Teachers - when should schools reopen?
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JulianN
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No longer in education, but whenever public health officials say it’s safe to be in close proximity in a classroom.
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mrsdizzyd
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Former teacher here… when public health professionals say it is time. Children spread illness and disease like wildfire.
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meltzerboy2
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Tough question. I think for certain states or cities, it will take a little more time, possibly until January for the colleges. But at least three colleges in New York City have already announced that physical classes on campus will resume this coming August or September: New York University, Columbia University, and Fordham University. These are all private institutions with high tuition. The bottom line for parents is that they will not want to pay this kind of tuition for online, remote learning. At the same time, they may fear sending their children back to school although the utmost care will be taken according to administration. It is a big headache for parents, faculty, administrators, and of course students. The same goes for the public school system, including colleges and primary/secondary education. There are no easy solutions but several proposals about how on-campus and/or off-campus instruction might take place. In some other parts of the country, it may be somewhat more clear-cut but there is still the fear of the virus as well as the fear that some faculty, particularly part-timers and non-tenured full-time faculty, will receive the ax to cut expenses, given there is already a sizable deficit in the school and city and state budgets.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
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As a sub nurse, I can tell you that parents DO NOT always keep their sick kiddos at home.
A common technique is to give them Tylenol to mask the fever, send them to school and then the medication wears off before lunch.
By that point, the whole class and the teacher has had contact.
Or parents disregard the “fever free for 24 hours” rule and the principals don’t always stand up to the parents.
Also, the fall allergy/asthma/cold symptoms increase in the fall could be confused for Covid19.
And what happens if a kid has the fever/cough/SOB—send them out for testing? Close down the classroom and trace all the contacts? Test everyone?
Also, the sped kiddos and the multi disabilities room (trachs, kids who make a lot of secretions, who need nebulizer treatments, etc).
Just some things to think about.
A common technique is to give them Tylenol to mask the fever, send them to school and then the medication wears off before lunch.
By that point, the whole class and the teacher has had contact.
Or parents disregard the “fever free for 24 hours” rule and the principals don’t always stand up to the parents.
Also, the fall allergy/asthma/cold symptoms increase in the fall could be confused for Covid19.
And what happens if a kid has the fever/cough/SOB—send them out for testing? Close down the classroom and trace all the contacts? Test everyone?
Also, the sped kiddos and the multi disabilities room (trachs, kids who make a lot of secretions, who need nebulizer treatments, etc).
Just some things to think about.
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
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Honestly, I keep thinking and comparing about what happens when we have a lice outbreak (yes, I know isolating kids with lice is controversial, but a lot of district still have “no-nit” policies)
If I had not already retired (3 years ago, 2 years if you count when I returned to work for a few months on a temp assignment), I would be doing so now, to teach my son at home. Students returning to school in August is going to be pretty risky. If the numbers aren’t down, or if there is that dreaded “second wave”, I really don’t think it’s going to be possible for them to open back up.
Right now, so many people are bristling to get life back to normal, and there is the very justifiable wish for people to get back to work (not all jobs can be done from home), that the various authorities are giving in to this, and implementing phased (and not so phased) reopenings. We will all just have to wait and see how that turns out. I hope it turns out okay. It may, or it may not.
Right now, so many people are bristling to get life back to normal, and there is the very justifiable wish for people to get back to work (not all jobs can be done from home), that the various authorities are giving in to this, and implementing phased (and not so phased) reopenings. We will all just have to wait and see how that turns out. I hope it turns out okay. It may, or it may not.
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Allegra
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In my opinion, unless something changes significantly in the next few months, I don’t think we’ll be ready to open in the fall. I don’t think it’s appropriate to try to reopen as a juvenile prison and make 5yos try to maintain social distance either. If the schools aren’t going to be able to do it right, they should focus their attention on online learning and try to do a quality job of it. The problem is that our economy somewhat depends on people being able to use public schools as daycare for their kids that are too young to stay home alone. I don’t know what the right answer is and I don’t think we’ll know until we try something and see how it works.
Would it be possible for federal and state governments to subsidize households with school-age children, so that one of the parents can stay home, care for the children, and supervise their homeschooling? In other words, restore family life to what it’s supposed to be. Restore it back to what it was when you had one breadwinner and one homemaker, and educate at home on top of that. The Church teaches that the parents are the primary educators anyway.
Note that I didn’t specify gender. Many men would welcome the opportunity to stay at home and do this. Very often, the wife has a better job and makes more money anyway. The social revolution of the past 50 years has taken care of that.
