“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

Some part of that was the uncertainty the first time we had to reopen schools due to lack of data, arrogant, union-busting state governors like DeSantis, people like DeVos spreading pseudoscience.

I think it'll start to get more acceptance with many of the measures are adopted. Some families will still opt out and that's fine! Whatever works best

As a teacher, I would add: if the school district has a plan for providing both in-person and online options that does not require the same teacher to teach both classes simultaneously. With hybrid teaching, the quality of the instruction for both in-person and remote students goes way down, and the remote classes are likely to suffer the greatest drop in quality. Since many of the parents who have shown skepticism about returning to in-person are POC who are already at higher risk, a mass switch to hybrid is likely to increase disparities in education, not reduce them. I think.

yeah the evil/nuts part is the skipping of all the safety measures and only emphasizing the "we can reopen schools" part

ep: "i don't know if i am in the other 5%"
story: the gang has real decision dilemma
theme song: schools in (for covid)

My teacher friends all hate the hybrid. For my job, I can't stand doing a mix of in person/virtual. People on the phone can feel excluded even when you use techniques to combat it

I posted a few times about vaccinating teachers on the Canadian politics thread.

We Still Have a Government, Right?: Canadian Politics 2020

Big surprise: I'm a teacher, and I'm in favour.

yeah the evil/nuts part is the skipping of all the safety measures and only emphasizing the "we can reopen schools" part

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Monday, February 8, 2021 12:58 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

right but that's not what's happening in that tweet comrade alphabet posted.

we might be able to solve those problems. it's not prima facie ludicrous. lots of countries have managed it, it's worth talking about given we're the richest country on earth.

people treating it like an insane/evil joke should be forced to read https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/04/parenting/covid-pandemic-mothers-primal-scream.html twice.

Ron Wright R-TX died of COVID yesterday

unfortunately he was in the House rather than the Senate

Thought he was a little too quiet

Even setting aside the last few years, Wright was a cretin who enjoyed sexually harassing college-age waitresses and bartenders. Rest in hell, bitch.

He was wright and wrong.

xp: i nixed my non-political/personal experience opinion on reopening, but as far as political side goes, i need more evidence that school workers are vaxxed before saying reopening is acceptable. help req: is that information reliably available?

(w)ron(g) (w)right

you should be able to find out if school workers are eligible in your state pretty easily

it's a state by state thing, our governor went as far as saying out loud that he doesn't care if teachers get vaccinated

i mean they are eligible here but we don't have the supply and he said it's not a prereq to reopening

charming

Some school perspective fwiw: Our local school system has been in-person all year, with an option for virtual instruction. We let our kids go back in person in the fall, because they both said they wanted to (7th grader and 10th grader). And while that was a fraught decision, I have to say that overall I'm glad we and they have had the option. Both of them have been put on virtual instruction at different points as their schools were closed for teacher or student absences, so they have both had that experience, and they both hate it. Being in the school buildings has made a big difference to them.

So, while I think it should be optional for both students and teachers as long as the pandemic persists, I'm glad we've had the in-person choice. (And our teachers have been moved up the priority list, but have not started to get vaccines yet.)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here-are-the-states-allowing-teachers-to-get-covid-19-vaccines/ar-BB1dpLlA

our kid is going back to daycare as soon as his grandparents have their second dose (4 weeks?) and the daycare reopens to new students, which will happen when all the teachers have been vaccinated.

they were taking kids back until december, but then they stopped taking them on the basis that they could reasonably say "no new students until we've been vaccinated", which is fair enough.

Our district is starting partial in person with a hybrid learning plan next week. Our son will still be remote, but it's been a really ugly fight here. The very vocal "reopen now!" crowd has been going since Fall and just being absolutely horrible to district board members and principals on social media.

I heard this weekend from a friend who works for the district that they (the district) arranged for and set up appointments for the teachers to get vaccinated and apparently roughly 30% of the teachers just... didn't show up for their appointment. There is a lot of speculation and talk that it's an unofficial move on the teacher's part to push reopening off further but, as with most rumor and speculation, it's hard to know what is real. It does seem odd that teachers would just not get the vaccination solely to prove a point about reopening, but it's mostly sad that this whole situation is as ugly as it has gotten.

I mean, it's entirely possible that 30% of the teachers in the district just object to the vaccine for other reasons, but there is so much online drama and rumors around the district that everything is so fraught.

There is a lot of speculation and talk that it's an unofficial move on the teacher's part to push reopening off further

nope. 70% of people getting vaccinated is *higher* than we've seen when other at-risk professions are offered the vaccine.

Oh I absolutely wouldn't think otherwise if I weren't hearing so much other gossip and crap surrounding the whole thing.

