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The reduction of recommended quarantine time was clearly an acknowledgement of this. Keeping it at two weeks with no way to significantly reduce infection rates

The reduction of recommended quarantine time was clearly an acknowledgement of this. Keeping it at two weeks with no way to significantly reduce infection rates would have led to a month of everything being shut down, and everyone still getting sick anyway. Hell, it may yet lead to a week or three of de facto shutdown, just from actual out-sick time. The folks in charge have given up, without explicitly saying so. [EDIT] For some evidence that we may get a de facto shutdown anyway: our (large) school district was short three hundred teachers the other day, and only managed to get one hundred subs. The schools are barely hanging on and shutting down or going remote for a week or two to cool things off and/or wait out the peak is a distinct possibility, which will have knock-on effects for the rest of the economy, which is also already dealing with high absence rates due to illness or direct exposure (which, with Omicron, is equivalent to "definitely has it, just waiting for symptoms").

mml 5y ago
my school district has been short 2-300 teachers ALL YEAR. my kid didn't have a math teacher for the first few months, then got one, who proceeded to quit a few weeks later. now math class is watching YouTube videos about math. or it would be, but the district just went remote...
- rdtwo 5y ago
  100% a pay and working condition problem.
nradov 5y ago
In California anyone with a Bachelor's degree and clean background check can now sign up to be a temporary substitute teacher. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/01/11/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-support-safe-in-person-learning-at-schools-amid-covid-surge/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/01/11/governor-newsom-signs-exec...
- brimble 5y ago
  Pay's so low at districts in our area that anyone who's not already doing it and has free time isn't gonna sign up for even more exposure to Omicron, for what they pay. Talking like $100-120/day and no benefits (of course), depending on the district. Even for this low CoL area, that's shit pay for someone with a degree. Between the low pay and the nature of the work (no guaranteed work, may have to travel to any of several places for work on a given day, background checks, et c.) they'd basically already tapped all the people willing to do that, at the rate they were offering, before there was also a pandemic on top of it. And unlike teachers if a sub gets omicron they just aren't getting paid, for that or any other job, for a couple weeks.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    The people doing it before we’re basically volunteers for what they were paying. The pay is not even close to enough. They need to pay folks like they pay travel nurses to get staffing levels they need
    - brimble 5y ago
      Oh yeah, totally, before it was relying heavily on a population of bored retired teachers wanting to pick up a little money to go drop at the boats or whatever, licensed teachers who hadn't yet landed a full time role and wanted time in a classroom plus some networking for their job search, and a handful of others that can go in some kind of "miscellaneous" bucket. The trouble is there are only so many of those, and most who were interested were already doing it. [EDIT] this is actually yet another case where a universal healthcare system would help. $120/day and an uncertain schedule is a lot more appealing when your healthcare's covered. Not saying it's great, but that would help a lot.
      - rdtwo 5y ago
        None of them signed up to be babysitters of last resort of sick kids in a failing school system. It’s kind of the difference between working at a nuclear power plants and doing nuclear clean up post melt down. The levels of risk and required pay are completely different
- tfandango 5y ago
  In Oklahoma, anyone can sign up! No background check required. Today the governor said he's going to start moving other state employees into schools to sub... Our school district was asking parents to come in. I am fortunate to be able to keep my kid home because it's basically just babysitting at that point. When I send him, I'm making the decision to risk covid for education, having untrained random person watching my kid all day changes the outcome of the equation.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Today the governor said he's going to start moving other state employees into schools to sub... So, the idea is to spread the force accelerating retirements in education to the rest of the state workforce, while whining about the “labor shortage”?
    - brimble 5y ago
      Yikes, considering how many of them are solidly in the "I make little enough that I could go almost anywhere else and do just as well or better" crowd, or are very good at resisting stupid requests using the bureaucracy's own rules, that's just begging for mass resignations and all sorts of resistance/malicious-compliance. The only thing that keeps the old-timers around is the retirement, and they're exactly the ones who know how to foot-drag your directive to death if you try to make them do something dumb. At least, if OK's state government works like ours, that's the situation. This will be fun to watch if they actually try it. [EDIT] I just looked it up and it seems like the idea is that state employees can optionally work as subs without losing their current pay, position, et c., not that they're being directed to. That's less crazy. [EDIT EDIT] Oh, never mind, they wouldn't get the sub pay on top of their normal state salary, just their state salary. Yeah, approximately zero people will do this unless they really hate their usual job. Not crazy, just pointless, then.
      - tfandango 5y ago
        Yes now that the EO has been written (it was announced before that), it's more clear. People can optionally do this meaning that the Gov can declare success over covid and nothing will actually happen. The striking part of all this is that the goal seems to keep schools open rather than keep educating kids. My son's high school has 400 kids out last week, that's about 45%. Yet the "important" thing is to keep the school doors unlocked which is the only factor used in determining total success. It doesn't actually matter if anyone is there or if anyone is being educated, or even if the "educator" is trained to educate in anyway. It's very frustrating to see your public schools constantly receive less and less over the years and then all of a sudden we need to fix the schools with random people showing up for a day here or there (and nobody shows up).

