Anyone else work in a school and afraid to go back?
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NOOOOO!!!!! Don’t EVER say anything will be better than last year, you will jinx our new school year! OF COURSE I AM KIDDING ( no pun intended)
First, Claire, let me say how sorry I am to hear of your newest dx! I totally agree, last year’s stressful year was the worse, so far. I really hope the 2021-2022 school year WILL be better, but the way it is shaping up, tells me it won’t be.
I can’t help but feel that the governors who are either not allowing mask mandates or are punishing school districts for imposing them, only care about themselves or hope to gain political favor from a certain political figure. Very sad! Most states are large enough that the Covid issue may be almost non existent in one area and extremely high in another. School districts should have a right to do what is best for their community. Governors should support their schools not work against them!
I have serious concerns going back in the fall, not as much for me, but for the students who aren’t able to get the vaccine because they are under the age of twelve! That is half my school’s student body.
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You’re in crazyzona I’m in FloriDuh. Our gov wants to run for prez. ‘Nuff said?
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yep sounds like FloriDuh.
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Sadly sounds like my district, and all of those in my county in PA too! At least PA districts are not being punished for mandating masks!!!!
BTW, are your Floriduh governor's children too young for school, or as I suspect, have vaccinated nannies watching them?
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DeathSantis kids are in elementary and one under a year. Think he has 3 kids. Not sure if they are in public or charter schools.
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Again on the news, parents, health officials and school boards fighting over mask mandates!
When did it become okay to threaten others for their opinions? Masking is no big deal to me and I see it as 100% necessary if people want to keep schools open in the fall, but I would still allow anti-maskers to state their concerns. Why are anti-maskers so mean?
In my area of PA all schools must have a fire drill once a month. I have lived in this area for 65 years and NEVER once was there a school fire of any size that harmed anyone. Still we do this every month, even though it interrupts precious teaching time and is inconvenient for those with disabilities. We do it because it might, at some point in time, save a life!
We also have active shooter or shelter in place drills. Again, hopefully never needed, but "just in case!" No one in my area disputes these drills, no one rants and raves at why they need to be done, but ask them to have their child mask, something that may save their child's life, and you'd think the school was willfully trying to harm their child!
I never thought Sept of 2021 would be worse than Sept of 2020, but it is! I don't even want to think what Sept of 2022 will be like!
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7th largest schools district in country. Tampa.0 -
Official parent letter went out today in the PA district I work at and the best way I can describe it is “Covid? What Covid????” Back to pre pandemic as if it was all a joke! Pretty disgusting but I will wear a mask, I am vaccinated, and I will stay out of the big group things like assembly’s. All I can say is I pity the poor kids who are too young or can’t get a vaccine!
Impossible to know our county spread or severity because no one needs to report positive cases to the health de anymore.
Be glad they still contact trace in Florida, none of that in my district! They only ask parents not to send a child to school sick, but you know how that goes.
First time in my life that I am praying I am wrong about what is in the near future. I have lost any respect I had for those running our district! Sickening!
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Mavericksmom, I am so sorry! That just seems so illogical. What is the vaccination rate in your county? Are they just gambling that the hospital system is robust enough to handle the influx from the unvaccinated and the unlucky vaccinated severe cases? I’m fairly certain that approach is in my future as well. Not sure what I will do...
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My county is 53.6 % fully vaccinated.
What disturbs me is the way they are totally ignoring the threat! Seriously, I am in an area where most mask inside stores, etc, but the school boards just wish away the whole idea of Covid. When the health department doesn't mandate anyone to notify them of positive cases, the statistics stay in a low risk range, so people have a false sense of the actual threat. I don't trust any local data. We live in a me, me, me society and that has never been as apparent as it is now!
I give up! I do what I can to protect myself and family, other than that, it is out of my control.
I also saw on news that they are recommending boosters 8 months after being fully vaccinated.... of course that is only for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Most public school workers, myself included,got the less effective J and J vaccine which of course has no recommendations.
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In our area we are at about 75% of the eligible population fully vaccinated, so around 65% of the total. There are some worrying signs though and breakthrough infections are not actually rare and with the delta variant (or a worse one to follow) there will likely be more chaos to come. Our school divisions have stepped up and most have mandated masks for all. My independent school announced today a vaccination policy for all staff and masks for all. That is a bit of a relief and maybe I can do this. Another independent school came down on the other side and said although they recommend masks they will leave it up to the parents. (It would make me livid that some other parent would decide whether my (hypothetical) children were worthy of protection! As we know masks are better at protecting others than ourselves. This pandemic has really been an unpleasant eye-opener!)
