School Closures and Quarantines

[Bootsie]

I live in a major metropolitan area with many school districts that make their own policies--I have no idea how many different districts there are, but I just saw a list on the local newspaper webiste of 15 different districts reportying some type of COVID-related closure.

I do not have any school-aged children, so I had not paid much attention; thankfully, I am not impacted by it, but I do not see how parents who are navigate this.  Some of the districts are closing for several days.   Some are only closing elementary schools.  Some are "quarantining" specific classes.  Some use a 30% positivity rate and some use a 20% positivity rate.  If the positivity rate meets that hurdle in a class then the class is quarantined and moves online.  The "positivity rate" does not seem to be a test positivity rate; rather it seems to be a number of students in the class who are absent.  I put the term quarantine in quotes because it appears what is really happening is that the classroom is closed.  I do not understand this logic.  If 30% of the class has COVID, the remainder of the class is probably already exposed (and the 30% aren't in the classroom); I am not sure how keeping the remaining students out of the classroom for several days is going to have much impact.  The siblings of the ill students can still attend school.

If you have classrooms that have 30% of the students ill you probably have high exposure throughout the school population; this does not appear to break chains of contagion it seems only to react to the chain once it has occurred.  It also means that parents are getting last minute notice that one child is supposed to stay home one week and the next week another child is supposed to stay home.  I don't see how parents are keeping up with all of this. 

[KSera]

We have lots of local school closures right now, mostly due to so many staff out sick that they can't staff classrooms. The latest one I saw has more than 25% of their teachers out sick. I think the full closure is actually less disruptive for parents than the back and forth open/close for individual classroom thing. Parents need to be able to make arrangements ahead of time, which seems easier if a school just says they are closed for five days or two weeks than if they have rotating closures classroom by classroom. I've seen some are still available for special needs classrooms and/or providing care for those students that need it. That seems ideal. We're seeing a lot more middle and high schools closed than elementary, which at least poses much less of a child care problem.

[Sneezyone]

56 minutes ago, KSera said:

We have lots of local school closures right now, mostly due to so many staff out sick that they can't staff classrooms. The latest one I saw has more than 25% of their teachers out sick. I think the full closure is actually less disruptive for parents than the back and forth open/close for individual classroom thing. Parents need to be able to make arrangements ahead of time, which seems easier if a school just says they are closed for five days or two weeks than if they have rotating closures classroom by classroom. I've seen some are still available for special needs classrooms and/or providing care for those students that need it. That seems ideal. We're seeing a lot more middle and high schools closed than elementary, which at least poses much less of a child care problem.

ITA. We haven't had any elementary closures in our district, just middle schools. They shut down for 5 school days (which conveniently included two weekends and MLK Day so kids will be back in class on Tuesday. Most of these students are capable  of logging into their chrome books at the usual class times and joining each successive Google Meet. DS was on autopilot all week. I imagine elementary is harder.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Sneezyone

[TravelingChris]

We have schools in other areas shutting down= these all seem to be districts that did not implement masking after the holidays- we didn't have a surge here until probably late holiday or maybe the week after.  My city and the closest city to me both had mandatory masking and neither closed. Oh and they got ridden of making in October when we wereb't having hardly any COVID but brought it back for Omicron.

Everybody keeps asking where the workers are.  I figure that many of them are having to take care of children.

[rebcoola]

The next city over announced school going virtual due to staffing issues.  We have a mask mandate here.

[AmandaVT]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I live in a major metropolitan area with many school districts that make their own policies--I have no idea how many different districts there are, but I just saw a list on the local newspaper webiste of 15 different districts reportying some type of COVID-related closure.

I do not have any school-aged children, so I had not paid much attention; thankfully, I am not impacted by it, but I do not see how parents who are navigate this.  Some of the districts are closing for several days.   Some are only closing elementary schools.  Some are "quarantining" specific classes.  Some use a 30% positivity rate and some use a 20% positivity rate.  If the positivity rate meets that hurdle in a class then the class is quarantined and moves online.  The "positivity rate" does not seem to be a test positivity rate; rather it seems to be a number of students in the class who are absent.  I put the term quarantine in quotes because it appears what is really happening is that the classroom is closed.  I do not understand this logic.  If 30% of the class has COVID, the remainder of the class is probably already exposed (and the 30% aren't in the classroom); I am not sure how keeping the remaining students out of the classroom for several days is going to have much impact.  The siblings of the ill students can still attend school.

