Omicron and school question

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, Spryte said:

What are the policies you are all seeing for kids with Covid positive family members?

In our district, as long as a kid is asymptomatic and vaccinated they are to come to school. Masks are not required.

Is that happening elsewhere, too?

 

Policy? What's a policy? 😡

It is a free for all with most parents not keeping their kids home, and even when the kids are symptomatic, sending them to school. After one week of classes, they have 51 students test positive in the 7th-12th grades out of 438 students. Everything is going on as before as if nothing had happened. "Move along. Nothing to see here".

[Spryte]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

Policy? What's a policy? 😡

It is a free for all with most parents not keeping their kids home, and even when the kids are symptomatic, sending them to school. After one week of classes, they have 51 students test positive in the 7th-12th grades out of 438 students. Everything is going on as before as if nothing had happened. "Move along. Nothing to see here".

Yes, that may be what happens here. School starts tomorrow.

[kokotg]

DH reports that things were pretty normal today (well, as normal as they've been at all for the last two years anyway)...I'm kind of surprised and VERY cautiously optimistic. So far not seeing big numbers of absences. Of course he also said that there were unmasked kids playing basketball in the gym both when he got there and when he left, so we'll see if it can last (although sports practices went on last week as usual even though school was virtual, so nothing ever changes on that front).

[SanDiegoMom]

We have a lot of kids absent, and the health office is struggling to keep up.  But they are trying -- they have sent home covid tests and asked positive covid students and quarantined students to test before coming back.  The teachers are all making the work available and working out how to give final exams to those students at home.  One of the teachers even zooms every day from the class for the students at home, even though she isn't obligated to do so.  

[Arcadia]

A nearby school district wanted to go remote for a week but was not allowed to by the county’s office of education. My county’s health department and office of education are both strongly for in person learning.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/milpitas-schools-reverse-decision-to-go-remote-amid-rising-omicron-cases.amp

”The superintendent's office for the Milpitas Unified School District sent a note to parents on Saturday informing them that all classes would be held in the classroom, reversing the school district's decision from a day earlier to temporarily go fully remote from Jan. 10 to 17.

"After consulting with the Santa Clara County Office of Education, we learned that we are not able to offer a ‘district wide quarantine’ as shared in our Friday communication. Community quarantines may be declared by county public health," the MUSD Superintendent's Office said in a statement linked from the district website.

At the same time, teachers and staff are testing positive and landing in quarantine. 

On Friday, the district superintendent's office shared that the district had 167 substitute teacher positions unfilled, "requiring us to cover classes with other teachers, principals, district office staff, as well as grouping classes together with one teacher. In addition, we had 107 support staff positions unfilled this week."

The back-and-forth left parents and students on edge.”

Edited January 11, 2022 by Arcadia
Formatting

[Longtime Lurker]

On 1/3/2022 at 8:26 PM, Longtime Lurker said:

The school building I usually work in had 0 teachers out today so I was sent to a different building, which had two teachers out, one with covid. Not sure if our area has some immunity due to the Nov/Dec surge or if this is just the calm before the storm.

All I can say is what a difference a week makes 😞

On 1/10/2022 at 4:14 PM, Spryte said:

What are the policies you are all seeing for kids with Covid positive family members?

In our district, as long as a kid is asymptomatic and vaccinated they are to come to school. Masks are not required.

Is that happening elsewhere, too?

 

This is exactly our county's (and thus our school's) policy.

[Frances]

Here in my pretty large district with about 45k kids they’ve cancelled classes for Friday due to staffing shortages. The superintendent even went back to the classroom for a bit this week to help fill in.

[ktgrok]

On 1/10/2022 at 2:07 PM, Hilltopmom said:

Hardly any textbooks here either. My 4th graders have a math workbook but we do not have science, social, or ELA books- teachers just gotta buy units off TPT or wing it ourselves from the standards. 

Yup. The one semester oldest DS went to public highschool he needed help with math. I tried to help, but there was no book. There were photocopied workbook pages to do, but no answer key, no explanation, no examples, etc. I emailed the teacher to ask about the textbook and she said, "oh, he has photocopies". I explained that a workbook and a textbook are NOT the same thing. A few back and forths and it came out that there were no textbooks. At all. Not online, not on software or downloaded. Nothing. My head nearly exploded. 

the only reason there were books in Honor English was that the teacher was retiring in a year, and as she put it, "it takes 2 years to fire you in this district" so she was bringing in books on her own dime, and making sure the kids read them, rather than using the workbooks (for highschool Honors English!) that the district gave her. Those sat in a cabinet. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by ktgrok

[busymama7]

14 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Yup. The one semester oldest DS went to public highschool he needed help with math. I tried to help, but there was no book. There were photocopied workbook pages to do, but no answer key, no explanation, no examples, etc. I emailed the teacher to ask about the textbook and she said, "oh, he has photocopies". I explained that a workbook and a textbook are NOT the same thing. A few back and forths and it came out that there were no textbooks. At all. Not online, not on software or downloaded. Nothing. My head nearly exploded. 

the only reason there were books in Honor English was that the teacher was retiring in a year, and as she put it, "it takes 2 years to fire you in this district" so she was bringing in books on her own dime, and making sure the kids read them, rather than using the workbooks (for highschool Honors English!) that the district gave her. Those sat in a cabinet. 

