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j/c

Specifically with regard to schools reopening in other countries, I went looking for information or comparisons and found this interesting and useful:

https://globalhealth.washington.edu/sites/default/files/COVID-19%20Schools%20Summary%20%282%29.pdf?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkRreE5XWXlORFF3TXpNeCIsInQiOiJIbVNQTTVySEo0Vzk1cHVBZVVqWnFGVmR1UEJxRGdpd01mTXg4OGw3Mk5nTnpmaUoyMGt2UXIwWVZBOE5GVjIybHA5aStrbzJ3MUxsanoxamZibmlocmpSbXZyVFVoV0VHYU1aTGx0RnpsMXlmOEtXSVJqaDJsZ0RJU1BQcVZjZSJ9

I had heard a segment on NPR about the struggles Israel had with their school re-openings so I was interested to see what infection rate they had in Israel compared to what we see trending in the USA currently .... it makes for some scary reding:

"Israel
As of early May, Israel had experienced fewer than 300 deaths from COVID-19 and the government reopened schools, along with restaurants and other public settings. Starting in early May, school reopening was initially implemented by opening classes in smaller groups or "capsules." By May 17,
limitations on class size were lifted.15 Two weeks after school re-opening, COVID-19 outbreaks were
observed in classrooms, including 130 cases in one school alone. By June 3, there were 200 confirmed
COVID-19 cases and over 244 positive SARS-CoV-2 tests among students and staff across multiple
schools. In response, the government ordered the closer of any school with a cases of SARS-CoV-2
infection. By June 8, 139 educational institutions had been indefinite closed out of 5,200 schools and
200,000 kindergartens.16"

I heard a segment this morning and a Dem politician from VA (Tim Kaine maybe?) was talking about how everyone WANTS kids in schools, everyone acknowledges they learn better and home schooling creates issues and pressures on parents ... but that it has to be done SAFELY. The way the US CV-19 cases are trending does anyone really think it's safe right now???? .... here's a response from Israel after their struggles: Dr. Arnon Afek, who is helping manage Israel's coronavirus response, played down the outbreak, saying a spike in cases was expected when schools reopened. "It wasn't a surprise," he said. "It happened also in South Korea and Singapore." ..... if schools are forced to open in full, we will hear the same spin from Trump when it all goes pear shaped.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/us/po...;pgtype=Article

Trump Leans on Schools to Reopen as Virus Continues Its Spread
President Trump spearheaded an administration-wide push to pry open the nation’s elementary and secondary schools, the next phase of his effort to get the economy on its feet.


President Trump on Tuesday at the White House. With children at home, many parents are unable to resume work, hindering the economic resurgence Mr. Trump hopes to elicit.
President Trump on Tuesday at the White House. With children at home, many parents are unable to resume work, hindering the economic resurgence Mr. Trump hopes to elicit.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Peter BakerErica L. Green
By Peter Baker and Erica L. Green
Published July 7, 2020
Updated July 20, 2020, 10:04 a.m. ET

Follow our live coverage of the 2020 election between Joe Biden and President Trump.

WASHINGTON — President Trump demanded on Tuesday that schools reopen physically in the fall, pressing his drive to get the country moving again even as the coronavirus pandemic surged through much of the United States and threatened to overwhelm some health care facilities.


In a daylong series of conference calls and public events at the White House, the president, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and other senior officials opened a concerted campaign to lean on governors, mayors and others to resume classes in person months after more than 50 million children were abruptly ejected from school buildings in March.

Mr. Trump and his administration argued that the social, psychological and educational costs of keeping children at home any longer would be worse than the virus itself. But they offered no concrete proposals or new financial assistance to states and localities struggling to restructure academic settings, staffs and programs that were never intended to keep children six feet apart or cope with the requirements of combating a virus that has killed more than 130,000 Americans.

“We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open,” Mr. Trump said at a forum at the White House. “It’s very important. It’s very important for our country. It’s very important for the well-being of the student and the parents. So we’re going to be putting a lot of pressure on: Open your schools in the fall.”

Education has long been a local issue, controlled by district school boards and state superintendents. Indeed, Mr. Trump campaigned in 2016 against efforts to nationalize education through programs like the Common Core State Standards. So beyond jawboning, it was unclear what power Mr. Trump had to force policymakers’ hands. He stopped short of threatening to withhold federal funding, a potentially effective but risky lever.


