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My wife is a teacher and starting school (in person) in a week and a half. There’s no answers to questions like: - Do they have the budget for counseling when

My wife is a teacher and starting school (in person) in a week and a half. There’s no answers to questions like: - Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? - When a teacher gets sick, what substitute teacher is going to want to teach an exposed class (also, they’ll be making sub plans with covid?)? - When they’re sick are will they be getting additional sick leave? - Do they get worker’s compensation if they get sick, since they were knowingly sent into a dangerous environment?

neverartful 6y ago
All good questions. If it were me I would join forces with other teachers and parents to bring the questions to the principal and school board (or district). I suspect that in many cases, teachers and parents will need to put significant pressure on the PTB to force them to confront these important questions. edit - If your wife belongs to a teachers union, this would be a great thing for the teachers union to push for.
- peterwoerner 6y ago
  I think the problem is a majority of parents are FOR school opening up.
- japhyr 6y ago
  You can push for answers from those people, but there's probably no real answers to give. The federal response to the pandemic has been so ineffective, to put it kindly, that it leaves people at all levels with no meaningful responses. Principals, superintendents, and school boards can want to offer the support described in this thread, but have no real way to actually deliver it.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    The public schools are run by the states. Look to your governor.
    - jmcqk6 6y ago
      The public schools are only one part of our civilization. The ineffectual and incompetent national response has left no good options on the table for public schools. No matter what happens now, we're sacrificing some children because the assholes in power couldn't be bothered to care about things other than themselves.
      - japhyr 6y ago
        Right. Even if one community comes up with a really good plan, we still have interstate travel in a nation with numerous states whose governors are actively against any mitigating actions on a local level. So no, we can't just "look to our governors".
        WalterBright 6y ago
        There were proposals for NYC to isolate itself.
    - neverartful 6y ago
      Not always. My kids were educated in public schools K-12 and we always lived in areas where the schools were the best. The 2 things in common for different places we lived were: (1) higher property taxes (used to fund the schools), and (2) very active parental involvement in the schools.
  - neverartful 6y ago
    "but there's probably no real answers to give" For sure, there aren't any easy answers. I believe that smaller school districts can come up with creative answers if there's sufficient support for the schools in the community. If the school policies are dictated at the state level, then the ability to do this is made much more difficult (if not impossible).
MattGaiser 6y ago
Even on the outside, it seems like pushing kids back into the classroom is poorly thought out. I can't imagine the shitshow it must seem like on the inside.
- twblalock 6y ago
  The problem is, remote education has been a complete disaster. I know a few teachers. Apparently their students found out that the state was unwilling to hold anyone back a year during the pandemic, they shared this information with each other, and now a substantial amount of them are not doing any work. In some classes, more than half the students are permanently absent! Either their parents don't know, or don't care, or are unable to provide internet access. One solution is to get students back into classrooms. Another is to design a remote learning system that actually works, with enforcement of attendance and where grades actually matter, but that is probably not something our substandard education system is able to achieve.
  - mindslight 6y ago
    The actual solution is to control the propagation of the virus throughout society, which for the most part still has yet to be done. We're going to continue to have the same poor options we had in March until this is actually done.
  - charwalker 6y ago
    So 2 directions? The cheaper, easier, and far more deadly in person option or invest $$$ with a need for short term results. It's never that simple, but if the issue is spending the money then I don't see why it isn't a straight forward option given how much we've spent to buy bad debt and bail out administration cronies.
    - rmrfrmrf 6y ago
      The consensus on both ends of the political spectrum over the past 30 years is that public education is a failure and must be abolished through either defunding or diverting funding to charter schools. Providing more funding to public schools would undermine that goal.
thephyber 6y ago
It's amazing to see how differently we treat the low probability, high impact events like active shooters and terrorism, but we completely fail to do the far easier task of dealing with the high probability, unknown impact events.
- ironmagma 6y ago
  Well, that’s true, except that it’s not easy. Easy to talk about, sure, but not easy to implement without backlash from the moneyed interests that exist.
  - Fargren 6y ago
    Most of the world has reacted better than the US. I agree it's not easy, it has not been easy for anyone. But the unwillingness/incapability of the US to suffer backlash from their own moneyed interests is not the norm. It's a symptom of a dysfunctional system. It shouldn't be normalized.
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      Agreed it's a disturbing realization of the unspoken acknowledgment people in the US have been forced to live with: "capitalism doesn't care if you live or die"
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Neither does socialism, communism, or nature.
        Avicebron 6y ago
        And I wasn't advocating for any one of those as a fundamentally better system, assuming you mean raw unfettered nature, hunter-gatherer style. And even then it's likely there is a tribe that cares..but I digress.
    - hodgesrm 6y ago
politelemon 6y ago
> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you for sharing this
- mikeg8 6y ago
  I agree - this never really occurred to me either. My girlfriend's mother is a preschool teacher who just had to go back to in-person sessions and she believes some of these kids will have trauma's from being young and terrified. One little girl is afraid to touch anything and constantly asks if objects have been cleaned/safe to touch? it's heartbreaking to her.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I really struggled with this with my toddler. In the end I decided to chill out and take whatever comes as a consequence rather than traumatise my child for life.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Typically kids are more resilient then that. The kid that ends up as scared had those tendencies before. If your toddler don't tend to be paranoid, you taking precautions and talking about them as normal thing to do won't harm him at all.
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        We still take precautions proportionate to the risk we face but we don’t make as big an effort to stop him doing toddler things in public
  - peterwoerner 6y ago
    Sounds like a bunch of children just got trained to have obsessive compulsive disorder. My wife has it and my life was filled with contamination fears before COVID-19.
croutonwagon 6y ago
Same here. The narrative admin has been giving parents was that they were working hand in hand with teachers on the return plan. That was a total lie. It came out this week and parents (thankfully) called our counties admin on their narrative. So no they have principals calling each teacher and asking them on their comfort level about returning . Unsurprisingly, most aren’t comfortable. When they called my wife they asked for her comfort level on a 1-10 scale. She refused to give them a number. Instead just saying this plan means she is 100% confident she will contract it and spread it to the family in the month of august. But that is not what concerns her. What concerns her is that if every other school, teacher and parent is doing the same, on the heels of the current numbers, it means we may not be able to get the medical attention we need due to overloading the medical community.
disposition2 6y ago
All good questions. Based on some of what I've read, actions are being taken to ensure (for the most part) the contrary...that businesses / schools are protected with little regard for the individual. A more recent example is below. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-republicans-to-propose-laundry-list-of-liability-protections-in-next-covid-relief-bill/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-republicans-to-propose-l... > Included in the list are temporary protection from the trial bar for schools, colleges, charities and business that follow public health guidelines and for frontline medical workers. One could argue they (in this case Senate majority) are just crossing the t's and dotting the i's but considering there has been little regard (in many states and definitely on the federal level) for public health (in favor of other concerns) thus far...that is IMHO wishful thinking.

