11 ms·

Georgia School Reopening Photo Even Worse Than It Appears

72 points by laurex 6y ago

mrguyorama 6y ago
How can you possibly believe this is the right thing to do? I just don't understand
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  It all comes down to who the people making these decisions are trying to please. The elected officials (assuming they're at least sort of doing their job) are acting on what they think will please the most voters. The net difference in the number of constituents hate this option, the next option, and every other feasible option for the school year is likely very small. This is what the tyranny of the majority looks like. But of course thinking about the incentives and mechanisms that lead to this outcome is uncomfortable and clutching our pearls is comfortable and easy so what we'll do is a forgone conclusion. Edit: I'm personally no fan of the policy the school chose but asinine or not they didn't choose it for no reason and it's worth exploring what lead to the people making the decisions to choose what they chose. Edit2: Some of you would do well to read only the words I am writing here and not assume any unwritten meaning or motivation. I am specifically trying to avoid debating whether this particular instance of public policy is good/bad/right/wrong and some of you seem to be very eager to do just that.
  - vkou 6y ago
    This is nonsense. If the administration actually made a good-faith effort, they would have re-opened, with a mask mandate. They haven't made a good-faith effort. This isn't what tyrrany of the majority looks like, this is what the end result of a cynical propaganda campaign looks like.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Good faith for who? To you and me and other people who aren't from there? The fact that a public official felt comfortable calling masks a "personal choice" tells me that this district isn't a big fan of masks.
      - vkou 6y ago
        Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks. I am positive that this school has a dress code. For some reason, though, they feel that they can prescribe what students can wear, unless it's a mask..?
        throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        >Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks. If they're virtue signaling then by definition they're showing support for whatever the locally accepted opinion already is.
        vkou 6y ago
        That opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You have no idea how many people support it - whether it's 20% of the population, 40% of the population, or 80% of the population. They could have made this decision the other way, and your arguments, when used in defense of it would be just as sound. It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. Just because you're an administrator in a public service doesn't mean that you are actually doing what the community wants you to do - especially when there are limited ways of removing you. It's even possible that the minority you are virtue signaling to is politicians and insiders - who actually have ways of removing you. It would be incredibly stupid of you to not do what they want.
        throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        >that opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You're not technically wrong but it would be monumentally stupid to do for this particular opinion. >It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. And it's moronic for an elected official to do that if the nature of the signal will absolutely enrage a majority or a different larger minority which "a mask is a personal choice" most certainly does.
  - DonnyV 6y ago
    During a health crisis popular or unpopular does not matter. You do what is necessary wither you like it or not. What these "leaders" are doing is complete incompetence and negligent.
    - zentiggr 6y ago
      The problem is that 'necessary' to the people driving the Georgia decisions seems to be 'necessary to support my beliefs and my fiscal policy', not 'necessary for the best good of all'.
  - heylook 6y ago
    > There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening, only unpopular and even more unpopular and it all comes down to who you're trying to please. Which path forward "pleases" you the most? I can't believe this needs asking but: How many deaths are you willing to tolerate before you are no longer "pleased" by this approach? If one approach "pleases" you but "kills" someone else, how should we balance that tradeoff?
  - HumblyTossed 6y ago
    > There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening... Which is exactly the view that politicians want to foster with this pandemic. Unfortunately, they're politicians and not infectious disease specialists.
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- mherdeg 6y ago
  The article quotes someone who believes this is the right thing to do and explains their perspective. This isn't the only view (nor the one endorsed by the physicians I know) but it's worth understanding in order to understand the public health trajectory of the next few years: > Steven, a North Paulding student who asked that only his middle name be used, said he felt safe going to school without a mask. Most of the hallways he encountered, he said, were far less crowded than in the one in the photograph. And the virus itself, he said, didn’t seem like “much of a problem” in Paulding County. > “I’ve only known three people to get it, other than the football players, obviously,” Steven said. “If I get it, I get it. I believe that’s what most people in my area's ideology is — if we get it, we get it.” > Steven said he didn’t want to let worries about spreading the virus to his family control his life. > “Most of my family, including my grandparents, think the same as well,” he said. “We just go on about our business and keep it out of our mind.”
  - beepboopbeep 6y ago
    > Ideology
  - newacct583 6y ago
    The problem with that logic, of course[1], is that "if we get it we get it" is a statement of personal risk assumption. It doesn't address the rights of the people you will then infect, who you didn't involve in the decision. Some of those people don't want to get sick! Realistically, some of them are going to die. [1] Well, in addition to "Football player cases don't count" -- no idea what that's about. Was there a specific outbreak in that county on a team? === Edit to add a grand-response to this comment (because HN's rate limiter has kicked in, sigh) that illustrates exactly the problem with reasoning I'm trying to point out: > this logic [...] assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area. It absolutely does not. What if some sick kid comes home and unknowingly infects a grandparent who never left the house and never entered a public area? That's a routine kind of spread, in fact. > The responsibility for the risk [...] cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet. No, this is exactly the fallacy at work! There is no "responsibility" in a pandemic. There is no "fault". Those are abstractions dealing with INDIVIDUAL behavior, and we can't beat this with individual decisions, at all.