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I too come from a highly vaccinated county, however we were just moved to "high spread" vs the previous "substantial" level.
On August 16, I got my letter from the district as mentioned above. Late August 17, the head of our county dept of health announced that he NOW recommends all school students mask in doors and on buses!
The big problem is that our local hospitals have few pediatric ICU units, some have little or no pediatric wards. Yes, we are very close to Philadelphia which is home to CHOP and other well known hospitals that can handle pediatric patients. The caveat is that these city hospitals pull from not only the suburbs, but other states and countries! They too are feeling the stress of lack of beds for critical care children. They deal in so many childhood illnesses and injuries other than Covid. This didn't suddenly happen on August 17, this was the problem all along.
I am disgusted. Although my district now switched to mandated masking, it did so only at the middle school and elementary school levels, which is where the most vulnerable students attend, those under age 12. I am glad for that, and for the fact that there is also mandatory masking on buses, which really fell into the PA mandates of mandatory masking on all public transportation.
However, my district's policy is only in affect until Oct 1, at which point it will be renewed or changed? My district has only one full week of school in September due to Labor Day and Jewish holidays. My guess is that with so many days off, any information on spreading will be significantly lower than if they had 3-4 full weeks. Why can't leaders think ahead and make up their minds???
My grandchildren's school has not changed their optional mask policy yet but I suspect that they will also do mandatory masking! I think there is a meeting coming up this week.
Last year I was worried about my life vs Covid, this school year my fear is for the students, particularly those too young for the vaccine!
Other than the whole masking issue, I have to say I am excited to get back to school! I really love my job and I know I help children be successful!
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I edited my previous post the other day, thinking I might have been a little harsh with my words for my county's head of dept of health, however, I am not the only one!
Thankfully, the head of Pennsylvania's dept of health wrote to our county commissioners and the head of the DoH and reamed him up one side and down the other!
Problem now is that school districts are scrambling to address their safety plans before opening next week! I was absolutely right that the county DoH was politically motivated and there is no science to back up his recommendations to school districts to go back to pre-pandemic school year openings! Harsh or not, he is a Covidiot!!!!
Students should be the top priority for schools, especially those too young to be vaccinated!!! Better to be unpopular and right, than popular and wrong!
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First day of school, I already have one covid positive student in kindergarten. There are no masks, no mitigation, no social distancing. I'm terrified for the kids.
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Yikes, kksmom3! I just retired in June, having spent my last 10 years teaching grade 1. Masking is mandatory for all students and staff. I’m in the Santa Clara Valley area of CA. Where are you?
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I'm scared for all of us! No one knows if the vaccine will do the job.
That's insane that there's already a positive case. Wishing you strength and antibodies.
My school mandated masks and vaccines for all staff. (The province followed suit eventually.) I look longingly though at schools who mandated medical masks and vaccinations for eligible students!!
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Pi-Xi,
That’s true but the odds are heavily in your favor if you’re vaccinated. My former school district reports that 95% of teachers are vaccinated but since they are a K-8 district the majority of its students can’t be vaccinated yet.
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Exbrnxgrl, I'm in Iowa, with an idiot governor. We have 3 positive cases this week in the school, which just started 3 days ago! We got an email about enforcing the "no hoods" rule. Really? We have unvaccinated kids here, 350 of them and we're worried about them wearing their sweatshirt hood? Ironic much?
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Oh what a mess! I am truly out of patience for those who will not only do nothing to protect our children but will go out of their way to prevent student masking requirements. Despite this, I believe my former district is being cautious and responsible and I am looking forward to subbing come December.
I don’t know anyone who retired because of the pandemic. Like me, most of the retirements we had at the end of last school year were planned before we even knew what Covid19 was. However, in an attempt to save money, my district offered a pretty sweet incentive package to those of us who met certain criteria. I think that might have convinced folks to retire more than Covid19.
