Conavirus......

[Alan]

My wife, who works with autistic kids, had an approximately 50% participation rate in online classes among her kids at the end of the last school year and there were significant problems trying to keeping them focused. There were no known issues involving lack of hardware or broadband since the school provided each student a chromebook and our local cable provider donated free broadband access to every student household. We spent a day as volunteers delivering chromebooks to households and I was actually surprised to see how few required them since her school services a very low income base.

Latest word as of this morning is that our district will open the new school year as normal with parents given the option of keeping kids at home for online instruction, then if the need arises, adjusting to a part-time school schedule involving 2 days per week in the classroom and 3 days online. I think it's too fluid at the moment though to take that as gospel.

[Tybee]

Your situation there, Alan, sounds pretty much the same as my grandson's school district in Indiana and my granddaughter's in Maine. In New Mexico, where my sil teaches, they have to come up with three different curricula to meet these three possible paths.

They are talking about masks for all the children in Maine in schools but not in Indiana, that I have heard. In NM, they are planning to keep all the children in one class together with no recess, eat lunch in the classroom, be socially isolated all day.

I guess if I were a parent I would homeschool but it is a terrible loss for all the children.

[Teacher Terry]

CL, I totally agree with you!

[SteveinMN]

The local school district has been discussing three options: school year starts "as normal"; school year starts on-line; school year starts in the building but is interrupted by the pandemic. They have to work on all three options because the decision on which of the first two are chosen likely will wait until the last minute, of necessity.

I think I relayed the situation our kids were in during stay-at-home. It just was not very sustainable for them and the kids were not doing well with the disruption to their routine, and this in a family which has the money and the room and the relative flexibility of schedules to at least try to pull it off. When the kids could go back to day care, they did, and everyone is happier for it at the moment. As pregnancy #3 gets closer and we learn more about C19, however, they may opt to pull the kids out of day care and have us provide some day care through the week. Negotiations, as they say, continue.

[Tybee]

Its going to be a very rough, stressful, and underpaid school year for the teachers, that's for sure.
I think if one doesn't want to put up with it, then staying out of the classroom is probably a wise idea. My sil just retired and is so happy she did so.

[JaneV2.0]

I can't help but think this pandemic is going to represent the launch of a boatload of retirements in education and healthcare.

[frugal-one]

A family here where both parents are teachers. One of their children has diabetes. They don't want to sent their child or themselves to school. Another family ... mother is a teacher and said it was horrible trying to homeschool her children, as well as, teach her students. It really is a horrible situation any way.

[jp1]

Sadly I imagine most high schools' yearbooks this year will likely have an "In Memoriam" page with pictures of all the students and faculty that passed away from covid during the year.

[Yppej]

It's almost a month now since California's mask mandate and cases continue to surge there. When will people realize if it's not an N95 mask specially fitted to your face then a face covering is useless? Placebo effects can't stop this virus.

Of course blaming people for not wearing masks deflects attention from the failures in testing by the powers that be.

[jp1]

It's almost a month now since California's mask mandate and cases continue to surge there. When will people realize if it's not an N95 mask specially fitted to your face then a face covering is useless? Placebo effects can't stop this virus.

Of course blaming people for not wearing masks deflects attention from the failures in testing by the powers that be.

It's not an either/or proposition. You need both. Kind of like how cars don't have seat belts or airbags. Neither, or even both, will protect you perfectly in all crashes. You're safer with both.