Yes, live more simply. And yes, raise taxes. All of that money has to come from somewhere. They can’t just keep printing it. Then we become Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela. Not good.
Where are they, what do their numbers look like, and did they have efficient testing methods from the get-go?
Keep in mind, too, that pupils in many countries are considerably more obedient and well-behaved than their American counterparts. What worked there might not work so well here.
It is my understanding that schools in some Scandinavian countries never actually closed. (Sweden in not under any kind of lockdown). I would have to double check on some Asian countries like Taiwan and Korea.
“The reopening of schools in 22 European countries has not led to any significant increase in coronavirus infections among children, parents or staff, a videoconference meeting of education ministers from around the EU has heard.” This is an artile from The Guardian (UK)
“The reopening of schools in 22 European countries has not led to any significant increase in coronavirus infections among children, parents or staff, a videoconference meeting of education ministers from around the EU has heard.” This is an artile from The Guardian (UK)
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LisaB
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If I had a school aged child, and schools remained closed in the fall, I would look into moving. Surely they will be open somewhere. As it is, I sure hope my son’s university opens in August (so far they plan to). He is going there be living on my couch the entire summer, and I want my house back. Another semester and I will go nuts.
As I was saying.
Sweden, Taiwan, and Korea (both of them) are far more orderly, obedient, communitarian countries than the US is.
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Lost_sheep2
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I’m a high school student in Australia and our schools only closed for the 2 week holiday and for an additional 3-4 weeks. We’ve been back at school now for 2 weeks (and btw nobody is following social distancing guidelines, not even some of the teachers). Australia as a whole and the part that I live in in particular has such low numbers compared with the rest of the world (we’ve kept our death toll under 100 if I remember correctly) that it’s not much of a big deal for us, although there are plenty of people criticising our PM for pushing schools to reopen so quickly. We’ll just have to wait and see if this leads to a spike in cases.
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Allegra
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I doubt it. At least not without printing meaningless money that will eventually come back to bite us. But I’m not in charge of that. I suppose they could extend the childcare credit to cover older children, but that doesn’t go too far. Also, our current economy basically depends on a system that includes massive number of poverty wage workers and having half of them stop coming to work suddenly because of not having childcare would effect everyone in many ways. Also, there was really only a very small part of history where there were women who literally did nothing but care for their children and clean their houses. Throughout history, they were often working along side their husbands on a farm, keeping a store front, sewing, doing laundry, cleaning houses, and operating various other for-profit endeavors. The image of the “homemaker” comes from a fairly modern and privileged perspective.
I see your point. For instance, you could actually eat more wholesomely, and have more to eat, if you subsisted largely on the dollar menu offerings at various restaurants (and there are wholesome options), than most people have eaten throughout the history of the world. But all of that comes at a massive cost in paying workers less than they can really live on, so that they can sell cheap food. Prices of food and other consumer items might have to go up, to pay people more and attract more people to these jobs, people who do not have to stay home and raise families.
Actually, homemakers saved their families a mint, and that, coupled with lower lifestyle expectations in general, made it possible to have a decent home and family life on less money than many people are used to these days. They cooked meals from scratch, from simple, cheap ingredients, where now people would have convenience foods or eat out. You put an antenna on the roof and watched whatever you got, rather than paying for cable, dish, or streaming services. Having one car was the norm rather than the exception. And so on.
There is very little chance of returning to what used to be the homemaker situation. The times have changed as have the attitudes.
But individual families can, and do, return to this lifestyle.HomeschoolDad:
There is very little chance of returning to what used to be the homemaker situation. The times have changed as have the attitudes.
I know from my own experience, that there is absolutely no substitute for having one parent at home full-time, caring for the home and family. In our circumstances, that parent is me — I am retired, my wife and I are not together, our son is with me basically full-time (she works full-time and is invalidly “remarried”), and I keep house, cook, clean, run errands, garden, and homeschool. In many ways, it is an idyllic life for which I am deeply thankful. Three years ago, I would pick up my son at 6 pm from extended care, this after a long day at school, he was tired, hungry, and often loaded down with massive homework. Our life is nothing like that anymore. He gets all the sleep he needs (adolescent boys often require quite a bit), he gets to eat anytime he wants to, he is rarely if ever sick, and “homework” by definition doesn’t exist. Thank God.
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skelly
Guest
Depends on how the summer goes with the phased openings. It may be the end of June before we have a true understanding of how this virus is going to spread and how sick most are going to be and how many will die. I think we should schedule no earlier than September. Gives us more time to prepare and see how the pandemic progresses.
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