I mean we picked the path that means our son will stay home for now, which we're fine with. He will have a mix of some classes with his usual teacher and others with a new teacher. I have to imagine it's going to be really hard for kids on both sides of the remote/in-person divide that have to lose complete access to the teacher they've had. Our son's teacher is tremendous and has been wonderful at helping the kids through everything.

caek what source do you use to keep up on daily vaccination stats?

xp That NYtimes section is absolutely horrifying; everyone should read it. Some of the recordings they've transcribed from their hotline are legit scary.

I would be happy to go back to in-person instruction if a.) they vaccinate me, and b.) they don't make me teach hybrid. (The second one is for the sake of the students; as I posted upthread, hybrid instruction is literally impossible to do well, unlike remote teaching which can be done reasonably well with the right resources.)

Unfortunately, my state (WA) has not made the vaccine available to teachers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

if you get the paywall they added last week, right click anywhere on the screen, "inspect element", wait a second and then hit delete, then you should be able to scroll. it's a hassle but the NYT tracker is pretty ropey afaict.

and for CA https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/covid-19-vaccines-distribution/

Thanks!

I taught hybrid in November and am teaching hybrid again, since Jan 25 (private school, so various things safety wise are easier than in a public school). Vast majority of the teachers and staff have not yet been vaccinated, though not through lack of trying. I teach the kids at home and the kids in the room simultaneously; it’s a joke. I am v sympathetic to parents but it is hard to avoid the feeling that my admin and the general public are indifferent to teachers dying in the classroom.

It is depressing that teachers’ unions have become the repository of blame, viz. that terrible David Brooks column last week? The week before?

xp that's sadly true, but i don't think that's any more true of teachers than it is of nurses, doctors, service workers, etc.

I think the best comparison is service workers/grocery store workers, though they have fewer rights than us and don’t even get the bullshit treacly meaningless praise.

Nurses and doctors in a slightly different category, I think, though bless them; I don’t know how they are pulling through.

Also I just don’t think Brooks or Alec MacGuiness or Emily Bazelon or Emily Oster or anyone else I’ve seen advocating going back to school in person yesterday gets anything about the logistics of public school buildings or the no money we give them to do anything.

Like, air circulation is laughable in those buildings, even in the rich white neighborhoods!

Sorry, my husband’s an AP in a public school system and he’s going back in a week; I worry. And he’s in less danger than teachers who are sitting in small rooms with too many kids for hours.

i think oster gets it a little better than the other three via managing this stuff at a (very rich, private) university, but that's fair.

my objection is to people saying trying to open schools is murderous by definition or something. it's extremely american to say something is impossible, and ignore the fact that other countries have managed to do it.

like i realise we're not going to become taiwan overnight, but it seems like some of that $1.9tn could in principle be part of the solution and it's worth talking about what that might look like, and doing so doesn't make you wright (tx).

I think my take is we have been shamefully neglecting our public schools since at least Reagan because elite stakeholders send their kids to private schools, so it's rich to all of a sudden be like, these lazy teachers are destroying public education!

I went to Brown, and it is nothing like Baltimore City public schools! Pretty sure Oster's kids don't attend schools anything like the schools in Baltimore city. Grrr class warfare even though i was born into the offending class!!!

My wife is a teacher/librarian (SFUSD), and she'd go back if they gave out vaccines for teachers, even though the HVAC systems in SF schools are basically nonexistent.

haha the worst ventilated buildings i ever taught in were at an ivy league university.

Something especially gross about using "black and brown kids" as a shield for your anti-union agenda the way Brooks did; data suggests Black families are keeping their kids home in greater numbers than other groups because their kids' schools are in worse shape than others' and they are at greater risk of dying!

I don't disagree with you substantively, caek; it would be amazing if we could get everybody vaccinated first, but the public schools in Maryland are going back long before that will be possible.

yeah it is not good.

But there is a lack of political will to make anything at all better for kids who attend public school, especially to the extent that they are poorer and browner than the kids of elites, so I don't have much faith that that will all of a sudden change. It's not a new problem.

horse <3

When I taught in Baltimore county, a richer and more privileged system than Baltimore city, I paid for my the printer paper I made handouts on, and we had perennial ant infestations and HVAC breakdowns etc etc etc.

hi harbl!!!

I currently know one local school employee, she reports that our towns system is requesting that workers use their own efforts to find and sched full vaccination. She is very frustrated that there is little consistent current planning or scheduling at all. Just bulletins to call particular public or commercial entities to inquire.

Same with Baltimore county; they weirdly asked faculty and staff to indicate their interest in being vaccinated and then told them they would play no role in helping to coordinate vaccination.

the fractal chaos of federalism is perhaps not the optimal system in which to respond to a pandemic

btw i got my 10 year green card this morning!

yeah if the federal government could shower money on public schools as it coordinates the vaccine rollout directly, i would be all for going back. (nb, i am already back).

xp congrats? sorry about our country!