- untog 6y ago
  Schools in the US are, as a general rule, chronically underfunded. If they had money they could have erected tents outside in playing fields and car parks to allow teaching while socially distant. But slashing school budgets has been a popular political hobby for decades now and requests for emergency funding have fallen on deaf ears. So here we are.
  - jmaygarden 6y ago
    I have doubts that classes could be effectively conducted outdoors in Georgia. The heat index is 93F/34C with 59% humidity as I’m writing this comment. This isn’t Northern California where people can start companies in a garage year round.
  - bazzert 6y ago
    "The most recent version for 2018 reports that, in 2015, the United States spent approximately $12,800 per student on elementary and secondary education. That is over 35% more than the OECD country average of $9,500. " https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20version%20for,OECD%20country%20average%20of%20%249%2C500 https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country....
    - untog 6y ago
      And yet individual teachers still have to go out and buy supplies for their classes because there is no budget for them. There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted.
      - bazzert 6y ago
        >> There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted. Exactly.
  - mac01021 6y ago
    The school in the article is in Georgia, so tents might not even cost. As much as air conditioning...
- jfengel 6y ago
  Because American identity is deeply bound up in the idea that you have to work to be virtuous. If you're not at work, you're lazy, and lazy people literally don't deserve to live. Our schools are both warehouses for young people, so that their parents can work, and training grounds so that they can be prepared to work themselves. If the schools are closed, their parents can't work. That causes an enormous ripple effect. If some people can't work, then they don't have money, causing other people to lose their own jobs. That cascades through the system, tearing down not just the economy, but the American sense of self. If we're not at work, who are we? The US sees itself as the hardest-working, most virtuous nation in the world. God literally "shed his grace" on us. We deserve to be the richest because we're the best. Closing the schools not only shuts down our vaunted advantage, but admits that we can be beaten. We imagine ourselves able to solve crises through hard work and superior intellect, and if we can't, we are failures. At this point, it has become a matter of self-division as well. We've divided ourselves along lines that aren't even really ideological any more. The right wing has defined itself as opposed to "leftists", so anything the left proposes must be bad. If they want to wear masks and close down schools, then we will ban masks and open schools. It didn't even pass through a cost-benefit calculation, or at best one defined retroactively to justify the conclusion. Looked at this way, it seems pretty inevitable that opening the schools was going to happen, at least in places like Georgia that fall on the one side of that divide I mentioned.
  - politician 6y ago
    If we accept your point, doesn’t that imply that these officials and their supporters are incapable of thinking two steps ahead? School enables parents to work (1), but school is also a super spreader event that will sicken parents, preventing work (2). It’s baffling.
    - jfengel 6y ago
      The number of parents it sickens is relatively small, since many will have minor or no symptoms, and only a very few will die. The way they see it, the economy will soldier on, and we can afford to lose, say, a million random people. It probably won't be them or somebody they care about, and it would just be on a par with, say, cancer or heart disease.
- LocalH 6y ago
  Politicians with their heads up their asses, pandering to their voter base. This nation needs some new political thought to really take hold. Both conservatives and liberals are massive echo chambers, and people are so invested in the duality that they will vote for an absolute shitbag just to keep a different absolute shitbag out of office.
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    That's how you end up with lizards as presidents. /s https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-ancient-democracy-you-see-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very...
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    > pandering to their voter base. Isn't that kind of what we want? If GA's politicians pandered to CA's base it would probably turn violent pretty quickly.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      The problem is that GA Governor is pandering to his base by suing mayors in his own state who want stricter restrictions.
- ba2plus 6y ago
  Wall Street has decreed that capitalism must go on at all costs. That requires workers to show up to work. That requires that workers don't need stay home to watch kids. And that requires that kids not be at home during business hours. Few believe that this is the right thing to do. Powerful businesspeople believe it's the profitable thing to do. So, here we are.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Of all the “Wall Street” people I know, no one is advocating not wearing masks or opening schools. The only people I’ve seen with an anti mask policy are those very far from Wall St.
    - ba2plus 6y ago
      I'm not talking about mask policies. I'm talking about "get employees back to work at all costs to save profits" policies.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        I don’t hear any Wall St types clamoring for that either. The states far away from Wall St are the ones banging their drums to open.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Wall Street isn’t insisting on that at all. People on Wall Street are quite happy with the current state of affairs. The five largest companies in the US - all tech - are doing great. The other companies that are important are considered “essential”. It’s the small businesses that are struggling. This is a great opportunity for large companies.
    - zwerdlds 6y ago
      Elon Musk may not be anti-mask but he is pretty clearly an example of someone who doesn't give a shit about public health policy.
  - 6y ago
- doorstar 6y ago
