Back to School during the pandemic ...a discussion thread

[hdrolfe]

I wasn't looking at numbers but rather my son's anxiety over being back.

However, over the week we were trying to make a change he would be comfortable with, the school was willing to put him on the waiting list for online learning and have his home room teacher assist with getting him to do the work in class. They are prepared for that switch.

 

[DiaryofaDisneyKid]

My child is back in school. She may get sick or someone in her class or school may get sick which is a known risk we are willing to take. The same thing can happen each time we leave our home to go to a store, church or anywhere else.

After 2 partial weeks in class my daughter’s spark is back!! She’s happier, singing, dancing around the house, calling her friends after school and eager to get up in the morning to go to school. She’s working hard and coming home willing to do her homework after a quick shower followed by some down time.

Is it without risks? No. But today those are risks I am willing to take and I will reevaluate each morning and decide from there.

For our family, returning to school was a leap of faith and I’m glad we jumped in with both feet!!

Will she return to learning from home at some point this year? I fully expect so but I truly believe the teaching, fun, normalcy, joy and more that she’s experiencing now will aid her when that time comes.

Not judging anyone who chose virtual learning or homeschooling for their child(ren), just sharing our experience.

This is my daughter!! All 3 of my kids are happy and excited to be back but my daughter has gotten back that spark!! She is so bubbly, chatty and smiling all the time again! At this time going back to school is worth the risks for my family.

 

[DiaryofaDisneyKid]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

I will be looking at cases in our area as opposed to provincial numbers. Our region at the moment has only 38 active cases and our daily count is usually under 5. We did have a day that hit 12 in the region last week but I believe 5 or 6 of those cases were people returning from an out of Canada business trip and were already self isolating at home. Today and yesterday we only saw 1 new case each day in our region. My small town has only 3 cases at the moment and 1 of them is under investigate as they believe it might be a false positive. We don't have any in our schools at this time but an elementary school in a neighbouring town has 1 case as well as a high school in another neighbouring town. I know our town is not immune from this virus and we could definitely see numbers spike in our region, but for now I think it is more beneficial for my children to be in school.

 

[Iralyn]

With the new cases climbing back up, do you have a threshold number to pull your kid from school back to online learning? For example in Ontario, we were down to double digits like 80’s or 70’s in August. The last two days they have gone up to 400+ new cases per day. So when would you make that switch? 500, 1000, 10,000 daily? I am asking to see if there is a perceived unsafe number from the parents.
For me, it’s probably 1000.

My random thoughts...

If I could do so, I might have already moved my daughter to online. But it is not exactly based on case numbers. Unlike for many kids (e.g., those ones with their spark back), in person schooling adds stress to my daughter's life and this year is kind of worse than others. One of her struggles is the social aspect of school and now she is limited to just her cohort for any interactions and that is making things harder. She is off for the next few days as she has cold symptoms so we are awaiting our Covid tests and results and she is thrilled to not have to go. I am considering switching her to virtual in November though it will be a challenge for practical reasons.

After the Pembroke high school cases, I'm no longer willing to rely on local numbers. They had 40 cases TOTAL in Renfrew County prior to September. Pembroke and area is now listed as having 8 (EIGHT) cases total which presumably includes the 5 associated with the school (though possible staff members commute from elsewhere).

I'm expecting that we'll all be virtual by October 1 unless numbers start going down. The challenges of in person schooling for parents around kids with mild symptoms needing to stay home, delays in Covid testing, classrooms and schools that are being closed because of cases, etc. make the virtual option not seem so bad in comparison (may in fact be MORE disruptive for some employers as it is unpredictable) so the pressure to keep schools open is probably lessening.

 

[hdrolfe]

Interesting, the Ottawa Catholic School Board is setting up a two day pop up testing site at the school that is shut down due to an outbreak, only for staff, students, family of the school but nice to see them take that action so hopefully everyone can get tested quickly and locally. It's my neighbourhood, so hopefully it's a lot of negative results. If we lived on the other side of the street I think we'd be in their zone.

 

[bankr63]

I would love to share my story here for why I have taken my child out of school and is now full distance. A little backstory, this school is under construction so only 2 wings outta the old 5 are able to be used. The auditorium is now the cafe and its just a tiny place for the amount of children.

My email to the principal
Hello, Today while picking up my child from school I witnessed a few mask breaks in the front of white building. The children have such a small space to move about and enjoy the fresh air. Along with this many of the children were playing and being very close to each other while playing with their now off masks. The teachers did not seem to try to separate the students. Times are hard and we all know policing children during this time will be really hard. But these kids were face to face maskless chatting it up and playing.