neverartful 6y ago

All good questions. If it were me I would join forces with other teachers and parents to bring the questions to the principal and school board (or district). I suspect that in many cases, teachers and parents will need to put significant pressure on the PTB to force them to confront these important questions. edit - If your wife belongs to a teachers union, this would be a great thing for the teachers union to push for.

peterwoerner 6y ago
I think the problem is a majority of parents are FOR school opening up.
japhyr 6y ago
You can push for answers from those people, but there's probably no real answers to give. The federal response to the pandemic has been so ineffective, to put it kindly, that it leaves people at all levels with no meaningful responses. Principals, superintendents, and school boards can want to offer the support described in this thread, but have no real way to actually deliver it.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The public schools are run by the states. Look to your governor.
  - jmcqk6 6y ago
    The public schools are only one part of our civilization. The ineffectual and incompetent national response has left no good options on the table for public schools. No matter what happens now, we're sacrificing some children because the assholes in power couldn't be bothered to care about things other than themselves.
    - japhyr 6y ago
      Right. Even if one community comes up with a really good plan, we still have interstate travel in a nation with numerous states whose governors are actively against any mitigating actions on a local level. So no, we can't just "look to our governors".
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        There were proposals for NYC to isolate itself.
  - neverartful 6y ago
    Not always. My kids were educated in public schools K-12 and we always lived in areas where the schools were the best. The 2 things in common for different places we lived were: (1) higher property taxes (used to fund the schools), and (2) very active parental involvement in the schools.
- neverartful 6y ago
  "but there's probably no real answers to give" For sure, there aren't any easy answers. I believe that smaller school districts can come up with creative answers if there's sufficient support for the schools in the community. If the school policies are dictated at the state level, then the ability to do this is made much more difficult (if not impossible).