Instead, the president used his bully pulpit, which has been influential in steering parts of the country where he has support. Mr. Trump heaped scorn on Harvard University for “closing for the season” this fall. In fact, Harvard said mainly first-year students and some students in special circumstances would be invited to campus in the fall, then seniors would replace them in the spring. “I think it’s ridiculous,” Mr. Trump said. “I think it’s an easy way out, and I think they ought to be ashamed of themselves, if you want to know the truth.”

During an earlier conference call with governors, Ms. DeVos laced into school administrations that have done “next to nothing” to educate students during the pandemic. She also criticized specific districts “playing both paradigms” in planning a hybrid of in-person and online classes for the fall, singling out Fairfax County, Va., a suburb of Washington.

“A couple of hours a week of online school is not OK, and a choice of two days per week in the classroom is not a choice at all,” Ms. DeVos said, according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.


The president’s focus on schools and colleges, freighted with campaign-season politics, came as the United States topped three million coronavirus infections and the vast majority of states were experiencing new spikes. In Florida, more than 40 hospitals reported having no more beds in their adult intensive care units. In Ohio, the governor ordered residents in seven counties to wear masks in public, including those containing Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland.


Eager to put the virus in his rearview mirror and focus blame elsewhere, Mr. Trump’s administration on Tuesday announced that it had formally notified the United Nations that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organization next year in retaliation for its handling of the pandemic. And in a move to pressure colleges and universities that depend on full-tuition-paying international students for income, the administration moved to bar foreign students from returning to the United States if their schools stick with online classes only.

In demanding the resumption of schools, Mr. Trump waded into one of the most fraught issues confronting the country as it grapples with the deadliest pandemic in a century. Many parents, educators and doctors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have urged schools to reopen. But concerns remain high, especially among teachers who by virtue of age would be more vulnerable than the students.



The issue has enormous consequences for the economy as well as the upcoming election. With children at home, many parents are unable to resume work, hindering the economic resurgence Mr. Trump hopes to spur before the Nov. 3 vote. And so, like wearing masks, the issue of reopening schools has become one more battleground in the ferocious ideological wars that divide America.

Mr. Trump brushed off the rise in virus cases, pointing instead to lower death rates, and characterized those reluctant to reopen the schools as partisans trying to hurt him politically at the height of his re-election campaign this fall. “They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed,” he said. “No way.”

Critics said Mr. Trump was the one playing politics, willing to gamble the health of students and teachers to salvage a flagging bid for a second term.

“The reality is no one should listen to Donald Trump or Betsy DeVos when it comes to what is best for students,” said Lily Eskelsen García, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union. She added: “Everything is about his re-election. Our No. 1 priority is that we keep our students safe.”

Her organization joined several others, including the National Parent Teacher Association and the American Federation of Teachers, in a joint statement saying that without a comprehensive plan for safety, “we could be putting students, their families and educators in danger.”

Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Tuesday that his agency had never advised schools to close across the board. But in March, the C.D.C. issued guidance recommending school closures of two to eight weeks in response to confirmed cases and high absenteeism, or as part of a larger mitigation strategy. In early March, the agency abruptly canceled a call with thousands of superintendents just minutes before it was to provide further clarity. Since then, the agency has issued conflicting guidance to frustrated educators who ultimately relied on their state leaders to make the call.

Ms. DeVos’s Education Department granted waivers from federal mandates, like standardized testing, and issued guidance for how to fund private schools and educate students with disabilities. But until now, she had largely left decision making to the states, even as educators have asked for advice from the federal government.

After what amounted to a fitful and largely unsatisfying nationwide experiment in distance learning last spring, many districts are looking for ways to reopen in the fall, perhaps through a hybrid model relying on both online and in-person learning, including New York City, the nation’s largest school district. So far, Texas and Florida have announced that in-person instruction will be a mandatory option in the fall.

In mounting their pressure campaign, administration officials pointed to guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other research suggesting that the risks of the virus to children are much lower than for older Americans while the benefits of being physically present in school are critical.

“Children get much more than an education from school,” said Dr. Sally Goza, the academy’s president, who joined Mr. Trump for his event. “Being away from peers, teachers and school services has lasting effects for children.”

On a call with reporters, administration officials said they were urging schools to make plans that anticipate cases while minimizing the risk of spread and the need for school closures. The officials said the biggest risk with reopening schools and colleges would be infected students transmitting the virus to someone more vulnerable.

Among the vulnerable are teachers: Nearly one-third of the nation’s public school teachers are 50 or older, according to federal data analyzed by the research group Child Trends, which also found that teachers have more social contacts than typical adults because of the time they spend with students.