  Our schools are going virtual when they reopen but there are plenty of parents who object. Several reasons come up - Virtual learning did not work at the end of last year, and most parents think it's unlikely to work this year. I'll wait and see, but I'm also pessimistic about virtual learning for kids 5-18. It's just not engaging in that age range. - Related, families with two working parents are going to be very limited in their ability to work with their kid, e.g., make sure they are attending/paying attention in their zoom meetings, keep track of their assignments and make sure they are getting worked on, really sit and help with challenging projects and assignments. - Along the same lines, families with two parents who are or will be working outside the home are really in a bind. - Finally, there is continuing uncertainty about kids getting/transmitting Covid to the point where some people feel it's worth the risk. There is also a persistent group of parents who think this is all overwrought - they believe otherwise healthy kids and adults under the age of 60 are so are just unlikely to get very sick from Covid, certainly not more than any other virus. There's a wide range of feelings. I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    > I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids. "Quietly prepared" as in what? You're just going to accept it? Or you're going do what you have to to fill in the gaps and make it not a lost year for your kids? I'd urge you (and everyone) to go for the second option. They're your kids. They're not the school system's kids; they're yours. If you have to spend time and/or money to make sure that they actually get the education they need (because the school system can't or won't[1]), even if you have to give up some things to do so, do what you can to help your kids. [1] I'm not yelling at the school system here. They're in an impossible situation. They can't function at 100% effectiveness in an impossible situation? No shame in that, and no surprise, either.
    - doorstar 6y ago
      I'm accepting it, make of that what you will. About the only thing I can give up to help this situation is my job. I'm not yet willing to make that trade.
enzanki_ars 6y ago
The worst part too is the fact that the students posting those photos have been suspended with potential for expulsion. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/north-paulding-high-school-suspensions-for-hallway-photos https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/north-...
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  The principal doubled down and said any student found criticizing the school on social media could face disciplinary consequences. WTAF? So, now students can't criticize the schools!?
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    So much for free speech and personal choices!
    - dmkolobov 6y ago
      In the US, we're taught that as students we do not have any rights while at school.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        So they grow up to be good compliant citizens who never assert those pesky rights.
      - schoen 6y ago
        That's not quite right, though: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15235797139493194004#p506 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=152357971394931...
        dmkolobov 6y ago
        Sure, but I heard the words "you do not have rights" from just about every administrator and authority figure in the school system while I was growing up. This was Nashville 2002-2010. edit: Just wanna say that the information in your link is valuable, and students should absolutely know about it. In my experience, there's just wide discrepancy between the way the world works and the way authority figures present it to children who don't know any better.
pxeboot 6y ago
I am surprised the districts lawyers and insurers are okay with this. Surly there will be lawsuits over this for years once students and teachers start getting sick.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  The CDC has recommended schools reopen. I'm not suggesting that's a good recommendation or a bad one. But when the CDC and/or state health board says you can open, you can open. This is the government version of regulatory capture.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Is there no nuance to that CDC recommendation? Straight across the board regardless of local context, they recommend schools reopen?
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      Of course there's some nuance to the CDC's recommendation.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Part of their recommendation requires students and teachers to wear face masks whenever social distancing is not possible, but it's pretty clear that their recommendations are being cherry-picked here. This is not good-faith compliance with CDC recommendations.
    - deleted 6y ago
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  - zarq 6y ago
    I have trouble understanding why this prevents anyone from taking legal action. Maybe the action cannot be directed against the schools, but surely in this case you can challenge the CDC guidelines, because there seems to be direct proof of personal injury (i.e. getting ill) as a result of this? How does this work?
tunesmith 6y ago
"Well, I don't want you to go to school, but the school board said you might be suspended or expelled, so I guess you should go to school..." I don't have kids that go to school, so what really happens if you keep your kids out of school? What can the school really do to you or your kid?
- deelowe 6y ago
  Expel you and cause you to miss a grade. They can also place your kids into a remedial program which means they'll go to schools which are designated for problem children when they return. In addition the learning environment being worse, those schools can be pretty far out of the way for parents. Also, if you're expelled, you won't get to take the state/federally mandated tests. I'm not sure of the impact of this, but I think it can be pretty bad.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    Sue the living hell out of the school district and he returns to school and end of story.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  Severely degrade or hinder your future earning prospects? Not a lot of kids are motivated self-learners and require substantial instruction and support to achieve their learning potential. Of course, some parents deliberately choose alternative paths for their children for myriad reasons, but for many families public schools are the path to education and development.
- smichel17 6y ago
  If the parent is on board with the kid staying home, they could call the kid in sick, right?
  - pavel_lishin 6y ago
    From what I recall, there is a limited number of sick absences you can use.
newacct583 6y ago
