Are you sending your kids to school next month?

[Micca]

The public schools in our area have not announced plans yet. It's almost 5 weeks until time school is supposed to start. I imagine it will be a mix of alternating days and on-line work. But if kids start getting the virus, I can't see how they would justify requiring physical presence in the classroom.

 

[godisney14]

LA says their public schools will be online only for the foreseeable future.

That’s a significant decision given that LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country.

 

[SaintsManiac]

Curious question, for those that think schools should remain closed in the fall for virus, how do you expect families to survive this? Many on these boards are from quite a privileged socio-economic position to be able to homeschool or stay home with kids who do distance learning.

What do families who are scraping by with two incomes do if there’s no school? Most people are back to work full swing at this point in a lot of places. Even wfh offices are expecting more productive work and are less flexible about people trying to work and provide child care.

I’ve seen a lot of outrage over the fact that Florida schools are required to be open for all students. However, I don’t really know what that alternative is. Closing schools will bankrupt families who need to working parents. Pretty much all benefits related to covid are ending in a few weeks and moratoriums on evictions are expiring, there’s so many people already in a hole from all this.

It’s a double edged sword. What if that family scraping by gets the virus because a kid brought it home? There is no easy answer.

 

[HeatherC]

Curious question, for those that think schools should remain closed in the fall for virus, how do you expect families to survive this? Many on these boards are from quite a privileged socio-economic position to be able to homeschool or stay home with kids who do distance learning.

What do families who are scraping by with two incomes do if there’s no school? Most people are back to work full swing at this point in a lot of places. Even wfh offices are expecting more productive work and are less flexible about people trying to work and provide child care.

I’ve seen a lot of outrage over the fact that Florida schools are required to be open for all students. However, I don’t really know what that alternative is. Closing schools will bankrupt families who need to working parents. Pretty much all benefits related to covid are ending in a few weeks and moratoriums on evictions are expiring, there’s so many people already in a hole from all this.

It is a horrible situation for sure. Schools, however are not intended as childcare because parents have to work. That is the reality. They are there to educate pure and simple. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with a virus we still know very little about. Saying schools need to open because people have to go to work is not the schools systems problem. It is the parents problem. Parents are the ones responsible for their children...not the school.
I am in no way taking away from the fact that this is awful for so many. But it simply is not the school’s responsibility to worry about working parents. Their job is to make sure kids can go back safely and be educated. The work part is the parents worry.

 

[mom2rtk]

It is a horrible situation for sure. Schools, however are not intended as childcare because parents have to work. That is the reality. They are there to educate pure and simple. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with a virus we still know very little about. Saying schools need to open because people have to go to work is not the schools systems problem. It is the parents problem. Parents are the ones responsible for their children...not the school.
I am in no way taking away from the fact that this is awful for so many. But it simply is not the school’s responsibility to worry about working parents. Their job is to make sure kids can go back safely and be educated. The work part is the parents worry.

Normally I would feel the same way. But it's a societal problem. And schools are a huge piece of that puzzle. It has to be a consideration. If schools aren't open, where do you think those kids will end up? Many will end up with the grandparents we are all trying so hard to protect. People have to pay the bills and buy the food.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

It is a horrible situation for sure. Schools, however are not intended as childcare because parents have to work. That is the reality. They are there to educate pure and simple. We are in the middle of a worldwide pandemic with a virus we still know very little about. Saying schools need to open because people have to go to work is not the schools systems problem. It is the parents problem. Parents are the ones responsible for their children...not the school.
I am in no way taking away from the fact that this is awful for so many. But it simply is not the school’s responsibility to worry about working parents. Their job is to make sure kids can go back safely and be educated. The work part is the parents worry.

There are no childcare facilities for school age children. If there are centers open how many parents can afford thousands of dollars a month in childcare.Not everyone has access to family to watch their kids or a babysitter. And shouldn’t older grandparents be out of the question to babysit ??

If people don’t work then they can’t pay their bills. They end up hungry and homeless. Lots of households are dual income just to make ends meet. Even if one person stays home they’ll fall short on all bills and end up losing the roof over their head. Then that’s a whole new set of issues on society.

I’m not saying the schools should come up with a plan but somebody somewhere needs to take these issues into consideration.

 

[VandVsmama]

The charter school our kids attend is doing online instruction only for the first week and a half until in person instruction is allowed in AZ starting on 8/17. We are opting for in person instruction because that's what **our** family's kids need. They learn best with in person instruction. Our school is giving us the choice and you don't have to stick with that choice throughout the school year. You can go back and forth however often you need to.

Every family has to decide what works best for them and their particular situation. What will work for one family won't work for another family.

 

[HeatherC]

Normally I would feel the same way. But it's a societal problem. And schools are a huge piece of that puzzle. It has to be a consideration. If schools aren't open, where do you think those kids will end up? Many will end up with the grandparents we are all trying so hard to protect. People have to pay the bills and buy the food.