If you have classrooms that have 30% of the students ill you probably have high exposure throughout the school population; this does not appear to break chains of contagion it seems only to react to the chain once it has occurred.  It also means that parents are getting last minute notice that one child is supposed to stay home one week and the next week another child is supposed to stay home.  I don't see how parents are keeping up with all of this. 

In my state, school days don't count unless there are 51% of students in the building. So they'd have to be made up at the end of the year. We also need to have enough teachers in the building to keep students safe. 

In theory, school is where children learn stuff, so when 30-40% of the class is out, that's 30-40% of students missing instruction. So teachers teach less content while waiting for the sick students to return. Then we're just daycare centers. 

The way we're doing it here - if a student tests positive, they stay home for 5 days and until there are no symptoms. If students are vaccinated, they may continue coming to school, as long as they are not sick. Unvaccinated students did have to quarantine for 5 days but now can do daily rapid tests and come to school if negative. Only unvaccinated students who have parents that refuse to let them test have to stay home now. Those are also the parents that like to yell at the teachers, so that's extra fun. 

[Hilltopmom]

We are not quarantining anyone anymore nor contact tracing - it’s now just let her rip. (Super thrilled teacher here, not so much)

We did close a few days this week because not enough bus drivers or teachers.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Hilltopmom

[SKL]

Logically, closing the class down is probably enough like quarantine and more likely to allow those kids to mostly come back within the next couple weeks.

And yes, it's a pain and really difficult for many parents.  I am lucky that I work at home anyway, and my kids are not very needy when they are here.

I am curious to know how many households now have at least one adult who can work remotely rather than take family leave.  Does anyone know a percentage?  I hope it's pretty high.  Most of the families I know do have at least one adult who is or can be at home.

[Ottakee]

This is ever changing.  We were virtual this week Tuesday to Friday as 7 of our 11 were out.  This is special needs young adults.

The new rules are positive....home for 5 days, if better can return with mask.  If symptoms, stay home for 10 days.

If family member is positive and you are vax and boosted you can continue in school.  If no vax and booster then home for 10 days.

 

[Hilltopmom]

10 minutes ago, SKL said:

Logically, closing the class down is probably enough like quarantine and more likely to allow those kids to mostly come back within the next couple weeks.

And yes, it's a pain and really difficult for many parents.  I am lucky that I work at home anyway, and my kids are not very needy when they are here.

I am curious to know how many households now have at least one adult who can work remotely rather than take family leave.  Does anyone know a percentage?  I hope it's pretty high.  Most of the families I know do have at least one adult who is or can be at home.

Most of my students do NOT have a parent who can work from home. We have a mix of nurses, lots of prison guards (the biggest employer in my area), teachers, and then some blue collar and fast food jobs in my class this year. 
I think it’s pretty rare to have a parent who can work from home at least in our rural area.
Our family does not either. I had to use up all my teacher sick days to stay home when my kids had covid. My husband cannot do his job from home (facilities manager at a factory).

Edited January 14, 2022 by Hilltopmom

[QueenCat]

Ours were closed  yesterday and today, and then off for the holiday on Monday. Yesterday and today were NOT virtual/remote days. The superintendent called them "Calamity days." Many of the districts around us also closed yesterday or just today, but I'm not sure if they're doing remote/virtual. Masks are not required in our district, of anyone. One neighboring district stayed open as they have far less teachers out due to Covid... And guess what? They require masking... 

[kbutton]

DS's school took a calamity day due to the districts around them having lots of closures. One local school has had to close just the high school on day prior to another calamity day for the district. Another local school district sent home the high school kids with extra work to do at their own pace and redistributed staff to the middle and elementary schools; the kids at those schools will be required to mask universally through the end of the month. I don't know if the high school will be open intermittently? 

Bus drivers are scarce as hen's teeth, largely because students refuse to mask on the buses, and while they are allowed to remind them to mask, they cannot refuse them transportation.