MattGaiser 6y ago

Even on the outside, it seems like pushing kids back into the classroom is poorly thought out. I can't imagine the shitshow it must seem like on the inside.

twblalock 6y ago
The problem is, remote education has been a complete disaster. I know a few teachers. Apparently their students found out that the state was unwilling to hold anyone back a year during the pandemic, they shared this information with each other, and now a substantial amount of them are not doing any work. In some classes, more than half the students are permanently absent! Either their parents don't know, or don't care, or are unable to provide internet access. One solution is to get students back into classrooms. Another is to design a remote learning system that actually works, with enforcement of attendance and where grades actually matter, but that is probably not something our substandard education system is able to achieve.
- mindslight 6y ago
  The actual solution is to control the propagation of the virus throughout society, which for the most part still has yet to be done. We're going to continue to have the same poor options we had in March until this is actually done.
- charwalker 6y ago
  So 2 directions? The cheaper, easier, and far more deadly in person option or invest $$$ with a need for short term results. It's never that simple, but if the issue is spending the money then I don't see why it isn't a straight forward option given how much we've spent to buy bad debt and bail out administration cronies.
  - rmrfrmrf 6y ago
    The consensus on both ends of the political spectrum over the past 30 years is that public education is a failure and must be abolished through either defunding or diverting funding to charter schools. Providing more funding to public schools would undermine that goal.

thephyber 6y ago

It's amazing to see how differently we treat the low probability, high impact events like active shooters and terrorism, but we completely fail to do the far easier task of dealing with the high probability, unknown impact events.

ironmagma 6y ago
Well, that’s true, except that it’s not easy. Easy to talk about, sure, but not easy to implement without backlash from the moneyed interests that exist.
- Fargren 6y ago
  Most of the world has reacted better than the US. I agree it's not easy, it has not been easy for anyone. But the unwillingness/incapability of the US to suffer backlash from their own moneyed interests is not the norm. It's a symptom of a dysfunctional system. It shouldn't be normalized.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    Agreed it's a disturbing realization of the unspoken acknowledgment people in the US have been forced to live with: "capitalism doesn't care if you live or die"
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      Neither does socialism, communism, or nature.
      - Avicebron 6y ago
        And I wasn't advocating for any one of those as a fundamentally better system, assuming you mean raw unfettered nature, hunter-gatherer style. And even then it's likely there is a tribe that cares..but I digress.
  - hodgesrm 6y ago

politelemon 6y ago

> Do they have the budget for counseling when students and teachers pass away? It pains me to admit that this didn't even occur to me as part of the topic of teachers being sent back. The human aspects of students-teacher relationships. I feel I've been desensitized to this after exposing myself to a constant stream of news, and now I'm thinking further about what other aspects lie behind other headlines. Thank you for sharing this

mikeg8 6y ago
I agree - this never really occurred to me either. My girlfriend's mother is a preschool teacher who just had to go back to in-person sessions and she believes some of these kids will have trauma's from being young and terrified. One little girl is afraid to touch anything and constantly asks if objects have been cleaned/safe to touch? it's heartbreaking to her.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I really struggled with this with my toddler. In the end I decided to chill out and take whatever comes as a consequence rather than traumatise my child for life.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Typically kids are more resilient then that. The kid that ends up as scared had those tendencies before. If your toddler don't tend to be paranoid, you taking precautions and talking about them as normal thing to do won't harm him at all.
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      We still take precautions proportionate to the risk we face but we don’t make as big an effort to stop him doing toddler things in public
- peterwoerner 6y ago
  Sounds like a bunch of children just got trained to have obsessive compulsive disorder. My wife has it and my life was filled with contamination fears before COVID-19.

croutonwagon 6y ago

Same here. The narrative admin has been giving parents was that they were working hand in hand with teachers on the return plan. That was a total lie. It came out this week and parents (thankfully) called our counties admin on their narrative. So no they have principals calling each teacher and asking them on their comfort level about returning . Unsurprisingly, most aren’t comfortable. When they called my wife they asked for her comfort level on a 1-10 scale. She refused to give them a number. Instead just saying this plan means she is 100% confident she will contract it and spread it to the family in the month of august. But that is not what concerns her. What concerns her is that if every other school, teacher and parent is doing the same, on the heels of the current numbers, it means we may not be able to get the medical attention we need due to overloading the medical community.

disposition2 6y ago

All good questions. Based on some of what I've read, actions are being taken to ensure (for the most part) the contrary...that businesses / schools are protected with little regard for the individual. A more recent example is below. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-republicans-to-propose-laundry-list-of-liability-protections-in-next-covid-relief-bill/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-republicans-to-propose-l... > Included in the list are temporary protection from the trial bar for schools, colleges, charities and business that follow public health guidelines and for frontline medical workers. One could argue they (in this case Senate majority) are just crossing the t's and dotting the i's but considering there has been little regard (in many states and definitely on the federal level) for public health (in favor of other concerns) thus far...that is IMHO wishful thinking.