I agree. I was not disagreeing with the PP. I am simply pointing out that it is not the school’s responsibility to open because people have to work. It may not be right, and is definitely a hardship for so many. I am not discounting that at all.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Curious question, for those that think schools should remain closed in the fall for virus, how do you expect families to survive this? Many on these boards are from quite a privileged socio-economic position to be able to homeschool or stay home with kids who do distance learning.

What do families who are scraping by with two incomes do if there’s no school? Most people are back to work full swing at this point in a lot of places. Even wfh offices are expecting more productive work and are less flexible about people trying to work and provide child care.

I’ve seen a lot of outrage over the fact that Florida schools are required to be open for all students. However, I don’t really know what that alternative is. Closing schools will bankrupt families who need to working parents. Pretty much all benefits related to covid are ending in a few weeks and moratoriums on evictions are expiring, there’s so many people already in a hole from all this.

There is no perfect solution to this problem. Minus the safety issue right of the bat, how do working parents handle any of it? While I think our county will eventually determine it'll be 100% remote learning soon, our elementary district is looking at an AM/PM model, with many sites not having before/after care anymore. So how to working parents to drop off at 8am and pick up at 11am or drop off at 12pm and pick up at 3pm in the middle of their work day? And then what do they do with their kids for all the other hours of the day they're out of school? What does a working parent do when a classroom gets put in quarantine for a case and their child is now home for 14 days? And again in 3 weeks when it happens again?

For many working parents the idea of 100% remote learning is actually easier because they can look into a full time solution. Maybe it's creating their own private cohort with kids in the same grade. Maybe it's hiring a babysitter/nanny who can come stay with them. Maybe it's one parent looking at switching their schedules around. What I think is next to impossible is figuring out how to make it work when it's so fluid and at any given time their student could be sent home for 14 days.

 

[HeatherC]

There are no childcare facilities for school age children. If there are centers open how many parents can afford thousands of dollars a month in childcare.Not everyone has access to family to watch their kids or a babysitter. And shouldn’t older grandparents be out of the question to babysit ??

If people don’t work then they can’t pay their bills. They end up hungry and homeless. Lots of households are dual income just to make ends meet. Even if one person stays home they’ll fall short on all bills and end up losing the roof over their head. Then that’s a whole new set of issues on society.

I’m not saying the schools should come up with a plan but somebody somewhere needs to take these issues into consideration.

I also agree with you. But it is not the school’s job to do that. At least not the way they are currently structured. We may need to rethink things as a society going forward, but for now schools are there to educate and not babysit. Right or wrong.

 

[godisney14]

LA says their public schools will be online only for the foreseeable future.

Looks like San Diego USD has also just decided to remain 100% distant as well.

These two districts combined account for about 1 million school-aged children.

 

[gwynne]

I also agree with you. But it is not the school’s job to do that. At least not the way they are currently structured. We may need to rethink things as a society going forward, but for now schools are there to educate and not babysit. Right or wrong.

This is an issue to bring up with representatives. I also think there may be a place for some sort of hazardous duty pay for those involved in in person education. (Like school staff, teachers, aides, bus drivers, food service, janitors)

Workable solutions won't be cheap.

 

[momz]

I'm watching the school board meeting that is happening for my district right now. There are plans for in person school starting July 29. However, the neighboring district announced just today that they are going to be online only.

One board member is currently discussing the poor educational quality of our online school last spring.

This is going to get interesting.

 

[monsterkitty]

My school district does the same, but we are not walkable at all. In fact, some of the poorer areas can be 20 minutes away by car. Pickup window is only 1.5 hours. While this is better than nothing, there still are students who can’t partake without a school bus.

Then contact the district and ask them to make changes if your district goes to remote learning.

My district originally said they would feed all kids but it was drive thru only and the students had to be in the car. The first day a grandfather came through with zero kids and asked for 7 lunches. They wouldn't give it to him because of the rule. He said he could not drive 7 kids in one car without enough seat belts. Our administrator happened to be in the building waiting for a parent to pick up a new Chromebook. He handed the grandfather 7 lunches and had the grandfather call the ad building.

The next day they were allowed to feed anyone who walked up or drove up, with or without kids. My school is in a food desert so food service started asking people what they needed. They could sign up for frozen vegetables, canned goods, whatever they needed to feed their families. We couldn't meet all of their needs, but they tried.

School busses were sent to each bus stop for kids to pick up food as well if they couldn't get to school. All food locations were open from 10:30-2:00 and served breakfast and lunches everyday. If families needed extra for the weekends they were given extra food.

Feeding the kids and their families can be done. It just needs a squeaky wheel with ideas and solutions.

 

[SamFaniam]

I also agree with you. But it is not the school’s job to do that. At least not the way they are currently structured. We may need to rethink things as a society going forward, but for now schools are there to educate and not babysit. Right or wrong.