When my oldest was in highschool at home I was freaking out that I couldn't possibly be doing enough and I was going to fail him.  The husband of a friend of mind taught honors English at one of the "better" highschools. He sat me down and explained that there wasn't a possibility I was doing worse.  In honors English he wasn't allowed to assign any reading because he couldn't fail any kids who didn't do it. So absolutely everything they read he read aloud in class so they could discuss. Now I value reading aloud and still include my highschoolers in read aloud time but that is ridiculous and every time I get tempted to ship them off I remember stories like this. (I live in the second to worst rated district in the country. I know it's different other places but that's not where I am)

[ktgrok]

6 minutes ago, busymama7 said:

When my oldest was in highschool at home I was freaking out that I couldn't possibly be doing enough and I was going to fail him.  The husband of a friend of mind taught honors English at one of the "better" highschools. He sat me down and explained that there wasn't a possibility I was doing worse.  In honors English he wasn't allowed to assign any reading because he couldn't fail any kids who didn't do it. So absolutely everything they read he read aloud in class so they could discuss. Now I value reading aloud and still include my highschoolers in read aloud time but that is ridiculous and every time I get tempted to ship them off I remember stories like this. (I live in the second to worst rated district in the country. I know it's different other places but that's not where I am)

Yeah, he was in the "Scholars Academy" which was a special program - and it had this garbage! Oh, and his Honors Chemistry class had the teacher quick a few weeks into the year, they had rotating subs after that who had never taught chemistry and at MOST threw up a sheet of notes on power point that someone else had made. On bad days they got notes from the wrong class He even had to take a quiz that was obviously a PHYSICS quiz, NOT chemistry, and the teacher wouldn't listen that it was the wrong quiz!!! Days later a different sub deleted the grades as that was, in fact, a quiz designed for a totally different class in a different subject!

So yeah, when he decided he wanted to come home I had no issue with it. The only really good class was Latin. And he and the Latin teacher butted heads constantly, so whatever. 

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, busymama7 said:

When my oldest was in highschool at home I was freaking out that I couldn't possibly be doing enough and I was going to fail him.  The husband of a friend of mind taught honors English at one of the "better" highschools. He sat me down and explained that there wasn't a possibility I was doing worse.  In honors English he wasn't allowed to assign any reading because he couldn't fail any kids who didn't do it. So absolutely everything they read he read aloud in class so they could discuss. Now I value reading aloud and still include my highschoolers in read aloud time but that is ridiculous and every time I get tempted to ship them off I remember stories like this. (I live in the second to worst rated district in the country. I know it's different other places but that's not where I am)

Yes, same here in Michigan. They tied funding to graduation rates, penalizing the schools for failing students. So in my area where parents do not value education and communicate that to their students, you have a large swath of lazy students whose parents support them doing nothing because the superintendent and school board won't let the teachers give failing grades. AP classes were scrapped because they have to follow the college board syllabus, and the superintendent didn't want that. The college bound kids are enrolled full time in dual enrollment at the nearest university. Everyone else is taking remedial or barely more than remedial classes none of which require much of anything. And they wonder why I consider the district high school to be such a joke!!! 😠 

But they do have textbooks. The parents did not like the idea of tablets and workbooks so there is that. Sigh.

[Faith-manor]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Yeah, he was in the "Scholars Academy" which was a special program - and it had this garbage! Oh, and his Honors Chemistry class had the teacher quick a few weeks into the year, they had rotating subs after that who had never taught chemistry and at MOST threw up a sheet of notes on power point that someone else had made. On bad days they got notes from the wrong class He even had to take a quiz that was obviously a PHYSICS quiz, NOT chemistry, and the teacher wouldn't listen that it was the wrong quiz!!! Days later a different sub deleted the grades as that was, in fact, a quiz designed for a totally different class in a different subject!

So yeah, when he decided he wanted to come home I had no issue with it. The only really good class was Latin. And he and the Latin teacher butted heads constantly, so whatever. 

