Boy oh boy.... I’m not a doctor or a teacher but this is a bad look and a bad take. 

A much more nuanced take on how hard it can be, from a teacher.  
Look, I can’t get anything done for work with my kids home so I really want school to open but this seems very very difficult:
 

Everyone has an opinion about how and if schools should reopen for this coming school year. We’ve heard from the governors, the pediatricians, the parents, the education secretary, and the president. Everyone has a "study” and "research” to back up their claims, but unfortunately (as always with decisions made in education) they do not have one very important thing- experience in a classroom. In classrooms filled to max capacity with five year olds who don’t even know how to blow their own noses, where the teacher:student ratio is 1:28 or in some cases even higher. Classrooms where the teachers are already begging parents for tissues, hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes, even in a pre-Covid world. Classrooms and hallways and bathrooms filled with teenagers who think they are invincible. School buildings with no extra rooms, without central air, where there are 4 sinks for over 200 students to use. As a teacher, I do have this experience, so I have many questions about how it will be possible and safe for schools to reopen. Nobody asked me- but since many other professions are giving their opinions about reopening, I thought maybe, just maybe, (it’s a little crazy but hear me out) we should hear from a teacher.

Let’s discuss hand washing. If an average class size of kindergartners is 25, then it would take 8.3 minutes for them each to wash their hands for 20 seconds- not too bad you might think.  That’s doable- let’s reopen! Unfortunately that does not account for transition time between students at the sink, the student who plays in the bubbles, or splashes another student, or cuts in line, or has to be provided moral support to flush the toilet, because they are scared. It doesn’t account for the fact that only a few students will be allowed in the bathroom at a time and the teacher must monitor whose turn it is to enter and exit the bathroom, and control the hallway behavior, and send the student who just coughed to the "quarantine room” that doesn’t exist BECAUSE THERE ARE NO EXTRA ROOMS. Where are the students in hallway waiting? In line? All together? Six feet apart? No wait, three feet is okay now. Either way, 25 children standing three feet apart is a line over 75 feet long. Who is monitoring this line? Keeping them quiet, reminding them to keep their hands to themselves? 

Another thing about social distancing. Even people who are not teachers have already figured out that there is not enough room in classrooms for all students to be six feet apart.  No problem, we’ll just change the guideline to three feet. But what about all of the classrooms around the country that don’t even have room to put all of their student desks three feet apart? What about the classrooms that do not have desks and have tables where students sit in groups instead? Who is providing these classrooms with new socially distant furniture? Is there a budget for this or are schools getting increased funding? LOL NO, they are getting LESS funding.  Oh okay, well maybe teachers will just buy it themselves out of their own pockets, as they do so many other supplies. Well I have bought A LOT for my classroom and students over the years, but I can not personally afford to buy them all individual desks. Even if the kids do have individual desk spaces, do they have to stay there all day? Do the kindergartners ever get to come to the carpet area for a story (spoiler alert- it is not big enough for 25 kids to sit three feet apart). Do they ever get to do centers? Sit next to a friend and read together? Can they even share books? I think before anyone gets to answer these questions, or more likely brush them aside, they should have to try to teach 25 five year olds how to sit in a chair on the first day of school.. and then get them to stay there all day every day.

So after we return to school without the equipment and ability to stay healthy and safe and a teacher or student gets symptoms, what then? The teacher or student should stay home to avoid infecting others, right? Well, a few things to consider: 1. Many times the kids are asymptomatic so they will be spreading germs unknowingly. 2. Many kids already come to school sick, sometimes dosed with medicine to mask fevers and symptoms, because parents have to get to work. How do we monitor this? 3. The symptoms of COVID are very similar to the symptoms that young children exhibit throughout the fall, winter, and spring due to common cold or allergies. And if teachers and students really stayed home every time they had a cough or symptom, they would probably be absent more than present. So do we have to ignore certain symptoms? Please clarify which symptoms are okay. 4. Staff are likely to have increased absences due to self-monitoring symptoms. Are they going to have substitutes for their classes? Substitutes can already be extremely hard to find. If we do find a sub- what germs are they bringing in? Where have they been? If they test positive do all schools they have been subbing at have to quarantine? 5. If a teacher or student tests positive for COVID, who quarantines? The entire class? The school building? Do we use sick days for this or is it unpaid? Do we switch to remote learning during the quarantine? Who is teaching the remote learning if the teacher is unable to work due to HAVING THE COVID THAT HE/SHE CAUGHT AT SCHOOL BECAUSE WE CHANGED ALL THE HEALTH AND SAFETY RECOMMENDATIONS JUST TO ACCOMMODATE PUSHING SCHOOLS TO REOPEN WITHOUT THE EQUIPMENT, SPACE, OR ABILITY TO KEEP STAFF AND STUDENTS SAFE? 