During a call with governors, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos laced into school administrations for doing “next to nothing” to educate students during the pandemic.Credit...Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times
Ms. DeVos said education leaders needed to “examine real data and weigh risks,” which she said they did every day in normal circumstances, and went on to cite the other risks, such as widening achievement gaps, posed by long-term closures.

“Ultimately it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how,” Ms. DeVos said.

Education groups have released an array of plans for safely reopening schools, and some estimate they will need at least $200 billion in additional funding to meet public health requirements and stave off mass layoffs and programmatic cuts.

Those requests are stalled in Congress. But during the conference call with governors, Ms. DeVos said that of the $13.5 billion that has been allocated to school districts through the federal coronavirus rescue bill, only 1.5 percent, or $195 million, had been used by the states.

Ms. DeVos said she was “disappointed frankly in schools and districts that didn’t figure out how to serve students or that just gave up and didn’t try” during the pandemic.

She singled out Fairfax County, one of the wealthiest districts in the nation with a $3 billion budget, for offering parents a choice of some in-person classes or taking all of their courses online in the fall, after calling their distance learning this spring a “disaster.”

“This can’t happen again this fall,” she said. “It would really fail all of America’s students, and it would fail the taxpayers who are paying high taxes for education.”

In a statement, Fairfax County Public Schools said it was following local, state and federal guidance in developing its back-to-school plan, and “working hard to ensure that F.C.P.S. students will receive meaningful instruction — both virtually and in-person.”

“We would ALL prefer to have our school year, this fall, as a ‘normal’ in-person school year,” the district’s statement said. “However, the health and safety of our staff, our students and our community must outweigh all other factors.”

Florida Teachers Union sue governor over order to reopen schools. I would also now issue a strike notice if made to go back in person 5 days a week if proper safety measures are not addressed.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/world...s#link-3a65dbfe


Teachers unions sued Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday over his emergency order pushing schools to fully reopen next month even as coronavirus cases in the state are surging.

The suit, which appears to be the first of its kind across the country, sets up a confrontation between unions and politicians that could change the trajectory of school reopening over the coming weeks. In other parts of the country, including California and parts of Texas, many large school districts have concluded in recent days that it is not safe to hold in-person classes. But Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, has been pushing for things to be different in Florida, which is home to five of the country’s 10 largest districts.

Earlier this month, Mr. DeSantis’s administration ordered schools across the state to reopen five days a week starting in August. His edict came as Mr. Trump called for schools to reopen nationwide and threatened to cut federal funding for districts that did not teach in person.

The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teachers union, and its local affiliate, the Florida Education Association, accused Mr. DeSantis of violating a Florida law requiring that schools be “safe” and “secure.” The unions, along with parent and teacher plaintiffs, asked a state court in Miami to block the governor’s reopening order and allow local school superintendents and health departments to have full control over reopening decisions.

This nation is in a sad state of affairs and our children and teachers are being used like a pawn in a chess match.

If only we had more educators on the board to speak up for them.

Almost one-third of Florida children tested are positive for the coronavirus

https://thehill.com/changing-america/wel...QYWcsyVXwOqEbzA

It should be clear to anyone that the only reason Trump is pushing so hard to open schools and business as usual is because of his fear that not doing that will hinder his chance at re-election

What Trump didn't think of is that he had a chance, a really big chance to prove he is "for the people". And he blew it.

Nobody I know blames him for the virus itself.. Everyone knows he wasn't sitting in a lab in Wuhan China mixing batches of the virus... we all know that.

So the only thing left is to evaluate how he handled it when any mental midget could have seen it could land here.

He took no precautions, he had no thought of how to handle it.

That's where he goofed up.

He's a moron and as a result, many Americans have died and will die because of his inactions and lies.

IDIOT

Most sane people know that NOBODY was at a lab in Wuhan China mixing batches of the virus.

Most people are not sane.

Conway Won’t Say If Barron Trump Will Return to School

July 17, 2020 at 11:34 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 145 Comments

Kellyanne Conway could not say whether 14-year-old Barron Trump will be returning to school in the fall, citing that it’s President Trump and Melania Trump’s “personal decision” to let him go or not, Mediaite reports.

Said Conway: “That’s a personal decision. I don’t know what Barron’s school has decided and I certainly do not know what the first couple has decided in respect to their teenage son who I believe is entering high school this year.”

https://politicalwire.com/2020/07/17/conway-wont-say-if-barron-trump-will-return-to-school/

Sometimes I pity this kid having to grow up as their son.