[kirstenhill]

Our district just decided to go virtual for two weeks.  (Only 8 school days though because of the Monday holiday and next week and one previously scheduled teacher grading/recordkeeping day).  We've been masking all year.  The decision seems to be more based on staffing levels than student illness levels - though I think they may also be trying to get ahead of things getting even worse here in terms of student illness levels...Our state has not peaked for Omicron yet.   My high schoolers report that there haven't been an incredibly large number of student absences, or even teacher absences.  But communication from the district has been that staffing shortages haven't happened in all buildings, but they thought it would be easier to manage if all buildings went virutal at the same time.  They are trying to pull together care for children of critical workers (lots of people employed in the health care industry here). 

[City Mouse]

Here the closures are due to staffing shortages rather than directly tied to student infections.  

[Frances]

Schools are closed here today, primarily because they are so short staffed, but also because they are hoping that a four day weekend will help slow the spread. The closure had nothing to do with positivity rates or other measures, simply not enough staff. I’m hoping it doesn’t backfire on them with many families deciding to travel or visit family during an unexpected long weekend.

[Ottakee]

Just to clarify, our program was  classroom was virtual 4 days this week, but it was only our classroom...one out of 20 across the county.  We do require masking and so far our classroom has not had any spread.  All cases were from outside....just hit so many students at once.

[Tap]

8 hours ago, SKL said:

Logically, closing the class down is probably enough like quarantine and more likely to allow those kids to mostly come back within the next couple weeks.

And yes, it's a pain and really difficult for many parents.  I am lucky that I work at home anyway, and my kids are not very needy when they are here.

I am curious to know how many households now have at least one adult who can work remotely rather than take family leave.  Does anyone know a percentage?  I hope it's pretty high.  Most of the families I know do have at least one adult who is or can be at home.

Formatting got lost in the image so I will put a link instead (summary and a visual)

Source: MagnifyMoney analysis of U.S. Census Bureau 2019 American Community Survey and Household Pulse Survey data.  (same information with more data and information. This is the Census Bureaus site)

 

Key findings

The percentage of parents staying at home with their children across the 50 states and the District of Columbia has risen 60% since 2019.

Mississippi tops the list of places with the most stay-at-home parents in 2021, with 6.5% of households having one parent staying at home with their children. Delaware is second at 5.6% and Texas is third at 3.5%.

Iowa (0.9%), Minnesota (1.0%) and Maine (1.2%) have the lowest proportion of parents staying at home with their children in 2021.

Only 4 states had fewer stay-at-home parents in 2021 than prior to the coronavirus pandemic, led by California (16% decrease) and Louisiana (11% decrease).

 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Tap

[Granny_Weatherwax]

This is another example of why I am so confused about the virus. The city DGD lives in has schools fully open, no masking, no social distancing. They no longer contact trace and no class notices are going out when a student has a positive test. DGD's desk partner was at school last Tuesday with an active fever along with other symptoms (treated with Tylenol) because the mom had to work and couldn't find a sitter. The student tested positive Tuesday night. How did we find out about it? Because another student in the class who is good friends with the + student told DGD in class on Wednesday. I was with them all day Wednesday and was there when DGD returned home from school and made the announcement. DD immediately texted the + student's mother and the + test was confirmed. No notice from the teacher, the school or anything. At this point, we are unsure as to if or when the mom notified the school the child was positive. No one is required to share positives when using at home tests. 

Exposure was on Tuesday. I am anticipating some students to begin showing symptoms over the weekend or early next week.

[Bootsie]

21 hours ago, KSera said:

We have lots of local school closures right now, mostly due to so many staff out sick that they can't staff classrooms. The latest one I saw has more than 25% of their teachers out sick. I think the full closure is actually less disruptive for parents than the back and forth open/close for individual classroom thing. Parents need to be able to make arrangements ahead of time, which seems easier if a school just says they are closed for five days or two weeks than if they have rotating closures classroom by classroom. I've seen some are still available for special needs classrooms and/or providing care for those students that need it. That seems ideal. We're seeing a lot more middle and high schools closed than elementary, which at least poses much less of a child care problem.

I wonder if they close some classrooms but do not do a full closure if they can avoid the day not counting as a bad weather/emergency day in the total days that school meets to avoid running into totaly number of days that school is in session for the year, especially if they say that those classes are not cancelled but are simply supposed to meet online.