Yeah, but students need to be in school for socialization! You are 100% correct there. Students need to interact and have human connection and learn social skills. Helping students learn to make friends, share, be kind, love learning, and become good citizens is one of the most important parts of my job. However it’s going to be hard to interact when students have to stay apart and impossible to learn to share if they can’t touch the same supplies. And guess what? That REALLY stinks. Everyone can agree this whole Covid situation bites the big one. Teachers WANT to get back to school- WHEN IT IS SAFE. We want to get back to seeing "our kids” in person everyday- WHEN THE CASES STOP RISING. Teaching remotely is not easy or fun. We want to get back in our classrooms- WHEN WE NO LONGER HAVE TO FEEL LIKE WE ARE RISKING OUR LIVES AND OUR FAMILIES LIVES TO DO SO.

We hear you, parents: Kids like school. They miss school. They learn more at school. They are annoying you at home. Teachers miss school too. We miss the kids (even though, off the record, they annoy us sometimes too)! But our top concern right now is that everyone is healthy and safe. Remote learning isn’t most people’s first choice, but it is a safer solution in the meantime, while we figure out this global health crisis. It is also hard to imagine how much learning would be taking place in the classroom anyway after they wait in their 75 foot long lines to wash their hands for 20 seconds multiple times a day. School days are already crammed full and now we will be adding in disinfecting constantly, monitoring for symptoms, sending kids to "quarantine”, trying to get ahold of parents, dealing with masks, giving "mask breaks”, etc. We were flying by the seat of our pants to make remote learning work last spring and I think teachers across the country did a pretty darn good job! But if we would decide now to make the safe decision for teachers and students and open with remote learning in the fall, teachers could be training and preparing and planning for online education, (instead of trying to open schools and then flying by the seat of our pants AGAIN to go online when it doesn’t work!)

We hear you pediatricians: Kids don’t usually get severe symptoms. They are usually asymptomatic. That is all well and good, but kids can still spread the virus to each other. They might not get sick, but they can take those germs home to their families. They can give those germs to their teachers, who can take it home to their families. Yes, we, as teachers, are used to being the sacrificial lambs. Yes, we protect our students and would take a bullet for them if necessary. We would give our lives to keep them safe when they are in our care. But I am not willing to expose myself to COVID and take COVID home to my family for the sake of having school in-person when that is completely preventable.

We hear you, governors: wE aRe hAVinG a haRd tiMe mAkiNg dEcisiONs.  Yes, this is an ever-changing situation and we have all been keeping our fingers crossed, but COVID is not going away, cases are on the rise, the school year is approaching, and we need answers. 

We hear you, Secretary of Education ("the first secretary of education with zero experience in public schools”😞 Blah, blah, blah.  Please sit down.

We hear you, President: These CDC guidelines are too safe. Make them less safe and easier and cheaper to follow. Open the schools or I will cut your funding. The health and safety of this country’s children and teachers is more important than the economy. That should be obvious and not a political issue to be debated.

But what do I know? I’m just a teacher. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They have no good reasons safety wise to open schools. That’s why you are hearing generic statements like "just do it.” "If Home Depot can be open schools can be open.” "Kids aren’t at risk anyway.” The last statement they don’t want to push too hard because while It does seem children aren’t high risk, they are still at risk. There more than likely be some children deaths when school reopen. 

18 hours ago, Lloyd said:

I heard them chanting about forced gender reassignment surgery funded by Soros and Bill Gates!  They've gone too far! 

Any word on that anti-capitalist loser Buffet?

I remember quite a few times as a student spending the entire day at home depot when I was supposed to be at my high school. They are so similar I would get confused and mix them up all the time.

Hawaii goes back to school on August 4th.

3 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

They have no good reasons safety wise to open schools. That’s why you are hearing generic statements like "just do it.” "If Home Depot can be open schools can be open.” "Kids aren’t at risk anyway.” The last statement they don’t want to push too hard because while It does seem children aren’t high risk, they are still at risk. There more than likely be some children deaths when school reopen. 