I am not sure what could be done here, but maybe markers on the ground could help. I think the kids are treating this like recess. My son loves going to school and to see his classmates but he also brought this up to me and said PE class was also the same. That kids would not stay away from him while he was participating in both mask breaks and PE.

I am not here to blame or point fingers,everyone has been amazing so far but I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how the mask breaks were looking to onlookers while waiting for dismissal.

This is the reply I got back
Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. We have been trying our best to fulfill every guideline placed upon us. The tent area is really for shelter and to have a designated area. I have communicated to educators that they can spread out and utilize all areas (minus construction area) to walk and attain space. It is a balance and shift in thinking to create a socially distant space that would be considered ideal. The irony is I observe them walk across the crosswalk at the end of the school day and social distancing is obsolete. I observe students piling into a neighbor's car and masks are off, etc. I bring these points up to emphasize that to keep them at a distance and fully vested in our new norm is almost impossible. We will continue to do all we can, and I will surely share your concerns at an upcoming meeting with JFK educators. My only solution for P/Gs who are not comfortable with hybrid is 100% remote learning but this isn't ideal either...it is a really challenging time.

We will continue to try our best to accommodate the almost impossible challenge placed upon our public school systems during this pandemic.

This principal made me feel less safe for my son with this reply. I understand times are hard but to tell parents they cant do much and to go full distance if you dont like it is a bit much for me.

Sorry this is very long

One good example of the difficulty from DW's school. This is a middle school, so there is no busing to school; all students must get there on their own. That means roughly 200 students take city transit (OC Transpo). So the school must try to keep them properly distanced on school property; that is a 200m. long lineup - roughly 2 football fields. But the second they step to the curb and onto the bus, that all goes out the window.

Her general feedback from week one is that it is indeed impossible. Some of the protocols are not well thought out, and the students appear more like prisoners than classmates. Each cohort has an area on the schoolyard, but the students must maintain social distance; more space if they remove their masks. So you have a field full of kids standing 6 feet apart for 20 minutes; no gear can be shared (like balls) - perhaps a child could bring their own skipping rope? The teachers on duty must enforce this. In the classroom students must sit in their desks and not move about unless necessary. Lunch must be eaten facing forward with mask off to prevent spread, no turning around and conversing with friends.

Teachers have been provided with thick heavy face shields that muffle sound so much that they can't be heard at the back of the class; thinner flexible shields might have worked better. My favorite dumb rule is that handouts must be printed 72 hours before distributing. Nobody thought that one through - you don't touch every handout when printing - maybe the top and bottom copy when removing from the printer. Those two could be discarded, or gloves could be worn. But then it comes time to hand out 72 hours later; how do you do that without anyone (teacher or student) touching the papers? So the 72 hours is probably a completely ineffectual precaution. Also, materials testing indicates that paper and cardboard are among the least transmissive materials anyway.

Not trying to judge; just pointing out some observations.

 

[Meglen]

One good example of the difficulty from DW's school. This is a middle school, so there is no busing to school; all students must get there on their own. That means roughly 200 students take city transit (OC Transpo). So the school must try to keep them properly distanced on school property; that is a 200m. long lineup - roughly 2 football fields. But the second they step to the curb and onto the bus, that all goes out the window.

Her general feedback from week one is that it is indeed impossible. Some of the protocols are not well thought out, and the students appear more like prisoners than classmates. Each cohort has an area on the schoolyard, but the students must maintain social distance; more space if they remove their masks. So you have a field full of kids standing 6 feet apart for 20 minutes; no gear can be shared (like balls) - perhaps a child could bring their own skipping rope? The teachers on duty must enforce this. In the classroom students must sit in their desks and not move about unless necessary. Lunch must be eaten facing forward with mask off to prevent spread, no turning around and conversing with friends.

Teachers have been provided with thick heavy face shields that muffle sound so much that they can't be heard at the back of the class; thinner flexible shields might have worked better. My favorite dumb rule is that handouts must be printed 72 hours before distributing. Nobody thought that one through - you don't touch every handout when printing - maybe the top and bottom copy when removing from the printer. Those two could be discarded, or gloves could be worn. But then it comes time to hand out 72 hours later; how do you do that without anyone (teacher or student) touching the papers? So the 72 hours is probably a completely ineffectual precaution. Also, materials testing indicates that paper and cardboard are among the least transmissive materials anyway.

Not trying to judge; just pointing out some observations.

