5 ms·

It’s been interesting to watch the varied responses. In Seattle (Seattle Public SD) the school districts have adamantly refused to close. For better or worse t

It’s been interesting to watch the varied responses. In Seattle (Seattle Public SD) the school districts have adamantly refused to close. For better or worse this will end up being a wild A/B test (between Northshore and Seattle) with extremely long term implications. So far the explanations have mostly centered around these three points: * Many students’ parents are health care providers or work in the health care industry on the front lines of the COVID-19 response. If schools close, fewer people will be able to provide front-line support. * Many families rely on the schools and staff for basic needs, including regular meals, health care, and child care. * Seattle can’t provide online learning because Seattle serves a diverse community with varied access to technology ... including those who do not have access to technology or internet at home. See: https://www.seattleschools.org/district/calendars/news/what_s_new/coronavirus_update https://www.seattleschools.org/district/calendars/news/what_...

amscanne 7y ago
The explanation that I’ve seen is that closing is not an effective mitigation anyways, as children often end up congregating elsewhere in even closer contact: e.g. backup care with groups of kids, older kids getting together while schools are closed. Given the well-known downsides that you list, and the fact that it doesn’t help much, it makes sense to stay open until there are actual cases associated with the schools.
- trimbo 7y ago
  A coworker asked the other day: what's the end point on WFH and school closure? I think it's a good question. In this specific case, for Northshore, have they specified? Is it some number of weeks, months, years? Is there some inflection point in the spread they've predetermined it will go back to normal?
  - vkou 7y ago
    > A coworker asked the other day: what's the end point on WFH and school closure? At minimum, producing enough test kits so that we could actually test every hypochondriac with the sniffles. Since there's a mind-boggling shortage of test kits, reducing transmission rates for as long as possible is all that we can do.
  - Tagbert 7y ago
    One of the main reasons to do things like close schools and work from home is to slow the spread of the virus so that it doesn’t spike in large numbers. This helps prevent the health care and similar support systems from being overwhelmed. It is likely that many/most people will eventually get the virus but if that happens over a spread out timeframe there is a better chance of maintaining adequate health support.
- carapace 7y ago
  > children often end up congregating elsewhere in even closer contact Well that's just fucking stupid. The situation isn't "get out of school", it's "stay home". > stay open until there are actual cases associated with the schools. That's really fucking stupid. By then it's too late.
  - Noos 7y ago
    I wonder if the problem is a ripple effect. If you close schools, a lot of parents will have to stay out of work. This means more closings, and overworked remaining staff.
    - carapace 7y ago
      People just don't know the horror of the plague. I think it's just that simple. A lot of people have no living memory of a bad outbreak. We're victims of our own success.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    > Well that's just fucking stupid. The situation isn't "get out of school", it's "stay home". If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? The best they can do is get a bunch of parents together and rotate which house all the kids will stay at each day and pool their wages so no one starves. Only privileged kids have the option to "just stay home".
    - carapace 7y ago