OK, so to be completely objective here: the crowd in that photo isn't really the problem per se. That's a transient crowd between classes, the kids are walking past each other quickly and then disengaging after a minute or two as they enter their next class. That's not a known high risk situation, existing superspreader events almost exclusively tend to be more static: restaurants, cruise ships, theaters/arenas, that sort of thing: places where people are near an infected person and stay there for a bit. The thing to worry about with school openings is the classroom, not the hallway. The fact that this hall is so packed tells me that the classes are probably at capacity too. That's worrisome for sure. And it's a bad, bad state for this to be happening. GA continues to have one of the worst infection rates in the country, and contra others (AZ and CA) it still seems to be at its second-wave peak and hasn't dropped much yet: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Georgia&show=us-states&y=both&scale=linear&data=cases-daily-7&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#states-normalized https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states...
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Hmm... only takes one sick kid not wearing a mask to sneeze and I'll bet a fair few other kids get sick.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    It may not, actually. We just don't know (and realistically won't for years). But the data are what the data say, and so far we simply don't have any good documentation of spreading events from this kind of contact. People are getting sick in droves in bars and retirement communities with continual contact. We aren't seeing a bunch of cases spread at retail shopping, at least not yet. I mean, maybe you could argue that those data are harder to see and just haven't been found. And that's plausible. But right now you want to stay outside of static interior environments. That's where the danger is. This shot doesn't meet the standards for a known high risk event, it's merely a bad idea.
    - throwaway20148 6y ago
beepboopbeep 6y ago
None of this is rational or remotely within the realm of objective reality. The people making these decisions should be liable for gross negligence and manslaughter should it come to it. There is no excuse for sending kids to school during a pandemic. Absolutely absurd.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  I agree with you that we should not force schools to open, nor should we force teachers or students to return. I'm interested, however, in your thoughts on the second and third order effects of school and economic shutdowns? One article I read recently suggested there will be an additional 500k deaths in India due to TB because lockdowns are preventing people from getting treatment. An additional 10k children will starve to death worldwide per month due to second and third order effects from people not buying/using regular old crap from the store. We've also seen suicides and drug overdoses skyrocket in the United States. There's a lot going on and there appear to only be bad options on the table. Are there other things you're aware of, that you're taking into consideration?
  - beepboopbeep 6y ago
    1. There are only bad options on the table because there is no coordination at the federal level. Just denial. 2. There is no other option. You quarantine, or you don't. It's a binary thing. If you don't quarantine, you continue to spread the virus and prolong the issues. I don't know why you're talking about TB
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      Aside from preventing covid deaths, what are the consequences of quarantining the whole country? In India, 500k extra are dying from TB. That's a consequence of their lockdown. Globally, an extra 10k children are starving to death per month. That's a consequence of the economic issues resulting from lockdowns. If we're going to make educated decisions, we need to acknowledge the true costs of our actions.
- 6y ago
chrisseaton 6y ago
I don't know anything about American term dates - but isn't it the middle of summer? Did they restart early or delay breaking up?
- steverb 6y ago
  A lot of US schools start in early - mid august and go through late May to early June. It varies by locality though.
- techlaw 6y ago
  This is their regular schedule. The Fall semester usually begins in early-to-mid August in GA depending on the school district. This year some districts are delaying opening; some offering virtual as an option; some offering virtual-only.
politician 6y ago
The worst part about this is the last sentence that any students found criticizing the school on social media will face disciplinary measures. I’m aghast.
owly 6y ago
Schools enforce dress codes all the time. No mini skirts, no tank tops, no sandals, no hats, etc. There’s zero reason why they couldn’t make masks mandatory.
- torpfactory 6y ago
  The Governor of Georgia specifically disallowed mask requirements. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/16/891718516/georgias-governor-issues-order-rescinding-local-mask-mandates https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
- ISL 6y ago
  If masks are perceived as political (which IMO, they shouldn't be, but fortunately I don't rule the world), then the Court may protect the right not to wear a mask: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe...
  - happytoexplain 6y ago
    Surely threat to safety - real or perhaps even only perceived - would affect this?
    - gremlinsinc 6y ago
      It's as if you expect logic to matter in American politics.
- escardin 6y ago
  I don't get this in general? Is it not policy that you need to wear a shirt and shoes while in a commercial building? Do you not have signs on your stores that say 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service'? How are we as a society unable to reconcile the need to wear a shirt in store with the need to wear a mask? I realize that as a society we are dumb panicky animals that are afraid of any change, but this is ridiculous!
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mnm1 6y ago
This reopening is criminal. The DA should charge the superintendent with endangering child welfare and I'm sure they can think of a dozen other types of charges times for a few hundred student victims they could bring on. Well at least now we know that even "think of the children" was always a lie in our culture. The culture does not care if children die unnecessarily.
ryandrake 6y ago
I wonder if any of the politicians who were part of the decision to re-open schools, from the governor down to the school board members, would be willing to sit in that hallway unmasked for a day. Nope, I bet they made the decisions over Zoom calls, safely tucked away in their homes.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Or, since they know some staff are infected, maybe call an all-hands mandatory staff and board meeting to discuss how to handle new cases... make it an all day meeting, in the smallest conference room taht could hold the number of people. Plenty of water, no kleenex. That's how it's done, right?
moistly 6y ago
1) Teach your child to read (basic phonetics and sight words). 2) Encourage/have them read a lot of different stuff. 3) Have them explain what they’re reading. 4) When possible, support them in applying what they learn.