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My daughter teaches middle school/high school and while all adults in our families are vaccinated, my two year old granddaughter who I will be caring for is not and neither are many of my daughter's students. She works in an older building where the open window system for air circulation is relied upon. This year she is going to have her own classroom and I am considering purchasing a hepa room filter for her classroom, having just read this article in the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/air-purifier-smoke-covid-best/2021/08/29/28ea4176-0740-11ec-a266-7c7fe02fa374_story.html
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I mentioned that my district has excellent protocols and procedures in place to mitigate the spread of Covid19. Most of the students are too young to be vaccinated as we are a K-8 district. They are publishing weekly updates on positive Covid19 tests by school site. For reference, school started on 8/11. Alta Vista was my school. Not sure why Carlton had such a high number. It is physically close to my former school and has a very similar demographic.
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I had to delete the previous post as I could not get the chart to copy/paste correctly.
I mentioned that my district has excellent protocols and procedures in place to mitigate the spread of Covid19. Most of the students are too young to be vaccinated as we are a K-8 district. They are publishing weekly updates on positive Covid19 tests by school site. For reference, school started on 8/11. Alta Vista was my school. Not sure why Carlton had such a high number. It is physically close to my former school and has a very similar demographic.
Please follow this link and click on District Dashboard to see chart.
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WOW, thanks for sharing exbrnxgrl !!! Sounds like someone was positive and spread it to the others at Carlton??? May never know for sure, but from the other schools, what they are doing definitely seems to be working! I too am sick of the non-maskers! I don't know what they have against masking in schools??? If a child can't mask for health reasons (and most every school have some who can't), all they need to do is fill out forms. Perhaps a shield? Those are the most vulnerable children so another reason for anyone who can mask, to do so!
I was sickened by a picture of a parent protest against masking and this darling little boy, no more than 6 yrs old, held a sign saying "don't muzzle me!" Whatever the child's age, I am pretty sure he doesn't even know what a muzzle is!
PA, the state I live in, has finally mandated masking in all public/private schools ages pre-school-12! Sounds great, right? My daugher, who has been a basket case all summer over this issue, was so relieved. Her oldest child (one of my sweet grandkids) has a heart issue and is high risk for Covid. Currently she has him at home, school started yesterday, but the district went with an "optional masking" plan, so she had to keep him home and do virtual learning. She wants him to go in person, and she can switch to in person learning at any time, but I am not sure her district will comply with the mandate.
Sadly, I am not sure the Governors mandate will happen in many PA schools where groups of parents are threatening to send their kids in unmasked. I listened to the press conference in Harrisburg today and it doesn't seem like there is much they will do for districts that don't comply.
Why is this world so insane? In my 65+++ years of life, I never remember a time so many would be pushing to get their way in the name of "freedom" and at the expense of children's lives?
Jelson, I truly feel your daughters pain! I am so sorry for her!!!
I go back tomorrow, so I will give an update sometime over the weekend or when something different happens..
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I find I am getting very angry at my coworkers for not masking up, ok just in my own head, I have not/will not actually treat anybody any differently. It's only a suggestion by our district leaders, cases among children are rising. Anyone else feel this way? I feel I'm setting a good example and being a good role model, even if they are only kindergarteners. Overworked and underpaid as well, I WISH I had retired last school year. I will stick it out, but I am starting to hate it, and it's only the 2nd week of school. No mask mandates here, in Iowa. What are we supposed to do when kids start dying? I'm only a lowly para of 20 years, you wouldn't believe how low my pay is, I do it because I am good at it, and I used to love it. It's horrible, that this disease has been politicized. Also, obviously, I had cancer! No one cares about that though either.
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kksmom3, everyone masks at my school, but I can totally understand your anger. I too am a para, and I love my job. Thankfully our superintendent puts a lot of thought behind Covid restrictions and the school board supports him. We would have had a masking inside policy even without the Governor's mandate. (at least for a while)
Now my area was hit by tornados and flooding. No school today for most public schools in the county. My school district will be open tomorrow.
I think so many of us are just tired of Covid and the extreme weather conditions. Tornados that did any severe damage were rare in PA. I do remember years ago, a young family died in their home from a tornado, but again, that was very rare! Now in the past 4 weeks we have seen so many tornado's, last night 5 touched down in PA and 3 people were killed. The devastation in PA and NJ looks like a Mid-western tornado damage.
The weather isn't anything we can improve quickly, but Covid is. I am committed to protecting the kids in school, I am vaccinated, I mask and I will do everything I can to make sure the masking mandate stays in place at least until all school age children can be fully vaccinated!
My concern is that the health officials will assume all is well, no high Covid #'s and let down their guard on masking before kids can be fully vaccinated.
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