I would be willing to bet that Barron's private school qualifies for federal tax dollars either.

Would that be a problem?

Since Trump has threatened to cut all federal funding to schools, you tell me? It's a lot easier to force people into doing things when it doesn't apply to you.

It's also a lot easier to get state and local governments to comply when you threaten to cut off some of their funding.. that's a government trick that goes back many decades.

Which is why I'm not a fan of sending money to the federal government and giving them control over whether or not they send it back.. but that's a different topic.

As far as I know the only federal funding Barron's private school would get is subsidies for kids who can't afford the tuition and subsidies for kids who can't afford lunch.... which is why I asked how big of a deal this is.

I just found out that his school must be in terrible financial trouble...

Private school attended by Barron Trump to keep Paycheck Protection Program loan

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/30/politics/barron-trump-private-school-loans-coronavirus/index.html

Doesn't mean they are in terrible financial trouble but I'm glad they were able to continue to pay their staff and provide the educational assistance to the less fortunate kids that go there.

And I'm sure CNN had no political motive what-so-ever in singling out that one school... where Trump's son goes... to run a story about it. That's one more story than they've run about Jessica Doty Whitaker.

Let me tell you what it is. It's a prime example of why the people who really needed the PPP money didn't get any. Because places like that had already soaked it up.

Indiana woman shot dead after saying ‘all lives matter': family

A young mother was fatally shot earlier this month in Indiana and may have been targeted for saying “all lives matter,” the 24-year-old’s family said Sunday.

Jessica Doty Whitaker and three friends were hanging out along the Indianapolis Canal Walk at about 3 a.m. on July 5, WXIN-TV reported.

They argued with another group after one of the people Whitaker was with used a racial slur, her bereaved fiancé, Jose Ramirez, told WXIN.

A racially charged confrontation ensued with the other group, during which the suspect’s group shouted, “Black Lives Matter,” and someone in Whitaker’s group — possibly her — said, “all lives matter,” Ramirez said.

Guns were whipped out, and both sides, seeing that all were armed, backed off, he said.

“It was squashed, and they went up the hill and left, we thought, but they were sitting on St. Clair waiting for us to come under the bridge, and that’s when she got shot,” Ramirez told WXIN.

He fired off a shot in return, but didn’t hit anyone, he said.

“I was actually holding her when it happened,” Ramirez told WTHR-TV. “She just fell. I turned around, and I opened fire too. But that’s just a reaction.”

Whitaker, a home health nurse who WTHR said was on the verge of going back to school and getting married, leaves behind a 3-year-old son as well as her fiancé, mother and numerous other family members.

The shooting was the third in a week in the same area, WTHR reported.

Her bereaved family is left picking up the pieces — and vowing to keep Whitaker in her son’s heart forever.

“I’m never going to get to hold her again,” her mom, Arlena Doty, told WTHR. “I just want the people who are responsible to be held accountable.”

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/n...7dnu-story.html


Do you mean that Jessica Doty Whitaker that was hanging out with a group of friends on a canal walk at 3 AM yelling racial slurs passers by? The same two groups that all drew their guns on each other minutes before the racially charged shooting? Sorry this girl got killed but it all sounds like thugs with guns on both sides to me.

I have one of my children left in high school.

We have a new superintendent this year.

We got the call yesterday "that we are proud to be bringing back the children to 5 days a week in person to school with safety measures. We will be having a zoom meeting about it on August 4th, but we are sending you a postcard to fill out and send back asap on Monday July 28 and we would like the cards back for the meeting to know who will still be attending. We will have full school experience including busing. For those who may not want to enjoy the school experience, we will have a remote learning option-

And at that meeting, if you submit questions, we will answer what we can at that timeframe. Hope to see you back in August.

I don't know if my wife was ready to put a hole thru the wall or cry.

Absolutely no answers other than they will pick up K-6 on the bus 45 minutes early and dismiss them 45 minutes early and have a separate bus run for 7-12.

It was very lame

It's too dangerous for Republicans to hold a convention indoors but not to dangerous to fill up school rooms and send them back out into the public. People need to seriously let that sink in for a minute.

I've not heard one republican respond to this other than to say that Kids will recover and be OK if they get Covid. What's never addressed is what about if they bring it home to Mom or Dad or siblings or Grandparents... NOTHING said,, Nothing Explained

Some things are better left unsaid I suppose.