Oh, the chemistry thing is insane! I am not sure they should even offer it. Most high school science teachers somehow managed top get through their college programs without ever learning a dang thing in chemistry. Nuts! When our daughter was in high school, I paid a friend who was a former chemist for Dow Chemical to tutor her in chemistry which got me very interested in it so I ran off to university to retake the intro to chem I had taken many moons ago in college plus two more classes. Dd's best friend was in high school chemistry taught by someone who had clearly never encountered the subject before, and who also had some of the most abysmal math skills I have ever seen in someone who was NOT the P.E. teacher or football coach! Staggering! Friend was so afraid she would fail and then do poorly in college chemistry that she begged Dd to teach her everything she was learning, and then would go back to school and teach it. Up front, lecturing, leading labs, at the blackboard teaching. The "teacher" was fine with that and read a book the whole time. We helped her make lesson plans on the weekends for each coming week so she could keep the class moving forward in a systematic way. And of course, as the adult homeschooling parent, I was defects teaching that class remotely in actuality. I feel like the district owes me some serious money!

I weep for education. So many schools are just failing and have lost sight of what is important. I am truly happy for people who live in areas with good quality schools and for those that work in them. But I throw up my hands in despair for my local ones.

And then you add covid on top of it! 😱 It is the wild wild west in education this year. Back in March 2020, when the schools had to suddenly pivot and didn't have enough warning, they sent the textbooks home with the kids, and then teachers followed up with written plans and assignments, lists of recommended videos, links for Khan Academy, and for the young children, a weekly rotation of books picked up each week by the bus driver. Did everyone do it? Of course not. But for the ones that did, I think the education was actually better than what they are getting now, and especially so with the staffing crisis. However, parents have to work and school is their babysitter, not the place they send their children tor an actual education so the expectation is bizarrely low here. They don't care if they are herded into the gym and watch movies all day.

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Oh, the chemistry thing is insane! I am not sure they should even offer it. Most high school science teachers somehow managed top get through their college programs without ever learning a dang thing in chemistry. Nuts! When our daughter was in high school, I paid a friend who was a former chemist for Dow Chemical to tutor her in chemistry which got me very interested in it so I ran off to university to retake the intro to chem I had taken many moons ago in college plus two more classes. Dd's best friend was in high school chemistry taught by someone who had clearly never encountered the subject before, and who also had some of the most abysmal math skills I have ever seen in someone who was NOT the P.E. teacher or football coach! Staggering! Friend was so afraid she would fail and then do poorly in college chemistry that she begged Dd to teach her everything she was learning, and then would go back to school and teach it. Up front, lecturing, leading labs, at the blackboard teaching. The "teacher" was fine with that and read a book the whole time. We helped her make lesson plans on the weekends for each coming week so she could keep the class moving forward in a systematic way. And of course, as the adult homeschooling parent, I was defects teaching that class remotely in actuality. I feel like the district owes me some serious money!

I weep for education. So many schools are just failing and have lost sight of what is important. I am truly happy for people who live in areas with good quality schools and for those that work in them. But I throw up my hands in despair for my local ones.

And then you add covid on top of it! 😱 It is the wild wild west in education this year. Back in March 2020, when the schools had to suddenly pivot and didn't have enough warning, they sent the textbooks home with the kids, and then teachers followed up with written plans and assignments, lists of recommended videos, links for Khan Academy, and for the young children, a weekly rotation of books picked up each week by the bus driver. Did everyone do it? Of course not. But for the ones that did, I think the education was actually better than what they are getting now, and especially so with the staffing crisis. However, parents have to work and school is their babysitter, not the place they send their children tor an actual education so the expectation is bizarrely low here. They don't care if they are herded into the gym and watch movies all day.

Yup. My own highschool chemistry experience was TERRIBLE. My teacher (again, this was honors level!) hated Chemistry, and only liked teaching physics and biology. But he got stuck with chemistry. This was open knowledge. So he just shoved up a page of notes each day on the overhead projector for us to copy, then chatted about fishing with the boys in the front row. At test time he would "conveniently" leave the classroom to "go do something" for a few minutes, every test, so that people could easily cheat. 

Needless to say, I learned nothing. I ended up failing my college chemistry class the first time, then retook it with an amazing teacher and got an A. 

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Yup. My own highschool chemistry experience was TERRIBLE. My teacher (again, this was honors level!) hated Chemistry, and only liked teaching physics and biology. But he got stuck with chemistry. This was open knowledge. So he just shoved up a page of notes each day on the overhead projector for us to copy, then chatted about fishing with the boys in the front row. At test time he would "conveniently" leave the classroom to "go do something" for a few minutes, every test, so that people could easily cheat. 

Needless to say, I learned nothing. I ended up failing my college chemistry class the first time, then retook it with an amazing teacher and got an A. 