72 points by laurex 6y ago

mrguyorama 6y ago

How can you possibly believe this is the right thing to do? I just don't understand

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
It all comes down to who the people making these decisions are trying to please. The elected officials (assuming they're at least sort of doing their job) are acting on what they think will please the most voters. The net difference in the number of constituents hate this option, the next option, and every other feasible option for the school year is likely very small. This is what the tyranny of the majority looks like. But of course thinking about the incentives and mechanisms that lead to this outcome is uncomfortable and clutching our pearls is comfortable and easy so what we'll do is a forgone conclusion. Edit: I'm personally no fan of the policy the school chose but asinine or not they didn't choose it for no reason and it's worth exploring what lead to the people making the decisions to choose what they chose. Edit2: Some of you would do well to read only the words I am writing here and not assume any unwritten meaning or motivation. I am specifically trying to avoid debating whether this particular instance of public policy is good/bad/right/wrong and some of you seem to be very eager to do just that.
- vkou 6y ago
  This is nonsense. If the administration actually made a good-faith effort, they would have re-opened, with a mask mandate. They haven't made a good-faith effort. This isn't what tyrrany of the majority looks like, this is what the end result of a cynical propaganda campaign looks like.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Good faith for who? To you and me and other people who aren't from there? The fact that a public official felt comfortable calling masks a "personal choice" tells me that this district isn't a big fan of masks.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks. I am positive that this school has a dress code. For some reason, though, they feel that they can prescribe what students can wear, unless it's a mask..?
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        >Or it means that the public official is just virtue signaling that they aren't a big fan of masks. If they're virtue signaling then by definition they're showing support for whatever the locally accepted opinion already is.
        vkou 6y ago
        That opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You have no idea how many people support it - whether it's 20% of the population, 40% of the population, or 80% of the population. They could have made this decision the other way, and your arguments, when used in defense of it would be just as sound. It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. Just because you're an administrator in a public service doesn't mean that you are actually doing what the community wants you to do - especially when there are limited ways of removing you. It's even possible that the minority you are virtue signaling to is politicians and insiders - who actually have ways of removing you. It would be incredibly stupid of you to not do what they want.
        throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        >that opinion doesn't have to be widely locally accepted. You're not technically wrong but it would be monumentally stupid to do for this particular opinion. >It's quite possible to be virtue signaling to a minority. And it's moronic for an elected official to do that if the nature of the signal will absolutely enrage a majority or a different larger minority which "a mask is a personal choice" most certainly does.
- DonnyV 6y ago
  During a health crisis popular or unpopular does not matter. You do what is necessary wither you like it or not. What these "leaders" are doing is complete incompetence and negligent.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    The problem is that 'necessary' to the people driving the Georgia decisions seems to be 'necessary to support my beliefs and my fiscal policy', not 'necessary for the best good of all'.
- heylook 6y ago
  > There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening, only unpopular and even more unpopular and it all comes down to who you're trying to please. Which path forward "pleases" you the most? I can't believe this needs asking but: How many deaths are you willing to tolerate before you are no longer "pleased" by this approach? If one approach "pleases" you but "kills" someone else, how should we balance that tradeoff?
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  > There is no right or wrong when it comes to reopening... Which is exactly the view that politicians want to foster with this pandemic. Unfortunately, they're politicians and not infectious disease specialists.
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mherdeg 6y ago
The article quotes someone who believes this is the right thing to do and explains their perspective. This isn't the only view (nor the one endorsed by the physicians I know) but it's worth understanding in order to understand the public health trajectory of the next few years: > Steven, a North Paulding student who asked that only his middle name be used, said he felt safe going to school without a mask. Most of the hallways he encountered, he said, were far less crowded than in the one in the photograph. And the virus itself, he said, didn’t seem like “much of a problem” in Paulding County. > “I’ve only known three people to get it, other than the football players, obviously,” Steven said. “If I get it, I get it. I believe that’s what most people in my area's ideology is — if we get it, we get it.” > Steven said he didn’t want to let worries about spreading the virus to his family control his life. > “Most of my family, including my grandparents, think the same as well,” he said. “We just go on about our business and keep it out of our mind.”
- beepboopbeep 6y ago
  > Ideology
- newacct583 6y ago
  The problem with that logic, of course[1], is that "if we get it we get it" is a statement of personal risk assumption. It doesn't address the rights of the people you will then infect, who you didn't involve in the decision. Some of those people don't want to get sick! Realistically, some of them are going to die. [1] Well, in addition to "Football player cases don't count" -- no idea what that's about. Was there a specific outbreak in that county on a team? === Edit to add a grand-response to this comment (because HN's rate limiter has kicked in, sigh) that illustrates exactly the problem with reasoning I'm trying to point out: > this logic [...] assumes somebody has a right to not be infected while in a public area. It absolutely does not. What if some sick kid comes home and unknowingly infects a grandparent who never left the house and never entered a public area? That's a routine kind of spread, in fact. > The responsibility for the risk [...] cannot simply be laid at a different person's feet. No, this is exactly the fallacy at work! There is no "responsibility" in a pandemic. There is no "fault". Those are abstractions dealing with INDIVIDUAL behavior, and we can't beat this with individual decisions, at all.
untog 6y ago
Schools in the US are, as a general rule, chronically underfunded. If they had money they could have erected tents outside in playing fields and car parks to allow teaching while socially distant. But slashing school budgets has been a popular political hobby for decades now and requests for emergency funding have fallen on deaf ears. So here we are.
- jmaygarden 6y ago
  I have doubts that classes could be effectively conducted outdoors in Georgia. The heat index is 93F/34C with 59% humidity as I’m writing this comment. This isn’t Northern California where people can start companies in a garage year round.
- bazzert 6y ago