I'll say this... Whatever your opinions on how Sweden handled this, one fact stands out to me: they kept schools open for those under 16 and there was only one COVID-19 death in that age group. And that death was someone under 10, and I have not been able to determine if that child was school age or not.

I'm not someone who endorses aggressive opening up. But the data we have suggests it may not be nearly as crazy as it appears to open schools with appropriate caution.

Looks like the 2-3 week lag between cases and deaths might be catching up to FL.

26 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I'll say this... Whatever your opinions on how Sweden handled this, one fact stands out to me: they kept schools open for those under 16 and there was only one COVID-19 death in that age group. And that death was someone under 10, and I have not been able to determine if that child was school age or not.

I'm not someone who endorses aggressive opening up. But the data we have suggests it may not be nearly as crazy as it appears to open schools with appropriate caution.

What are the long term effects if any of COVID? 

Because I posted this last week

British neurologists have now published shocking details in the journal "Brain," which suggests SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe brain damage — even in patients with mild symptoms or those in recovery. Often this damage is detected very late or not at all.

Neurologists at the University College London (UCL) diagnosed acute demyelinating encephalomyelitis (ADEM) in nine British COVID-19 patients. This inflammatory disease causes a degenerative destruction of the central nervous system, affecting the myelin sheaths of the nerves in the brain and spinal cord.

Different degrees of damage

Of the 43 patients examined, 12 suffered from inflammation of the central nervous system, 10 from a transient encephalopathy (brain disease) with delirium or psychosis, eight from strokes, and a further eight from problems of the peripheral nerves, mostly with the diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome. This is an immune reaction that attacks the nerves and causes paralysis and is fatal in 5% of cases. A 59-year-old woman died of the complication.

"Severe brain damage possible after COVID-19" https://amp.dw.com/en/coronavirus-brain-damage/a-54111054

22 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I'll say this... Whatever your opinions on how Sweden handled this, one fact stands out to me: they kept schools open for those under 16 and there was only one COVID-19 death in that age group. And that death was someone under 10, and I have not been able to determine if that child was school age or not.

I'm not someone who endorses aggressive opening up. But the data we have suggests it may not be nearly as crazy as it appears to open schools with appropriate caution.

Yeah but the rational argument against it is to protect the kids parents and grandparents.

I'd encourage everyone that is interested to get as much facts as possible.  Don't just go by say a NY Times article which doesn't show the full picture.  Sweden is really an interesting case here and it is really hard to draw any final conclusions at this point.  What we know though is that the numbers of deaths are high per capita so far vs. neighboring countries with similar context but that the numbers never swamped the hospitals and that the rates have been dropping consistently now for a couple of months and we look to have actually controlled the curve (albeit at a cost).

I'm not so sure there is a right or a wrong here and every single situation is completely unique based on a ton of factors, e.g. population density, culture, etc. but there is something to be learned from each situation.

32 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I'll say this... Whatever your opinions on how Sweden handled this, one fact stands out to me: they kept schools open for those under 16 and there was only one COVID-19 death in that age group. And that death was someone under 10, and I have not been able to determine if that child was school age or not.

I'm not someone who endorses aggressive opening up. But the data we have suggests it may not be nearly as crazy as it appears to open schools with appropriate caution.

I admittedly don’t know what circumstances Swedish schools operated under like average school size and average class size as well as what precautions they had set up and how much social distancing/masks etc were in place. The thing that disturbs me is the general attitude from the government of "just do it, but do it full capacity, 5 days a week.” Then you have the whole debacle of CDC guidelines are too strict they need to be eased. There is no clear direction for anyone to follow, which is just going to be a disaster. 
 

And if they do all reopen and we only have a few deaths of children, that’s going to be looked at as a success and that is horrifying. 

8 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I admittedly don’t know what circumstances Swedish schools operated under like average school size and average class size as well as what precautions they had set up and how much social distancing/masks etc were in place. The thing that disturbs me is the general attitude from the government of "just do it, but do it full capacity, 5 days a week.” Then you have the whole debacle of CDC guidelines are too strict they need to be eased. There is no clear direction for anyone to follow, which is just going to be a disaster. 
 

And if they do all reopen and we only have a few deaths of children, that’s going to be looked at as a success and that is horrifying. 

I can tell you.  I live here in Stockholm.

