Bethany

@anonymousse funding for public schools is based on enrollment and the official count that goes to the state (at least in Virginia) is 20 school days after the 1st day of school. So as long as your child is enrolled at school whether distance or in-person, the school will still receive their per-pupil funding for your child. I can tell you from working in a school there is no way that attendance in person will not be harmful in some way either physically or mentally. School is fundamentally changed for the moment. When my school was going to do in-person instruction students were pretty much expected to sit in their seats for their entire class period and stay looking forward and this high school. I have no idea what elementary will look like but it won’t be as fun as it was in the past. I can’t believe that requiring students to sit for hours on end in their chair won’t be harmful in some way either or that teachers will be able to do it.

The country is in such a horrible situation and children need to be in school, but I just don’t see how they will be able to stay open. This is such an impossible situation and everyone is suffering for the absolutely horrible lack federal coordination.

I’m over this herd immunity nonsense. In one breath the herd immunity group talks about COVID as no worse than the flu and then the next they say they most likely won’t get a vaccination if it is available. I can’t with them…they argue with my husband and tell us we are getting paid by Big Pharma to push vaccines. My response is always “I’m still waiting on that big Pharma check.”

The SRO, aka the cop posted at our school, doesn’t want to wear a mask and spouts nonsense that Sweden is doing just fine with their approach to the Coronavirus. I looked at him and just lost my mind and walked away. He hasn’t come back to the school since the principal told him he has to wear it while inside the school. So there you go with opening our schools back up.

I don’t know, things are starting to fray in the county I live in. While I live in a county that has a large white-collar workforce that can and is still working from home, the chatter is getting more ominous. A lot of the chatter is concerns over furloughs and layoffs in Sept and Oct and these are attorneys, biologist, network security professionals. A good portion have had their salaries reduced and in our area mortgages are HUGE. My husband is/was a hunter before I met him, so we still have a lot of his rifles, and even he is expressing the same fears that Helen’s husband is. My husband is a scientist and understands a lot of the information the medical community is putting out and just is amazed at the complete inaction of the country as a whole. I work in a public HS and that is getting batshit crazy. We are interviewing for a front-office position and we specifically picked a person who currently works in a dentist office because they would be comfortable wearing PPE all day. LET THAT SINK IN. Also, that person would be the one responsible for taking temperatures of late arrivals (which there are a lot of in HS). The complete inaction of the federal government is leading up to some major social upheaval and unrest. I don’t know what form that is going to take but it is definitely happening now and will continue to happen until something changes, what that is I don’t know.

@Bittergaymark, agreed… sigh….

@Fyodor I’m sorry for your loss and I am sorry that you aren’t able to grieve with your loved ones like you should be able to.

For the other parents, our school district (who I work for at an HS) is allowing parents to choose virtual or hybrid (in school 2 days a week) but the decision is binding for the entire school year and the decision has to be made by July 10. As you can imagine this has caused such an uproar with parents and students – not to mention the staff. I do not have a school-aged child yet (she’ll be 4 in August) but if we did I think my husband and I would choose virtual because it is the safest option at the moment, especially after seeing pictures of all the crowds at beaches this past weekend. Some of my husband’s friends are asking him what he would choose (he is an MD) and he tells him that his office is trying to hold out until January to start seeing patients in person. I also just received (like yesterday July 6) an email saying that we will be doing a version of teleworking/going into the school beginning July 13. Also that we will be allowing visitors (ie parents) in by appointment only.

I knew this was going to have to happen but it feels like a complete disregard to the adults at the schools. Some of us aren’t teachers/principals and we are not being given choices by district leadership on requesting new schedules. We don’t even have the choice of teleworking. I am somewhat protected as I am the Principals admin and back in the corner, but there are so many others that aren’t. Also, there is no communication about what is going to happen when someone gets sick (either covid or regular school sick). We’re told to stay home if we are sick, but most staff don’t have enough leave to cover it.

Also, there is the childcare issue. My daughter’s daycare is open, but limited to 12 people in a classroom, including the teacher. How are we suppose to arrange daycare when my husband is back seeing patients in person? And what will the cost be?

I keep telling my husband you can tell the generations that never truly worried about contracting HIV/AIDs or other STIs because they don’t get the idea of the chain of transmission. It is all utterly exhausting and at this point, I am praying for the aliens to invade AND DO something. Obviously the US can’t fix itself at this point.