mml 5y ago

my school district has been short 2-300 teachers ALL YEAR. my kid didn't have a math teacher for the first few months, then got one, who proceeded to quit a few weeks later. now math class is watching YouTube videos about math. or it would be, but the district just went remote...

rdtwo 5y ago
100% a pay and working condition problem.

nradov 5y ago

In California anyone with a Bachelor's degree and clean background check can now sign up to be a temporary substitute teacher. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/01/11/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-support-safe-in-person-learning-at-schools-amid-covid-surge/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/01/11/governor-newsom-signs-exec...

brimble 5y ago
Pay's so low at districts in our area that anyone who's not already doing it and has free time isn't gonna sign up for even more exposure to Omicron, for what they pay. Talking like $100-120/day and no benefits (of course), depending on the district. Even for this low CoL area, that's shit pay for someone with a degree. Between the low pay and the nature of the work (no guaranteed work, may have to travel to any of several places for work on a given day, background checks, et c.) they'd basically already tapped all the people willing to do that, at the rate they were offering, before there was also a pandemic on top of it. And unlike teachers if a sub gets omicron they just aren't getting paid, for that or any other job, for a couple weeks.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  The people doing it before we’re basically volunteers for what they were paying. The pay is not even close to enough. They need to pay folks like they pay travel nurses to get staffing levels they need
  - brimble 5y ago
    Oh yeah, totally, before it was relying heavily on a population of bored retired teachers wanting to pick up a little money to go drop at the boats or whatever, licensed teachers who hadn't yet landed a full time role and wanted time in a classroom plus some networking for their job search, and a handful of others that can go in some kind of "miscellaneous" bucket. The trouble is there are only so many of those, and most who were interested were already doing it. [EDIT] this is actually yet another case where a universal healthcare system would help. $120/day and an uncertain schedule is a lot more appealing when your healthcare's covered. Not saying it's great, but that would help a lot.
    - rdtwo 5y ago
      None of them signed up to be babysitters of last resort of sick kids in a failing school system. It’s kind of the difference between working at a nuclear power plants and doing nuclear clean up post melt down. The levels of risk and required pay are completely different
tfandango 5y ago
In Oklahoma, anyone can sign up! No background check required. Today the governor said he's going to start moving other state employees into schools to sub... Our school district was asking parents to come in. I am fortunate to be able to keep my kid home because it's basically just babysitting at that point. When I send him, I'm making the decision to risk covid for education, having untrained random person watching my kid all day changes the outcome of the equation.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Today the governor said he's going to start moving other state employees into schools to sub... So, the idea is to spread the force accelerating retirements in education to the rest of the state workforce, while whining about the “labor shortage”?
  - brimble 5y ago
    Yikes, considering how many of them are solidly in the "I make little enough that I could go almost anywhere else and do just as well or better" crowd, or are very good at resisting stupid requests using the bureaucracy's own rules, that's just begging for mass resignations and all sorts of resistance/malicious-compliance. The only thing that keeps the old-timers around is the retirement, and they're exactly the ones who know how to foot-drag your directive to death if you try to make them do something dumb. At least, if OK's state government works like ours, that's the situation. This will be fun to watch if they actually try it. [EDIT] I just looked it up and it seems like the idea is that state employees can optionally work as subs without losing their current pay, position, et c., not that they're being directed to. That's less crazy. [EDIT EDIT] Oh, never mind, they wouldn't get the sub pay on top of their normal state salary, just their state salary. Yeah, approximately zero people will do this unless they really hate their usual job. Not crazy, just pointless, then.
    - tfandango 5y ago
      Yes now that the EO has been written (it was announced before that), it's more clear. People can optionally do this meaning that the Gov can declare success over covid and nothing will actually happen. The striking part of all this is that the goal seems to keep schools open rather than keep educating kids. My son's high school has 400 kids out last week, that's about 45%. Yet the "important" thing is to keep the school doors unlocked which is the only factor used in determining total success. It doesn't actually matter if anyone is there or if anyone is being educated, or even if the "educator" is trained to educate in anyway. It's very frustrating to see your public schools constantly receive less and less over the years and then all of a sudden we need to fix the schools with random people showing up for a day here or there (and nobody shows up).