Chemistry with someone who loves the subject is quite the pleasant experience. According to the kids at the local high school, back when I was still subbing and had chem class for six weeks while the teacher recovered from surgery, I was a RIOT! 😂 They learned! But when someone with the dedication of Wile E. Coyote and the confidence of Foghorn Leghorn shows up to teach, the students live for those labs! 😆

[prairiewindmomma]

Huh. Chemistry is actually great here. My kid is in it right now and he’s doing labs on the regular, and the content seems to be much of what I did privately with the oldest. Geometry seems to be going well—beyond what MUS covers, a bit less than some other textbook lines. His drafting class has him working with really nice 3D printers and learning autocad. I am not as happy with a couple of his other classes, but they aren’t awful. He may not have textbooks, but his Google classroom content seems to be fine. I don’t think we can paint all public schools with the same broad brush.

On a related note, I attended the virtual school board meeting. They are trying to have classroom teachers in a subject area cover related periods where a teacher is missing or combine sections of classes in a period to keep teachers in speciality areas covering high school content classes. At the elementary level, they are using subs extensively. They have also emptied out the administration office and are using them as subs. The state health authority told them that their initial study data is showing that community spread is less when kids are in school because of the mitigation in place and that attendance is still higher even with the crazy number of absences compared to the kids who won’t attend online from home…so they are doing all they can to keep classes going. The elementary school shutdowns in our district are because half or more of the students were identified as close contacts needed to quarantine. 
 

It feels a bit like the Wild West. 

 

[ktgrok]

5 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Chemistry with someone who loves the subject is quite the pleasant experience. According to the kids at the local high school, back when I was still subbing and had chem class for six weeks while the teacher recovered from surgery, I was a RIOT! 😂 They learned! But when someone with the dedication of Wile E. Coyote and the confidence of Foghorn Leghorn shows up to teach, the students live for those labs! 😆

Yup. 

HIghschool teacher had no interest in the subject, I learned nothing. 

First college professor didn't want to teach intro level classes - and it showed. I understood NOTHING. I tried going to office hours but he'd spend the whole time chatting with upperclass students about their projects, and so I just stood there in line waiting to see him for an hour, and never saw him. Failed. 

Took same exact course again with an amazing teacher I would have sworn it was a different subject. Everything made sense! Total sense! Got an A+ in that class. I remember that was when I understood that everything involves chemistry - he was bringing in weather reports and explaining how what we were learning effected the weather, how it effected biology, etc etc. It all just made sense! Crazy what a teacher can do!

Now I know that all biology is chemistry, and all chemistry is physics 🙂

[Longtime Lurker]

6 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Yes, same here in Michigan. They tied funding to graduation rates, penalizing the schools for failing students. So in my area where parents do not value education and communicate that to their students, you have a large swath of lazy students whose parents support them doing nothing because the superintendent and school board won't let the teachers give failing grades. AP classes were scrapped because they have to follow the college board syllabus, and the superintendent didn't want that. The college bound kids are enrolled full time in dual enrollment at the nearest university. Everyone else is taking remedial or barely more than remedial classes none of which require much of anything. And they wonder why I consider the district high school to be such a joke!!! 😠 

But they do have textbooks. The parents did not like the idea of tablets and workbooks so there is that. Sigh.

I just wanted to clarify that not all of Michigan schools are like this. The school from which my DD graduated, and where I am now a permanent sub, does an excellent job overall. Large numbers of students take AP classes and do well on the test. My DD took 9 AP classes and got mostly 5's and a couple 4's. She felt extremely well prepared by the teachers. This is not a wealthy district, but does have a lot of involved parents, so I know that makes a difference. And some teachers are, of course, better than others.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Longtime Lurker

[Faith-manor]

8 minutes ago, Longtime Lurker said:

I just wanted to clarify that not all of Michigan schools are like this. The school from which my DD graduated, and where I am now a permanent sub, does an excellent job overall. Large numbers of students take AP classes and do well on the test. My DD took 9 AP classes and got mostly 5's and a couple 4's. She felt extremely well prepared by the teachers. This is not a wealthy district, but does have a lot of involved parents, so I know that makes a difference. And some teachers are, of course, better than others.

Right, which is why I said in my area. Frankenmuth has EXCELLENT schools, and several other places. It is just so problematic when funding gets tied to graduation rates when coupled with a regional anti-education, don't care attitude culture among the bulk of parents.

[Longtime Lurker]

1 minute ago, Faith-manor said:

Right, which is why I said in my area. Frankenmuth has EXCELLENT schools, and several other places. It is just so problematic when funding gets tied to graduation rates when coupled with a regional anti-education, don't care attitude culture among the bulk of parents.

Yes, I agree. Tying funding to graduation rates is not a good thing. Which funding is this? I know that per-pupil state funding in Michigan is tied to enrollment numbers. Are you talking about something different?