CDC recommends masks worn during school for ages 2+

[godisney14]

I am in Arizona and we go back to school July 27. I have an 8th grader and an 11th grader. The 11th grader is supposed to start marching band rehearsals the first Tuesday in JUNE and we have received absolutely zero information or guidance from the school district.

I don't see how these "recommendations" are supposed to reasonably be implemented, and this is coming from someone who has easy and reliable access to transportation, food, and internet/computers.

Ooh, IMO I don’t know whether band/marching band and choir can still happen.
Good luck either way. Btw, does your area always start school in the last week of July? That’s the earliest I’ve ever heard of.

 

[ten6mom]

Ooh, IMO I don’t know whether band/marching band and choir can still happen.
Good luck either way. Btw, does your area always start school in the last week of July? That’s the earliest I’ve ever heard of.

Pretty much, yeah. It's a "modified year round" schedule so we have 9 weeks on, 2 weeks off, and then about a 7.5 week summer, usually. This district has been doing that for many years. Most of the other districts around here are more traditional with a slightly longer summer and only 1 week for spring and fall breaks (still get two at Christmas).

Yeah IDK either. For the kids (like mine) whose sole purpose for attending school is extracurriculars, this is gonna be rough...

 

[sam_gordon]

This makes sense, BUT it would mean the busses would run at full capacity (because if every kid in Neighborhood A goes to school on Monday, the Neighborhood A bus will be full while the Neighborhood B buss will not run). We need to maintain social distancing on the bus as well as in the school.

Wouldn't that mean the neighborhood B bus would run through neighborhood A ALSO? More buses/neighborhood = less kids on each bus.

 

[bavaria]

We live in Germany and schools started a gradual opening first Monday this month. Kindergarten, preschool, daycares starting now and some areas first mid-June..

School/ daycare never closed completly. If one is a single parent or had an "essential" job then there was emergency "school" and daycare.. School basically groups of mixed grades working on homework and core topics together.

And R0 is an acceptable level, new cases and new deaths are continuing to drop despite states opening for several weeks. Holiday period has started and Europa Park is opening. But Germany never had any stress on the health care system (ie not COVID19 related) and the ICU bed ratio was always strong.

Tourism is starting back up, and many countries in Europe are vying for the high revenue German tourist. Many countries in Europe managed this well, although of course it is Italy/France/Spain/UK which were always in the news due to their situation.

 

[Starwind]

Where do you live, if you don't mind? Just the general area - I didn't know kids were going back to school anywhere in the world?

Not the PP, but there are schools in a number of jurisdictions that are open>

A good video about schools in Denmark and Scotland:

As noted in the video, some jurisdictions have had a school(s) open for students of essential workers or vulnerable people throughout [e.g. perhaps one designated school in a school district].

An article about students returning to school in South Korea; also mentions some other countries where students are returning or have already returned: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/asia/schools-reopening-asia-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html

In Taiwan I don't think they closed the schools at all, but they took a lot of protective measures: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ho...r-workplaces-can-canada-do-the-same-1.5505031

 

[monsterkitty]

We have difficulty having some of our kids wear their student IDs so we were fearing the masks. However, as we collected Chromebooks from students this past week. 99% of our middle school kids and their families came through the line with face masks on. The younger kids in the cars also had them on. Both days were in the low 90s and we were standing in the parking lot as parents drove through.

It was miserable and between cars we would take off our gloves, wash our hands, and then pull our masks down to cool our faces off. The most difficult part was putting another set of gloves on because our hands were so sweaty.

Maybe the area my school is in is taking it very seriously because we've had several families who have lost family members. Two more of our students lost parents this week. 7 families let us know that the entire household was under quarantine because they all had the virus so they could not return the Chromebooks.

I also just saw this come across my news feed: 70 cases of COVID 19 at French schools days after reopening

 

[Colleen27]

I get that there is not a perfect solution but honestly, none of your suggestions or the CDC's are really workable. We either open schools up all the way and deal with the fallout, or we continue online/remote packets. We choose to gamble or we hold the course. There is no safe way to open schools without major infusions of cash, staff, facilities and I don't see any of that happening in the next 2-3 months.

And I hope no matter the structure and choices made, that when this passes, we as a society remember how important the schools are and support them accordingly. Fund facilities, fund staffing, fund activities, fund technology, stop voting in policy makers who are gutting our public schools which are being shown to be a MAJOR safety net of society.

I think you're likely right about the eventual outcome being all-or-nothing for a lot of schools. Our local district already has a $600-800K shortfall each and every year because of declining enrollment. They're being told by state lawmakers to expect an additional $800K cut to resolve the budget crisis, at the same time the CDC and state health authorities are encouraging (and, on the state level, likely to require) a radical restructuring of the school system to accommodate distancing that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It isn't going to happen. Either they're going to continue online only, with the full knowledge that it means a lot of disadvantaged and isolated kids just don't get an education for the duration of the pandemic, or they're going to roll the dice on reopening more or less as normal (if the state allows it) because they cannot realistically afford most of the recommendations for safer opening.

But as far as your hope that this prompts better funding, I'm more pessimistic. This whole crisis couldn't have done a better job of pointing out the many failings that are unique to or worse because of the way we do things in the States, but for the most part, the response I'm seeing from most people is to double down on those failings rather than to question whether there might be a better way. I think our schools are likely to get massive, catastrophic budget cuts over the next few years, and then when they get back 5 or 10% of what was taken a few years down the road, that'll be called a huge funding increase and they'll be painted as wasteful for not being able to stretch it to restore everything that was lost. It is how the Great Recession played out, and I see no sign that anything has changed since then.

 

[bavaria]

Not the PP, but there are schools in a number of jurisdictions that are open>

A good video about schools in Denmark and Scotland:

As noted in the video, some jurisdictions have had a school(s) open for students of essential workers or vulnerable people throughout [e.g. perhaps one designated school in a school district].

An article about students returning to school in South Korea; also mentions some other countries where students are returning or have already returned: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/asia/schools-reopening-asia-coronavirus-intl-hnk/index.html

In Taiwan I don't think they closed the schools at all, but they took a lot of protective measures: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ho...r-workplaces-can-canada-do-the-same-1.5505031

Yes that seems pretty much normal what is going on there. Kitas and forest Kindergarten were first to go back generally but it varies by state.

Most kids take public transport ie train or bus to schools so if there is a mask required on public transport then it would be worn but the states I am aware of have no such rule in the classroom.

One state even is already proposed to get rid of mask rule entirely, and remove the distance rule of 1,5 metres.

Conversely very different to what I read on this thread.