What about teachers, office staff, lunch room staff, bus drivers, maintenance, school nurse...at least at our school, the majority of these folks are older than 50.

And substitute teachers, they normally go from school to school until they get a long term assignment.

Lawyers in Florida offering free wills for teachers-and the requests are pouring in


https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-lawyers-offer-free-wills-for-teachers-schools-re-open-2020-7?utm_source=feedburner&%3Butm_medium=referral&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider%2Ftravel+%28Business+Insider%29

Not to mention the families that these students go home to.

Collateral damage?

Thats ok; just sign this liability waiver

j/c:

Report: Coronavirus infected scores of children and staff at Georgia sleep-away camp
The finding that children 'might play an important role in transmission’ is likely to fuel debates about whether to reopen schools.

By
Chelsea Janes
July 31, 2020 at 1:50 p.m. EDT


A new report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may also spread it to others — a finding likely to intensify an already fraught discussion about the risks of sending children back to school this fall.

The analysis, released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, details an outbreak at a sleep-away camp in Georgia last month in which 260 children and staffers — more than three-quarters of the 344 tested — contracted the virus less than a week after spending time together in close quarters. The children had a median age of 12. The camp had required all 597 campers and staff members to provide documentation that they had tested negative for the virus before coming. Staff were required to wear masks, but children were not.

While similar clusters have occurred around funerals, weddings, teenage parties and adult gatherings throughout the pandemic, few super-spreading events have been documented among children.

The report is likely to add fuel to an already polarizing nationwide discussion about whether sending children back to crowded school buildings is worth the risk, in large part because so little data has been available about children’s vulnerability to the infection and their ability to transmit the virus.



“To me, this is a significant weight added to the side of the scale that says close the schools,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Irvine. While he added that children probably spend more time in close proximity at sleep-away camp than they do at school, “it’s solid evidence to suggest we should be extremely cautious about opening schools.”

The Trump administration has pushed in recent weeks for schools to reopen, while many states and major cities — including D.C. — have announced they will resume online-only to begin the year. “I do say again, young people are almost immune to this disease. The younger the better,” President Trump said Thursday during a White House briefing. “They’re stronger. They have a stronger immune system.”



Advocates of reopening schools for in-person instruction argue that early research shows children are less prone to infection and severe outcomes from the virus than adults are. While data continues to support that idea, little had been known about the extent to which children could transmit it — particularly when they are not showing symptoms.

According to the report released Friday, the outbreak at the camp, identified only as “Camp A,” suggests that children “might play an important role in transmission.”

“These findings demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 spread efficiently in a youth-centric overnight setting, resulting in high attack rates among people in all age groups, despite efforts by camp officials to implement most recommended strategies to prevent transmission,” the report said.

“Asymptomatic infection was common and potentially contributed to undetected transmission, as has been previously reported. This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

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The CDC released a separate statement with a headline about “the importance of CDC mitigation strategies,” rather than about the incident’s implications for viral transmission in children. The statement noted that by not requiring campers to wear masks or airing out cabins, the camp had not followed CDC reopening guidance, and it pointed to “daily vigorous singing and shouting” as potential contributing factors.

“Correct and consistent use of cloth masks, rigorous cleaning and sanitizing, social distancing, and frequent hand-washing strategies, which are recommended in CDC’s recently released guidance to reopen America’s schools, are critical to prevent transmission of the virus in settings involving children and are our greatest tools to prevent covid-19,” the statement read.

Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, wrote in an email that she would like to see data from camps where children wore masks and whether they fared better.


“To me, this outbreak reinforces the importance of mitigation measures in classrooms and child-care settings,” Rivers wrote. “Physical distancing, mask use by students and teachers, hygiene and ventilation will all be critical to reducing risk for classrooms that do reopen in person."

Noymer also noted that many school officials say they will require students, as well as teachers, to wear masks. But skeptics point out that children are unlikely to be diligent mask-wearers or social distancers, so reopening plans that include those measures in theory may not have them in actuality.

Authors of the CDC report noted that the study was limited by its data set, which includes tests of only 344 of the campers and staffers, and therefore could be missing cases. In addition, since Georgia experienced a jump in coronavirus transmission over the summer, some campers may have caught the virus before arriving. The CDC report acknowledged that it could not determine which campers did and did not adhere to recommendations for physical distancing, which also limits the kind of conclusions that can be drawn from the data.


Tara Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University, acknowledged that some data missing from the study — including detailed tracking of which infected children spent time around others and for how long — limits the extent to which the study can be used to draw specific conclusions, but it does suggest that more outbreaks could center on children the more they are in close proximity.

