home while quarentined. I don't know if that is even legal?