topic Re: First day back at school in Community Chat

First day back at school

songbird — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:41:12 GMT

Only Freshman are there. Feels strange to see very few students. Most employees are still online (along with the other students) This will stay that way till after Thanksgiving break. Then the school will shut down again. Normally we have mini winter semester in January. But I doubt it will be at campus. I Still down't know about Spring Semester. That normally starts in February. Only a few food places are open (sadly no Einstein Bagels or Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, etc) Everyone on campus has to be authorize to be there. You show your ID everywhere. I still have have to monitor my temp, vital signs etc. and write it down. Everyone is in masks, etc. Sanitizer everywhere, even on the school shuttles.

Re: First day back at school

fthunt — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:56:32 GMT

I feel so sorry for the little kids - K-6. Trying to understand this mess & have been primed by parents to start school, like school and met new friends. When I was that age we had fearful events happening - might need bomb shelters - Russians coming for us and other issues............which I remember very well.

Re: First day back at school

songbird — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 15:05:35 GMT

@fthunt wrote:
I feel so sorry for the little kids - K-6. Trying to understand this mess & have been primed by parents to start school, like school and met new friends. When I was that age we had fearful events happening - might need bomb shelters - Russians coming for us and other issues............which I remember very well.

I've read some kids have gotten but most of the time, the symptoms are mild. At least in Georgia and other Southern schools that start early. I don't know if any have died. If they had, you would have heard holy heck. Kids spread anything. I have this feeling that the virus has lost it's punch even though each day more adults have died. After labor day, most K-through High school will start. I still think they should be online, especially the middle to high schools. Good training if they want to go online at universities. I took several classes online and did fine with it. Total U.S.death toll must be over 160,000 by now...

Re: First day back at school

Laura14 — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 15:09:21 GMT

@songbird Stay safe! Sounds like it's all been handled very well.

Re: First day back at school

IMW — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 15:18:39 GMT

Sounds well managed. Best of luck to you.

Re: First day back at school

millieshops — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 16:46:49 GMT

@songbird The majority of the young victims do come through fairly easily - but if they are kids who live in crowded homes with adults who have any health issues, the kids do still spread fatal disease. Schools also have an adult component; just this morning on our local news, 3 school districts reported infected staff --- and those schools are just in the preparatory phase. no kids yet.

As for the count - right now at about half a year into Covid, the nation has about 3 times the average annual number of deaths from an ordinary flu season.

I'm hoping the schools and colleges in NY manage to stay open with only a slight uptick in positive cases. We've been under 1% for about 3 weeks now, so a small uptick would be manageable. I'd rather see it come from opening schools rather than some other kinds of businesses.

Re: First day back at school

Deree — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 16:53:47 GMT

I hope it goes well for you and you stay safe.

What's been going in in colleges throughout the country is terrible with so many covid cases and I heard some of the colleges have sent those infected students home which was the wrong thing to do. They should have remained sequestered at their colleges. Instead they will now bring infection home to their respective states.

Our city's public schools were all set to open on time after Labor Day but due to pressure from the principals, teachers, and other employee unions, the opening has been delayed until 9/21 to allow more time to work out safety details.

It was suggested by a local official that only elementary school age children attend classes in person and older children continue remote learning for the semester. That seems like the more responsible way to go but it isn't happening.

Re: First day back at school

riley1 — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 16:55:27 GMT

My grands who live in Westchester County NY are starting virtual school on 9/10 then will go to in school learning on or about 9/21. The oldest is going into 3rd grade and her twin sisters are going into K.

They will go 2 days per week then have off the rest of the week for virtual learning. The school will be cleaned on Wed. and other children will go Thurs/Fri.

Don't know how my daughter is going to manage their 3 days off as she works full time and is in court some days for 7 hours. Going to be hard for her and she gets very little help from her ex. He likes to be the "fun" parent. Right.

Re: First day back at school

furbabylover — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 16:55:46 GMT

I'm from that generation, too. Remember the school drills in the classrooms where you had to crawl under your desk in case a nuclear attack happened? Also, we were advised to have a small suitcase ready with living essentials, in case we had to leave in a hurry. That was 1950's California.

Re: First day back at school

suzyQ3 — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 17:12:58 GMT

@songbird wrote:
@fthunt wrote:
I feel so sorry for the little kids - K-6. Trying to understand this mess & have been primed by parents to start school, like school and met new friends. When I was that age we had fearful events happening - might need bomb shelters - Russians coming for us and other issues............which I remember very well.
I've read some kids have gotten but most of the time, the symptoms are mild. At least in Georgia and other Southern schools that start early. I don't know if any have died. If they had, you would have heard holy heck. Kids spread anything. I have this feeling that the virus has lost it's punch even though each day more adults have died. After labor day, most K-through High school will start. I still think they should be online, especially the middle to high schools. Good training if they want to go online at universities. I took several classes online and did fine with it. Total U.S.death toll must be over 160,000 by now...

I feel just the opposite, @songbird, In general, middle school and high school kids are better equiped to deal with virtual learning. Of course, it's not ideal. But little ones? Their needs are much better met in school if it is safe. Plus, the older the child, the more likely he or she can contract the virus, according to some studies.