This is an issue to bring up with representatives. I also think there may be a place for some sort of hazardous duty pay for those involved in in person education. (Like school staff, teachers, aides, bus drivers, food service, janitors)

Workable solutions won't be cheap.

Then contact the district and ask them to make changes if your district goes to remote learning.

My district originally said they would feed all kids but it was drive thru only and the students had to be in the car. The first day a grandfather came through with zero kids and asked for 7 lunches. They wouldn't give it to him because of the rule. He said he could not drive 7 kids in one car without enough seat belts. Our administrator happened to be in the building waiting for a parent to pick up a new Chromebook. He handed the grandfather 7 lunches and had the grandfather call the ad building.

The next day they were allowed to feed anyone who walked up or drove up, with or without kids. My school is in a food desert so food service started asking people what they needed. They could sign up for frozen vegetables, canned goods, whatever they needed to feed their families. We couldn't meet all of their needs, but they tried.

School busses were sent to each bus stop for kids to pick up food as well if they couldn't get to school. All food locations were open from 10:30-2:00 and served breakfast and lunches everyday. If families needed extra for the weekends they were given extra food.

Feeding the kids and their families can be done. It just needs a squeaky wheel with ideas and solutions.

Perhaps we, as a society, can start doing better job of taking care of each other. In a country as rich as ours, people should not be going hungry or having to jump through hoops to get food. Schools should be there to teach. Because of the gaps in care in our country, schools have been asked to more and more social services.

 

[Lumpy1106]

It’s a double edged sword. What if that family scraping by gets the virus because a kid brought it home? There is no easy answer.

What if we send the kids to school and they don't get sick? That's what the data supports, and don't tell me it's because the schools have been closed. Most transmission adult-adult or even adult-kid has been occurring at home and that's well documented. I do know this; online instruction is spotty at best and the kids get no socialization, physical stimulation, etc. when they are stuck at home. You know, all those things that we thought we SO crucial just 6 months ago? We weren't wrong. That trade-off I just can't accept. For something we devote close to 50% of our state budget to, you would think it would be considered essential - as-in, has to happen.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

What if we send the kids to school and they don't get sick? That's what the data supports, and don't tell me it's because the schools have been closed. Most transmission adult-adult or even adult-kid has been occurring at home and that's well documented. I do know this; online instruction is spotty at best and the kids get no socialization, physical stimulation, etc. when they are stuck at home. You know, all those things that we thought we SO crucial just 6 months ago? We weren't wrong. That trade-off I just can't accept. For something we devote close to 50% of our state budget to, you would think it would be considered essential - as-in, has to happen.

The problem is most back to school plans don't include real socialization or physical stimulation. Children are sitting in the same seat, 6ft apart from their peers with masks and teachers are rotating. There is no lunch or recess. No PE or art or music or library. Now obviously this will vary from location to location, but that is what's be proposed for my kids and for us, that certainly isn't worth the risk of sending them back.

 

[Lumpy1106]

The problem is most back to school plans don't include real socialization or physical stimulation. Children are sitting in the same seat, 6ft apart from their peers with masks and teachers are rotating. There is no lunch or recess. No PE or art or music or library. Now obviously this will vary from location to location, but that is what's be proposed for my kids and for us, that certainly isn't worth the risk of sending them back.

Then we shouldn't be doing that either. It's not like there isn't data to support opening schools. Germany, Sweden, South Korea, all opened, no spike from the schools opening. Yes, South Korea in particular did close the schools later, but that was because of a spike in community cases OUTSIDE the schools. If you really aren't comfortable sending your kids back to school, then don't. Hand's up, everyone who thought the distance learning was working and you want to go back to that though? Anybody? Bueller? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Think of it this way; If the rest of the age groups saw the rate of asymptomatic and mild cases that we have seen with school age kids, and we had the same rate of deaths (ZERO for anyone under 18 in CA), would we be doing ANY of these shutdowns? Would schools have any restrictions? Of course not. Then what are we doing here?

 

[wenrob]

The problem is most back to school plans don't include real socialization or physical stimulation. Children are sitting in the same seat, 6ft apart from their peers with masks and teachers are rotating. There is no lunch or recess. No PE or art or music or library. Now obviously this will vary from location to location, but that is what's be proposed for my kids and for us, that certainly isn't worth the risk of sending them back.

This. People don’t understand that school isn’t going to be school as we’ve always known it. I went round with my grown DD about this today. She’s worried that it going to be so much harder for them online. But the thing is they’d only be going in two days a week and the rest online anyway. IMO the way they’ll have things set up it will add stress that’s not needed.

 

[EveDallas]

All these posts basically saying "too bad so sad - schools aren't for childcare so parents need to figure it out" are just sad. I bet if the posters were the ones facing eviction if they can't work, they would be singing a much different tune.