  "The most recent version for 2018 reports that, in 2015, the United States spent approximately $12,800 per student on elementary and secondary education. That is over 35% more than the OECD country average of $9,500. " https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country-spends-most-education.asp#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20version%20for,OECD%20country%20average%20of%20%249%2C500 https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/what-country....
  - untog 6y ago
    And yet individual teachers still have to go out and buy supplies for their classes because there is no budget for them. There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted.
    - bazzert 6y ago
      >> There is a huge, huge amount of money being wasted. Exactly.
- mac01021 6y ago
  The school in the article is in Georgia, so tents might not even cost. As much as air conditioning...
jfengel 6y ago
Because American identity is deeply bound up in the idea that you have to work to be virtuous. If you're not at work, you're lazy, and lazy people literally don't deserve to live. Our schools are both warehouses for young people, so that their parents can work, and training grounds so that they can be prepared to work themselves. If the schools are closed, their parents can't work. That causes an enormous ripple effect. If some people can't work, then they don't have money, causing other people to lose their own jobs. That cascades through the system, tearing down not just the economy, but the American sense of self. If we're not at work, who are we? The US sees itself as the hardest-working, most virtuous nation in the world. God literally "shed his grace" on us. We deserve to be the richest because we're the best. Closing the schools not only shuts down our vaunted advantage, but admits that we can be beaten. We imagine ourselves able to solve crises through hard work and superior intellect, and if we can't, we are failures. At this point, it has become a matter of self-division as well. We've divided ourselves along lines that aren't even really ideological any more. The right wing has defined itself as opposed to "leftists", so anything the left proposes must be bad. If they want to wear masks and close down schools, then we will ban masks and open schools. It didn't even pass through a cost-benefit calculation, or at best one defined retroactively to justify the conclusion. Looked at this way, it seems pretty inevitable that opening the schools was going to happen, at least in places like Georgia that fall on the one side of that divide I mentioned.
- politician 6y ago
  If we accept your point, doesn’t that imply that these officials and their supporters are incapable of thinking two steps ahead? School enables parents to work (1), but school is also a super spreader event that will sicken parents, preventing work (2). It’s baffling.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    The number of parents it sickens is relatively small, since many will have minor or no symptoms, and only a very few will die. The way they see it, the economy will soldier on, and we can afford to lose, say, a million random people. It probably won't be them or somebody they care about, and it would just be on a par with, say, cancer or heart disease.
LocalH 6y ago
Politicians with their heads up their asses, pandering to their voter base. This nation needs some new political thought to really take hold. Both conservatives and liberals are massive echo chambers, and people are so invested in the duality that they will vote for an absolute shitbag just to keep a different absolute shitbag out of office.
- yetihehe 6y ago
  That's how you end up with lizards as presidents. /s https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very-ancient-democracy-you-see-you https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/162557-it-comes-from-a-very...
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  > pandering to their voter base. Isn't that kind of what we want? If GA's politicians pandered to CA's base it would probably turn violent pretty quickly.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    The problem is that GA Governor is pandering to his base by suing mayors in his own state who want stricter restrictions.
ba2plus 6y ago
Wall Street has decreed that capitalism must go on at all costs. That requires workers to show up to work. That requires that workers don't need stay home to watch kids. And that requires that kids not be at home during business hours. Few believe that this is the right thing to do. Powerful businesspeople believe it's the profitable thing to do. So, here we are.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Of all the “Wall Street” people I know, no one is advocating not wearing masks or opening schools. The only people I’ve seen with an anti mask policy are those very far from Wall St.
  - ba2plus 6y ago
    I'm not talking about mask policies. I'm talking about "get employees back to work at all costs to save profits" policies.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      I don’t hear any Wall St types clamoring for that either. The states far away from Wall St are the ones banging their drums to open.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Wall Street isn’t insisting on that at all. People on Wall Street are quite happy with the current state of affairs. The five largest companies in the US - all tech - are doing great. The other companies that are important are considered “essential”. It’s the small businesses that are struggling. This is a great opportunity for large companies.
  - zwerdlds 6y ago
    Elon Musk may not be anti-mask but he is pretty clearly an example of someone who doesn't give a shit about public health policy.
- 6y ago
doorstar 6y ago
Our schools are going virtual when they reopen but there are plenty of parents who object. Several reasons come up - Virtual learning did not work at the end of last year, and most parents think it's unlikely to work this year. I'll wait and see, but I'm also pessimistic about virtual learning for kids 5-18. It's just not engaging in that age range. - Related, families with two working parents are going to be very limited in their ability to work with their kid, e.g., make sure they are attending/paying attention in their zoom meetings, keep track of their assignments and make sure they are getting worked on, really sit and help with challenging projects and assignments. - Along the same lines, families with two parents who are or will be working outside the home are really in a bind. - Finally, there is continuing uncertainty about kids getting/transmitting Covid to the point where some people feel it's worth the risk. There is also a persistent group of parents who think this is all overwrought - they believe otherwise healthy kids and adults under the age of 60 are so are just unlikely to get very sick from Covid, certainly not more than any other virus. There's a wide range of feelings. I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  > I don't think the schools should open, but I'm also quietly prepared for this to be a lost educational year for my kids. "Quietly prepared" as in what? You're just going to accept it? Or you're going do what you have to to fill in the gaps and make it not a lost year for your kids? I'd urge you (and everyone) to go for the second option. They're your kids. They're not the school system's kids; they're yours. If you have to spend time and/or money to make sure that they actually get the education they need (because the school system can't or won't[1]), even if you have to give up some things to do so, do what you can to help your kids. [1] I'm not yelling at the school system here. They're in an impossible situation. They can't function at 100% effectiveness in an impossible situation? No shame in that, and no surprise, either.
  - doorstar 6y ago
    I'm accepting it, make of that what you will. About the only thing I can give up to help this situation is my job. I'm not yet willing to make that trade.