“I think what it shows is that kids definitely can be infected with this, apparently can spread this,” Smith said. “I think when we get kids back into their normal social networks, we’re going to see more of these.”

The Georgia camp had opened in two phases, according to the report: An orientation for 138 trainees and 120 staffers occurred June 17 through June 20. A total of 363 campers and three senior staffers joined on June 21. On June 23, a teenage staffer left after developing chills and subsequently tested positive for the coronavirus.

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Camp officials began sending campers home June 24 and closed the camp on June 27.

Of those who were tested and came up positive, 231 were age 17 or younger; the remaining 29 were adults. Data about symptoms was available for only 136 patients: About a quarter, or 36 people, reported no symptoms; 100 children and staff members (74 percent) reported symptoms, including fever (65 percent), headache (61 percent) and sore throat (46 percent).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/31/georgia-children-covid-outbreak/

But Trump just said that children were immune so everything will be just fine.

I didn't feel purple was necessary here.

I wish the school districts would do more to help out families like give us some vouchers so that we can provide our children with better online educational resources or tutoring. These additional resources are needed in order to ensure a quality education when the classrooms are shutdown.

Thus far, the schools and their employees have not had to make sacrifices like their private sector counterparts who have had to deal with pay reductions and layoffs, but they have no experience with distance education and are not able to deliver a valuable product ad-hoc. It takes a lot of time and experience to deliver good online education.

If I were to put an honest value on the education that they were delivering for elementary school kids, I would say that it was close to $0. That is not intended as an insult, it is just reality. Keeping 7 year olds engaged for 6 hours over Zoom is a fruitless endeavor. At the end of the day, Mom and Dad end up bearing the burden of this education and in addition to our jobs, we were spending 3 to 4 hours a day teaching our kids. For the time invested, I honestly felt like it would have been better for all if we just purchased $10 workbooks and used those instead of the teacher provided electronic resources. When a $10 workbook is an upgrade to the services that you are providing, it is time to rethink your business model.

Again, not intended to insult any education professionals. We had a teacher for our youngest child that was clearly trying her best, and I appreciated the effort, but it wasn't paying off. Our kids were getting no value from the Zoom based education. Everything they learned was from hands on education time with Mom and Dad.

J/C

Finally feel like sharing some thoughts on this as an educator myself.

Saddens me that we spent the entire summer arguing about "reopening".

Schools will reopen. I don't know of a single school that isn't going to try and educate children for this coming school year. Districts will reopen in various capacities across the nation. Some places may be able to have in-person schooling while most places will probably still be online. We're an evidence driven profession, and it only makes sense for school districts to listen to facts and evidence from healthcare professionals in their localities.

I would've loved to see a national response this summer to figure out a better system than what we had from March to June across the entire country. But no, a bunch of unqualified bureaucrats distracted from finding a solution in order to manufacture a crisis about schools not "reopening". Just imagine if we would've turned to the actual professionals, educators and doctors, at a national level to figure out a way we could've made schooling better under a pandemic.

I'm certain there's districts who did try, yet I wish the national messaging recognized there needed to be a better federal plan for sustainable education under a pandemic.

But Trump said children are immune to the virus?

But his lips were moving when he said it. Hell even Bubba J, and Walter think they can catch corona after Trump told them they couldn't.

Only it's already a proven fact that kids can and do catch the virus and spread it. But hey, that's okay, right?

But what about all the crying you did about the need to listen to the Scientists and Doctors???

CDC warns Congress of ‘significant public health consequences’ if schools don’t reopen in the fall
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/cdc-warn...n-the-fall.html

I know of many districts who delivered meals, provided tons of mental health services virtually, and many educators who did everything they could to teach in the new normal.

Instead of spreading politicized nonsense, how about you actually stick to experts?

Oh right, you won't do that. You feel oppressed as a white man posting on a right-leaning message board.

memp..concerning the Gates comment about kids being in school, the full context should be considered...

If a reader wants read the entire Bill Gates comment, in full context, Gates does stipulate that the school must be able in insure the safety of "the teacher", if the school wants such a program to be successful.
Gates said...“I’m a big believer that for young children, the benefits in almost every location — particularly if you can protect the teachers well-"

We need to be careful, I heard of a study that says children could contain higher amounts of Covid, per resperitory droplet

And somehow you weigh this against the safety of Children.

Really?

Sending kids back to classes is like sticking our tongue in a light socket.