No masks.  You will see maybe 2 out of 100 people wearing a mask.  So literally almost no one has a mask on at any time.  That measure was never put in place.

The school sizes are fairly similar to US sizes say 25 per class or so.

General social distancing was in play in public.  People are pretty much to themselves anyway so it worked fine.  The level of cleanliness both personally but also out in public is very very good which also helps.  Stores have plexiglass protecting the cashiers and they have painted squares on the floor to show how much to distance.  Public transport was mostly sparse in the beginning but by the middle of May it was more or less back to normal in terms of how people felt about it BUT was still light since people were working from home.  Probably 90% of all office workers have worked from home since early March.

Gatherings of more than 50 were and still are prohibited.

Some restaurants/bars were temporarily shutdown for not obeying the rules.  People had to sit at tables (no standing in a bar area) and be served by personnel.  Distance was setup between tables.  The rules were 2 meters but that has now been reduced to 1 meter so it is nearly back to normal.

1 hour ago, mayanh8 said:

Looks like the 2-3 week lag between cases and deaths might be catching up to FL.

For some reason they are saying now it’s only 95 and that 188 was an error. Not sure how there can be that big of an error 

Septic shock with organ failure but at least he owned the libs voting no mask 

13 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Septic shock with organ failure but at least he owned the libs voting no mask 

I mean clearly hes in the hospital with septic shock and organ failure, not covid. The media will do anything to hype this thing up. 

- some idiot

1 hour ago, DrPhilly said:

Yeah but the rational argument against it is to protect the kids parents and grandparents.

I'd encourage everyone that is interested to get as much facts as possible.  Don't just go by say a NY Times article which doesn't show the full picture.  Sweden is really an interesting case here and it is really hard to draw any final conclusions at this point.  What we know though is that the numbers of deaths are high per capita so far vs. neighboring countries with similar context but that the numbers never swamped the hospitals and that the rates have been dropping consistently now for a couple of months and we look to have actually controlled the curve (albeit at a cost).

I'm not so sure there is a right or a wrong here and every single situation is completely unique based on a ton of factors, e.g. population density, culture, etc. but there is something to be learned from each situation.

Sure. There are additional things to consider, including the potential long-term impacts to survivors of COVID-19 and the impacts of having these kids as potential carriers of the diseases to higher risk groups.

I'm just adding a bit of data from what is a real-world control group of sorts during this pandemic. Irrespective of individual feelings on the approach Sweden took, the data coming out of Sweden in contrast to areas that instituted stricter controls is very useful.

8 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Sure. There are additional things to consider, including the potential long-term impacts to survivors of COVID-19 and the impacts of having these kids as potential carriers of the diseases to higher risk groups.

I'm just adding a bit of data from what is a real-world control group of sorts during this pandemic. Irrespective of individual feelings on the approach Sweden took, the data coming out of Sweden in contrast to areas that instituted stricter controls is very useful.

Yes it is and it is also crucial to understand the context and also look closely at the numbers. Deaths reported in Sweden are based on "with COVID” and not "by COVID” for example. 

2 hours ago, BirdsFanBill said:

I mean clearly hes in the hospital with septic shock and organ failure, not covid. The media will do anything to hype this thing up. 

- some idiot

Because of COVID he has these things, that and being 200lbs overweight 

2 hours ago, VanHammersly said:

I can't find where she said this. Anyone have a link? 

I think this would be fun to post on your social media 

Lower cognitive ability linked to non-compliance with social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus outbreak

 

https://www.psypost.org/2020/07/covidiot-study-lower-cognitive-ability-linked-to-non-compliance-with-social-distancing-guidelines-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak-57293

30 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Check out this verbal diarrhea from the article:

"When you have a flatter curve, which Florida has—I mean if you look at the Northeast, they went boom...Florida,Texas, we’re just much flatter. It means it goes on longer, and so you know we said you wanted a flatter curve but this is drawn out over a longer period of time.” 

Dafuq?!?

11 minutes ago, Dawkins 20 said:

Check out this verbal diarrhea from the article:

"When you have a flatter curve, which Florida has—I mean if you look at the Northeast, they went boom...Florida,Texas, we’re just much flatter. It means it goes on longer, and so you know we said you wanted a flatter curve but this is drawn out over a longer period of time.” 

Dafuq?!?

He’s running out of excuses. The mental gymnastics being put on display is truly impressive.