enzanki_ars 6y ago

The worst part too is the fact that the students posting those photos have been suspended with potential for expulsion. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/north-paulding-high-school-suspensions-for-hallway-photos https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenstrapagiel/north-...

HumblyTossed 6y ago
The principal doubled down and said any student found criticizing the school on social media could face disciplinary consequences. WTAF? So, now students can't criticize the schools!?
- nicoburns 6y ago
  So much for free speech and personal choices!
  - dmkolobov 6y ago
    In the US, we're taught that as students we do not have any rights while at school.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      So they grow up to be good compliant citizens who never assert those pesky rights.
    - schoen 6y ago
      That's not quite right, though: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15235797139493194004#p506 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=152357971394931...
      - dmkolobov 6y ago
        Sure, but I heard the words "you do not have rights" from just about every administrator and authority figure in the school system while I was growing up. This was Nashville 2002-2010. edit: Just wanna say that the information in your link is valuable, and students should absolutely know about it. In my experience, there's just wide discrepancy between the way the world works and the way authority figures present it to children who don't know any better.

pxeboot 6y ago

I am surprised the districts lawyers and insurers are okay with this. Surly there will be lawsuits over this for years once students and teachers start getting sick.

Consultant32452 6y ago
The CDC has recommended schools reopen. I'm not suggesting that's a good recommendation or a bad one. But when the CDC and/or state health board says you can open, you can open. This is the government version of regulatory capture.
- voisin 6y ago
  Is there no nuance to that CDC recommendation? Straight across the board regardless of local context, they recommend schools reopen?
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Of course there's some nuance to the CDC's recommendation.
- vkou 6y ago
  Part of their recommendation requires students and teachers to wear face masks whenever social distancing is not possible, but it's pretty clear that their recommendations are being cherry-picked here. This is not good-faith compliance with CDC recommendations.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- zarq 6y ago
  I have trouble understanding why this prevents anyone from taking legal action. Maybe the action cannot be directed against the schools, but surely in this case you can challenge the CDC guidelines, because there seems to be direct proof of personal injury (i.e. getting ill) as a result of this? How does this work?

tunesmith 6y ago

"Well, I don't want you to go to school, but the school board said you might be suspended or expelled, so I guess you should go to school..." I don't have kids that go to school, so what really happens if you keep your kids out of school? What can the school really do to you or your kid?

deelowe 6y ago
Expel you and cause you to miss a grade. They can also place your kids into a remedial program which means they'll go to schools which are designated for problem children when they return. In addition the learning environment being worse, those schools can be pretty far out of the way for parents. Also, if you're expelled, you won't get to take the state/federally mandated tests. I'm not sure of the impact of this, but I think it can be pretty bad.
- zentiggr 6y ago
  Sue the living hell out of the school district and he returns to school and end of story.
anonAndOn 6y ago
Severely degrade or hinder your future earning prospects? Not a lot of kids are motivated self-learners and require substantial instruction and support to achieve their learning potential. Of course, some parents deliberately choose alternative paths for their children for myriad reasons, but for many families public schools are the path to education and development.
smichel17 6y ago
If the parent is on board with the kid staying home, they could call the kid in sick, right?
- pavel_lishin 6y ago
  From what I recall, there is a limited number of sick absences you can use.

newacct583 6y ago

OK, so to be completely objective here: the crowd in that photo isn't really the problem per se. That's a transient crowd between classes, the kids are walking past each other quickly and then disengaging after a minute or two as they enter their next class. That's not a known high risk situation, existing superspreader events almost exclusively tend to be more static: restaurants, cruise ships, theaters/arenas, that sort of thing: places where people are near an infected person and stay there for a bit. The thing to worry about with school openings is the classroom, not the hallway. The fact that this hall is so packed tells me that the classes are probably at capacity too. That's worrisome for sure. And it's a bad, bad state for this to be happening. GA continues to have one of the worst infection rates in the country, and contra others (AZ and CA) it still seems to be at its second-wave peak and hasn't dropped much yet: https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states-normalized&highlight=Georgia&show=us-states&y=both&scale=linear&data=cases-daily-7&data-source=jhu&xaxis=right#states-normalized https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/?chart=states...