      > If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? Anywhere that minimizes contagion of the virus. I'm not trying to be coy or flippant. I recognize that there are hardships involved. You gave a very general scenario so I can only re-state the fundamental invariant. > get a bunch of parents together and rotate which house all the kids will stay at each day and pool their wages That could work. Except better not to move them around, and limit their exposure to adults who do move around. I'm not an epidemiologist so I'm not qualified to give detailed advice. I do feel pretty confident about telling people to stay home because that's how you slow down a pandemic. The streets should be deserted right now. Here's the messed up thing: the virus doesn't care. If we have set up our society in such a way that we can't respond properly to this thing it will fuck us up and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. IF there are too many parents working, and not enough extended family (or whatever), and/or not enough sick leave, and/or a system that can't make and distribute tests, or any of a bunch of other factors, THEN people are going to die. A lot of people. And if enough of the die (or just get really sick all at the same time) major additional problems could occur. Most cities have only about three days of food in the pipeline. After that, the only food is our pets, and then "long pork". The best thing you can do to stave that off is stay home now before it's too late. Maybe our civilization are fundamentally at odds with surviving a pandemic, I hope not, but be clear about the danger here.
sterlind 7y ago
On r/CoronavirusWA there was a brilliant suggestion to "soft close" the schools - keep them open but encourage parents to keep their kids at home when possible. This reduces the risk without hurting low-income families. School could either be mixed remote/local classrooms or a study hall/computer lab with everyone logged in.
- matheweis 7y ago
  They’ve come pretty close; absences are being excused and teachers have plenty of work to send the kids come with. The only difference is it is currently “allowed” vs “encouraged”.
pfranz 7y ago
It could be a matter of funding, preparedness, and scale. Northshore seems to be aware of the things you mentioned and are trying to address them. They sent out a survey to asses the scale of the need. * they've offered childcare for those who need it * they specifically called out children who rely on meals and have offered to fulfill them * they've offered to check out school equipment (and training?) * they've also offered extra assistance for kids in special needs programs that need extra attention I don't know about Seattle Public SD, but Northshore said they had a 20% absence rate before closing the district. 15% of their staff fell into high risk groups (over 60, pregnant, etc) and that's outside of people being extra cautious when they see symptoms. Realizing that it's not just teaching staff, but janitorial, bus drivers, administration, lunch staff and others makes me think it would be difficult to continue operating normally. Thankfully, my kid is still young and his childcare doesn't plan to close. My wife is working from home, but would not be able to do anything with a young kid running around. The lesson plan sent from school seems like a huge time suck for parents. The teachers seem to be going above and beyond. They prepared individual physical packets for lesson materials, pre-recorded circle time, and are setting up and reaching out via these new platforms. I'm still not quite sure how a "school day" will look at home. He's in a preschool program, and they've let us know home participation is optional.
- em-bee 7y ago
  My wife is working from home, but would not be able to do anything with a young kid running around. The lesson plan sent from school seems like a huge time suck for parents. The teachers seem to be going above and beyond. i am living this right now in china. everything is closed and i had to send the younger kids to the grandparents so i can help my oldest get through his school curriculum. and i am not getting any time for work. luckily my sons teachers are great too and they support where they can, but life is pretty much on hold and in survival mode.
duxup 7y ago
Well even if the students had access to technology a school can't just switch to "online learning" very fast or effectively outside of applications they already use.