Re: First day back at school

Hoovermom — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 18:38:57 GMT

@suzyQ3 wrote:
@songbird wrote:
@fthunt wrote:
I feel so sorry for the little kids - K-6. Trying to understand this mess & have been primed by parents to start school, like school and met new friends. When I was that age we had fearful events happening - might need bomb shelters - Russians coming for us and other issues............which I remember very well.
I've read some kids have gotten but most of the time, the symptoms are mild. At least in Georgia and other Southern schools that start early. I don't know if any have died. If they had, you would have heard holy heck. Kids spread anything. I have this feeling that the virus has lost it's punch even though each day more adults have died. After labor day, most K-through High school will start. I still think they should be online, especially the middle to high schools. Good training if they want to go online at universities. I took several classes online and did fine with it. Total U.S.death toll must be over 160,000 by now...
I feel just the opposite, @songbird, In general, middle school and high school kids are better equiped to deal with virtual learning. Of course, it's not ideal. But little ones? Their needs are much better met in school if it is safe. Plus, the older the child, the more likely he or she can contract the virus, according to some studies.

A friend of mine whose DH is a middle school teacher started back with virtual classrooms. Guess how many showed up for the first few days of school? 13 out of 29.....

Re: First day back at school

ScrapHappy — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:14:09 GMT

My daughter started school August 17 via remote learning. Our school district just announced their phased reopening plans starting as early as after Labor Day. Even with phased reopening plans, we still have the remote option which we plan to do. I have no plans for my daughter to return to campus thru December 2020 unless something major happens. This is not how I wanted my daughter to start High School, however I don't think it's safe to send her back to face to face yet.

Re: First day back at school

lovesrecess — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 19:36:57 GMT

One of my granddaughters behinds in-person 1st grade the day after Labor Day. Just makes us nervous to be around her once she is around so many others. We usually see her every other day or more.

Re: First day back at school

Deree — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 20:21:21 GMT

It was just announced on my local news that SUNY Oneonta has spiked near 400 covid cases so they are sending all non-infected students home for the semester. The positive cases will remain on campus until they test negative.

The cases were blamed on large gatherings (parties) at the college.

Well, what did they expect? What do they think college kids are going to do when they go off to college? Duh.

Re: First day back at school

pitdakota — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 23:53:50 GMT

@songbird wrote:
@fthunt wrote:
I feel so sorry for the little kids - K-6. Trying to understand this mess & have been primed by parents to start school, like school and met new friends. When I was that age we had fearful events happening - might need bomb shelters - Russians coming for us and other issues............which I remember very well.
I've read some kids have gotten but most of the time, the symptoms are mild. At least in Georgia and other Southern schools that start early. I don't know if any have died. If they had, you would have heard holy heck. Kids spread anything. I have this feeling that the virus has lost it's punch even though each day more adults have died. After labor day, most K-through High school will start. I still think they should be online, especially the middle to high schools. Good training if they want to go online at universities. I took several classes online and did fine with it. Total U.S.death toll must be over 160,000 by now...

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Today the death toll today 189,272 so it is well over 160,00. I am not sure this virus has lost its punch. Hopefully, the number of new cases are declining in some areas that were hot spots previously. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

Fortunately, the younger kids tend to do better with this with some experts theorizing it is because younger kids tend not to have the ACE2 receptor activity that occurs with adults. However, they are now seeing complications in some teens that were thought to be asymptomatic at first that then develop other respiratory and cardiac problems a couple of months later. Hard to tell at this point since they are still learning so much about this virus.

My grandson started high school online last week. We were really grateful they started online here in our area.

Another district started in person classes for K-12 and they had a record number of children withdraw from the district and move to home schooling. People just were not ready to send their kids back with the virus percolating to the extent it was and sending their kids back to school. Additionally, we still have a number of people still assigned to working at home or they lost their job due to the pandemic so they took the opportunity to home school their children rather than send them to in person class in that particular district. Even with the signficiant drop in enrollment, they have still had close to 100 cases (students, teachers, and staff) now since they started 2 weeks ago.

So many different angles to consider and it varies throughout the country due to the test positivity rate of that county. The state of Kentucky also has a considerable number of grandparents that are raising school aged grandchildren, so that plays into the concerns a well.

One of our largest universities, the University of Kentucky now has over 700 students that have tested positive with the local health department warning that cases in the student population are increasing. I think they are talking about possibly doing a hybrid approach to some of their courses. At least it is an option they are considering. Instead of meeting in person for all class times, several of the class times during the week would be online. I don't think they have made a decision yet though.

Re: First day back at school

songbird — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:08:08 GMT

@pitdakota i thought that about the virus because there not as many death as it was before. Also the cases of people having mild symptoms seems to be growing. Eventually it should burn itself out. But it's not over. I think this will hang around till 2022...perhaps longer.

Re: First day back at school

pitdakota — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 00:51:11 GMT

@songbird wrote:
@pitdakota i thought that about the virus because there not as many death as it was before. Also the cases of people having mild symptoms seems to be growing. Eventually it should burn itself out. But it's not over. I think this will hang around till 2022...perhaps longer.

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Yes, the number of daily deaths has decreased since the big surge. Part of that is that they have learned so much about taking care of COVID patients since the beginning. I take my hat off to the doctors and nurses that have been in the thick of things since the beginning. They learned quite a bit and learned it while on the fly (so to speak) while under very stressful conditions and being basically overwhelmed.

Loved the way that exhausted docs took to blogs to post what they were seeing, what they tried, what kind of worked, what didn't work, etc. As they say, they had to do that due to not have any reliable national dissemination of medical information they preferred. Nurses did the same thing. Lots of information flying over those blogs from New York and New Orleans, lol.

Re: First day back at school

patbz — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 18:06:41 GMT

Per Washington Post, the normal attrition rate for teachers is 8% per annum but this year it's approaching 30%. In addition, there are far fewer subs ( some make $100 per day with no health insurance). Some school staff may be layed off ( municipal budgets are In the toilet because of Covid) and add to that, some states (AZ, N.M. etc) were already short of teachers....