nicoburns 6y ago
Hmm... only takes one sick kid not wearing a mask to sneeze and I'll bet a fair few other kids get sick.
- newacct583 6y ago
  It may not, actually. We just don't know (and realistically won't for years). But the data are what the data say, and so far we simply don't have any good documentation of spreading events from this kind of contact. People are getting sick in droves in bars and retirement communities with continual contact. We aren't seeing a bunch of cases spread at retail shopping, at least not yet. I mean, maybe you could argue that those data are harder to see and just haven't been found. And that's plausible. But right now you want to stay outside of static interior environments. That's where the danger is. This shot doesn't meet the standards for a known high risk event, it's merely a bad idea.
  - throwaway20148 6y ago

beepboopbeep 6y ago

None of this is rational or remotely within the realm of objective reality. The people making these decisions should be liable for gross negligence and manslaughter should it come to it. There is no excuse for sending kids to school during a pandemic. Absolutely absurd.

Consultant32452 6y ago
I agree with you that we should not force schools to open, nor should we force teachers or students to return. I'm interested, however, in your thoughts on the second and third order effects of school and economic shutdowns? One article I read recently suggested there will be an additional 500k deaths in India due to TB because lockdowns are preventing people from getting treatment. An additional 10k children will starve to death worldwide per month due to second and third order effects from people not buying/using regular old crap from the store. We've also seen suicides and drug overdoses skyrocket in the United States. There's a lot going on and there appear to only be bad options on the table. Are there other things you're aware of, that you're taking into consideration?
- beepboopbeep 6y ago
  1. There are only bad options on the table because there is no coordination at the federal level. Just denial. 2. There is no other option. You quarantine, or you don't. It's a binary thing. If you don't quarantine, you continue to spread the virus and prolong the issues. I don't know why you're talking about TB
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Aside from preventing covid deaths, what are the consequences of quarantining the whole country? In India, 500k extra are dying from TB. That's a consequence of their lockdown. Globally, an extra 10k children are starving to death per month. That's a consequence of the economic issues resulting from lockdowns. If we're going to make educated decisions, we need to acknowledge the true costs of our actions.
6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

I don't know anything about American term dates - but isn't it the middle of summer? Did they restart early or delay breaking up?

steverb 6y ago
A lot of US schools start in early - mid august and go through late May to early June. It varies by locality though.
techlaw 6y ago
This is their regular schedule. The Fall semester usually begins in early-to-mid August in GA depending on the school district. This year some districts are delaying opening; some offering virtual as an option; some offering virtual-only.

politician 6y ago

The worst part about this is the last sentence that any students found criticizing the school on social media will face disciplinary measures. I’m aghast.

owly 6y ago

Schools enforce dress codes all the time. No mini skirts, no tank tops, no sandals, no hats, etc. There’s zero reason why they couldn’t make masks mandatory.

torpfactory 6y ago
The Governor of Georgia specifically disallowed mask requirements. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/16/891718516/georgias-governor-issues-order-rescinding-local-mask-mandates https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
ISL 6y ago
If masks are perceived as political (which IMO, they shouldn't be, but fortunately I don't rule the world), then the Court may protect the right not to wear a mask: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independe...
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  Surely threat to safety - real or perhaps even only perceived - would affect this?
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    It's as if you expect logic to matter in American politics.
escardin 6y ago
I don't get this in general? Is it not policy that you need to wear a shirt and shoes while in a commercial building? Do you not have signs on your stores that say 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service'? How are we as a society unable to reconcile the need to wear a shirt in store with the need to wear a mask? I realize that as a society we are dumb panicky animals that are afraid of any change, but this is ridiculous!

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mnm1 6y ago

This reopening is criminal. The DA should charge the superintendent with endangering child welfare and I'm sure they can think of a dozen other types of charges times for a few hundred student victims they could bring on. Well at least now we know that even "think of the children" was always a lie in our culture. The culture does not care if children die unnecessarily.

ryandrake 6y ago

I wonder if any of the politicians who were part of the decision to re-open schools, from the governor down to the school board members, would be willing to sit in that hallway unmasked for a day. Nope, I bet they made the decisions over Zoom calls, safely tucked away in their homes.

zentiggr 6y ago
Or, since they know some staff are infected, maybe call an all-hands mandatory staff and board meeting to discuss how to handle new cases... make it an all day meeting, in the smallest conference room taht could hold the number of people. Plenty of water, no kleenex. That's how it's done, right?

moistly 6y ago

1) Teach your child to read (basic phonetics and sight words). 2) Encourage/have them read a lot of different stuff. 3) Have them explain what they’re reading. 4) When possible, support them in applying what they learn.