amscanne 7y ago

The explanation that I’ve seen is that closing is not an effective mitigation anyways, as children often end up congregating elsewhere in even closer contact: e.g. backup care with groups of kids, older kids getting together while schools are closed. Given the well-known downsides that you list, and the fact that it doesn’t help much, it makes sense to stay open until there are actual cases associated with the schools.

trimbo 7y ago
A coworker asked the other day: what's the end point on WFH and school closure? I think it's a good question. In this specific case, for Northshore, have they specified? Is it some number of weeks, months, years? Is there some inflection point in the spread they've predetermined it will go back to normal?
- vkou 7y ago
  > A coworker asked the other day: what's the end point on WFH and school closure? At minimum, producing enough test kits so that we could actually test every hypochondriac with the sniffles. Since there's a mind-boggling shortage of test kits, reducing transmission rates for as long as possible is all that we can do.
- Tagbert 7y ago
  One of the main reasons to do things like close schools and work from home is to slow the spread of the virus so that it doesn’t spike in large numbers. This helps prevent the health care and similar support systems from being overwhelmed. It is likely that many/most people will eventually get the virus but if that happens over a spread out timeframe there is a better chance of maintaining adequate health support.
carapace 7y ago
> children often end up congregating elsewhere in even closer contact Well that's just fucking stupid. The situation isn't "get out of school", it's "stay home". > stay open until there are actual cases associated with the schools. That's really fucking stupid. By then it's too late.
- Noos 7y ago
  I wonder if the problem is a ripple effect. If you close schools, a lot of parents will have to stay out of work. This means more closings, and overworked remaining staff.
  - carapace 7y ago
    People just don't know the horror of the plague. I think it's just that simple. A lot of people have no living memory of a bad outbreak. We're victims of our own success.
- jedberg 7y ago
  > Well that's just fucking stupid. The situation isn't "get out of school", it's "stay home". If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? The best they can do is get a bunch of parents together and rotate which house all the kids will stay at each day and pool their wages so no one starves. Only privileged kids have the option to "just stay home".
  - carapace 7y ago
    > If you have a seven year old and both parents work an hourly job, where exactly is that kid supposed to stay? Anywhere that minimizes contagion of the virus. I'm not trying to be coy or flippant. I recognize that there are hardships involved. You gave a very general scenario so I can only re-state the fundamental invariant. > get a bunch of parents together and rotate which house all the kids will stay at each day and pool their wages That could work. Except better not to move them around, and limit their exposure to adults who do move around. I'm not an epidemiologist so I'm not qualified to give detailed advice. I do feel pretty confident about telling people to stay home because that's how you slow down a pandemic. The streets should be deserted right now. Here's the messed up thing: the virus doesn't care. If we have set up our society in such a way that we can't respond properly to this thing it will fuck us up and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. IF there are too many parents working, and not enough extended family (or whatever), and/or not enough sick leave, and/or a system that can't make and distribute tests, or any of a bunch of other factors, THEN people are going to die. A lot of people. And if enough of the die (or just get really sick all at the same time) major additional problems could occur. Most cities have only about three days of food in the pipeline. After that, the only food is our pets, and then "long pork". The best thing you can do to stave that off is stay home now before it's too late. Maybe our civilization are fundamentally at odds with surviving a pandemic, I hope not, but be clear about the danger here.

sterlind 7y ago

On r/CoronavirusWA there was a brilliant suggestion to "soft close" the schools - keep them open but encourage parents to keep their kids at home when possible. This reduces the risk without hurting low-income families. School could either be mixed remote/local classrooms or a study hall/computer lab with everyone logged in.

matheweis 7y ago
They’ve come pretty close; absences are being excused and teachers have plenty of work to send the kids come with. The only difference is it is currently “allowed” vs “encouraged”.

pfranz 7y ago

It could be a matter of funding, preparedness, and scale. Northshore seems to be aware of the things you mentioned and are trying to address them. They sent out a survey to asses the scale of the need. * they've offered childcare for those who need it * they specifically called out children who rely on meals and have offered to fulfill them * they've offered to check out school equipment (and training?) * they've also offered extra assistance for kids in special needs programs that need extra attention I don't know about Seattle Public SD, but Northshore said they had a 20% absence rate before closing the district. 15% of their staff fell into high risk groups (over 60, pregnant, etc) and that's outside of people being extra cautious when they see symptoms. Realizing that it's not just teaching staff, but janitorial, bus drivers, administration, lunch staff and others makes me think it would be difficult to continue operating normally. Thankfully, my kid is still young and his childcare doesn't plan to close. My wife is working from home, but would not be able to do anything with a young kid running around. The lesson plan sent from school seems like a huge time suck for parents. The teachers seem to be going above and beyond. They prepared individual physical packets for lesson materials, pre-recorded circle time, and are setting up and reaching out via these new platforms. I'm still not quite sure how a "school day" will look at home. He's in a preschool program, and they've let us know home participation is optional.

em-bee 7y ago
My wife is working from home, but would not be able to do anything with a young kid running around. The lesson plan sent from school seems like a huge time suck for parents. The teachers seem to be going above and beyond. i am living this right now in china. everything is closed and i had to send the younger kids to the grandparents so i can help my oldest get through his school curriculum. and i am not getting any time for work. luckily my sons teachers are great too and they support where they can, but life is pretty much on hold and in survival mode.

duxup 7y ago

Well even if the students had access to technology a school can't just switch to "online learning" very fast or effectively outside of applications they already use.