I missed a few replys to my post so I will reply to yours but inclued my words for the others. I 100% understand its crazy and hard and some of the "rules" are insane(the paper hand outs) He did tell the truth but it just didnt give me hope for any change to try better. These teachers were on there phones not watching the kids during the breaks. The PE teach is around the building while the kids do as they please. I miss the times this was not an issue but.. damn. He is now full distance due to not much changed and my son was more worried about the boys roughhosing around him in his small space than enjoying his fresh air. I appreciate all the input. I might have over reacted I just wanna make sure my sons following rules and its hard when other children do not and ruin it for him

 

[vegs1]

I missed a few replys to my post so I will reply to yours but inclued my words for the others. I 100% understand its crazy and hard and some of the "rules" are insane(the paper hand outs) He did tell the truth but it just didnt give me hope for any change to try better. These teachers were on there phones not watching the kids during the breaks. The PE teach is around the building while the kids do as they please. I miss the times this was not an issue but.. damn. He is now full distance due to not much changed and my son was more worried about the boys roughhosing around him in his small space than enjoying his fresh air. I appreciate all the input. I might have over reacted I just wanna make sure my sons following rules and its hard when other children do not and ruin it for him

Are the children playing around your son not part of his cohort? I am not judging just asking as I am not 100% sure on how this works. My understanding is that kids out at the same time can play together. Is this not correct?

I think it’s a hard time for everyone. We want our kids safe but I don’t think we can put everything on the teachers. There is a risk in sending the kids back but there is also a risk if you don’t. My neighbour (a teacher) also mentioned that they use their phones during breaks to keep other teachers apprised of where they are in the yard, who is coming out, going in, etc. Perhaps this is what the teacher was doing?

 

[Meglen]

Are the children playing around your son not part of his cohort? I am not judging just asking as I am not 100% sure on how this works. My understanding is that kids out at the same time can play together. Is this not correct?

I think it’s a hard time for everyone. We want our kids safe but I don’t think we can put everything on the teachers. There is a risk in sending the kids back but there is also a risk if you don’t. My neighbour (a teacher) also mentioned that they use their phones during breaks to keep other teachers apprised of where they are in the yard, who is coming out, going in, etc. Perhaps this is what the teacher was doing?

The school is enforcing social distance for every child regarless of cohert. They have markers in the school for everything so just seemed odd that once outside they can legit wrestle and scream and yell in ppls faces. Just the 2 rules dont mix. Thats the only point I wanted to get across. They are strict till outside where they are meant to just relax and breath but the kids wanted to use it like recess ( I 100% dont blame them I would want to aswell theses are 11-14 year olds this situation is lost on them). So either its safe enough to let them hang out and play around or its so dangerous that they need masks and 6 foot desk space all day.. I dunno if I am expresing my concerns the right way. Sorry if its all over the place.

 

[vegs1]

The school is enforcing social distance for every child regarless of cohert. They have markers in the school for everything so just seemed odd that once outside they can legit wrestle and scream and yell in ppls faces. Just the 2 rules dont mix. Thats the only point I wanted to get across. They are strict till outside where they are meant to just relax and breath but the kids wanted to use it like recess ( I 100% dont blame them I would want to aswell theses are 11-14 year olds this situation is lost on them). So either its safe enough to let them hang out and play around or its so dangerous that they need masks and 6 foot desk space all day.. I dunno if I am expresing my concerns the right way. Sorry if its all over the place.

It sounds like you are frustrated and I totally get that. We all just want this over with. Unfortunately, we will all have to find our ways to get through this. Be kind to yourself and take time for yourself. Dealing with kids, school, work, covid is just stressful.

 

[Iralyn]

The school is enforcing social distance for every child regarless of cohert. They have markers in the school for everything so just seemed odd that once outside they can legit wrestle and scream and yell in ppls faces. Just the 2 rules dont mix. Thats the only point I wanted to get across. They are strict till outside where they are meant to just relax and breath but the kids wanted to use it like recess ( I 100% dont blame them I would want to aswell theses are 11-14 year olds this situation is lost on them). So either its safe enough to let them hang out and play around or its so dangerous that they need masks and 6 foot desk space all day.. I dunno if I am expresing my concerns the right way. Sorry if its all over the place.

I 100% understand. I think I may have expressed this earlier in the thread prior to school starting. I found that the policies were almost contradictory about many things....this is important EXCEPT in this circumstance where it would cost money or too much hassle and then it doesn't matter any more. A bit frustrating. Feels like we are putting on safety theatre in some ways....doing things for show while admitting behind the scenes that we have a limited ability to keep kids safe if Covid enters our school community. I'm glad my admin has finally acknowledged that this is the case. She even questions wearing masks for the rest of the day when they take them off for lunch at their desks. Of course, she will enforce the mask rules (I'm glad!) and would never say that to the students or parents.

 

[bankr63]

Another quick note from our trench.
I am shocked at how quiet my street has suddenly become. We have a few families on our street with school aged kids who have been cohorted together for the summer. Like anyone could actually keep them apart. There is always a ball or hockey game of some sort going on in front of our house. Unfortunately one of the kids developed some symptoms and it spread in a day. Now the street has been incredibly quiet since Saturday morning, and I miss the commotion. The families are all isolating as they wait for test results. Wishing them all 'good news'.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Just got an email from our school. There was a case reported there in a student. They assured us our kids are in no danger (but still need to be vigilant). They won't say who it is due to privacy, but they also didn't say which cohort or grade or even the last time the student was in class. I would like to know if my kid was in a class with this person and if it was recently.

 

[Meglen]

Just got an email from our school. There was a case reported there in a student. They assured us our kids are in no danger (but still need to be vigilant). They won't say who it is due to privacy, but they also didn't say which cohort or grade or even the last time the student was in class. I would like to know if my kid was in a class with this person and if it was recently.

This... really makes zero sense. Wouldnt they want to notify the correct people so they can keep a closer eye on it and get tested if needed? Having the whole school shut down over 1 kid seems silly if it was in a specific cohort, Privacy is fine.. but to nto even say the class room is another level. I would be on the phone or email finding out.

 

[hdrolfe]

Just got an email from our school. There was a case reported there in a student. They assured us our kids are in no danger (but still need to be vigilant). They won't say who it is due to privacy, but they also didn't say which cohort or grade or even the last time the student was in class. I would like to know if my kid was in a class with this person and if it was recently.

So I got an email like that yesterday but was also assured that those who had come in contact with the person would be contacted by the Public Health office. One of my son's friends has a little sister and her class is the one impacted so I know their mom was contacted and told her daughter needs to isolate for 14 days or get tested. No names, just that the class is impacted. The board also publishes the number of kids or teachers at each of their schools who are infected and whether it results in a class, cohort or the school being isolated. Not super helpful but I would assume that for contact tracing they would let families know if their child was in the same class as someone who tested positive.

It took 2 students and 2 teachers in a school to shut the whole school down here (Ottawa Catholic Board). And they set up testing for the whole school as well.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Just got an email from our school. There was a case reported there in a student. They assured us our kids are in no danger (but still need to be vigilant). They won't say who it is due to privacy, but they also didn't say which cohort or grade or even the last time the student was in class. I would like to know if my kid was in a class with this person and if it was recently.

A friend's school in Halton Catholic had a case yesterday. Public Health contacted all people in the cohort then an email was sent to the entire school advising them there was a case in the school but if they had not been contacted by Public Health that the case was not in their cohort.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

One full week of school and by Friday's end there was one positive Covid case. TWO classes are now home for virtual learning for 2 weeks. The classes are one with the infected student, the other is that student's sibling's class. My grandson is now on day 2 of being home for virtual school grade K. I won't bore with details. I will say this: IF this goes to ALL Virtual school year, we ( my family) are doomed.

 

[FigmentSpark]

A friend's school in Halton Catholic had a case yesterday. Public Health contacted all people in the cohort then an email was sent to the entire school advising them there was a case in the school but if they had not been contacted by Public Health that the case was not in their cohort.

That's good to know. My email said Public Health determined there was no exposure in the school. I don't know how they would know that unless the person was from a cohort that hadn't been to school yet or hadn't been in a week and was exposed after that? I think understanding their methods of the determination might go a long way to alleviating people's concerns and trusting in the system.

 

[tonga]

My son is doing virtual learning, but we got an email from his school (Ottawa Catholic school board) saying that everyone who was considered a class contact of the high school student had been notified by an earlier email.

 

[MoreTravels]

We are in BC and things are going well for us.

Here, we only have to keep our children home the exact day they have any of the symptoms. The child does not need a negative Covid test in order to return to school.

If you do want to test your child for Covid, there is now a spit test (instead of the nose test) for children that is just becoming available. There is also a plan to make the new test available for adults in addition to children.

Edit: The spit test might be for children age 4+, and not for younger children. (They have to alternate at 5 second intervals between gargling and swishing, perhaps?)

Adults can be tested at Children’s Hospital if they call ahead and pre-register. Presumably so that you can go with your children to be tested.

The news just came out today in BC, they simply eliminated a whole bunch of symptoms in their screening list. It may just be me but I feel this is a cheating way to say we have less cases and exposures. So now the kids can go back to school with running nose and sore throat... I think it's like statistics, you change the cut off threshold so you will have less "false positive" in your screening but at a cost of missing "true positive". The thing with COVID is that we should not miss a true positive as much as possible.

Would they do this with airport screening? I am just picturing TSA saying there are too many questions about if one brings this and that, let's just shorten the screening questions, then there will be less "positive" so more entry allowed?!

As a parent, I am worried about this change... and hopefully the rest of Canada does not follow.