Should city and at risk suburb schools just go cyber style as so many just lockdown all the time anyway (cost, retired)

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by eschaton

This is happening due to too many teachers being out with COVID for the sub pool to deal with. There's really no alternative to being all remote other than just closing the schools until the teachers get back.

My daughter's school is affected, but she's in 7th grade and thankfully mature enough to leave home alone these past few days. Thankfully my son's elementary school is still open for the moment.

To be fair you and/or your spouse are also in the fortunate positions where if your son's elementary school shut down for the rest of the schoolyear you could probably alternate going into the office or working from home to make sure you are home with him to assist him with his cyber-studies. One mom that I work with does not have that luxury, and this week has been a nightmare for her with her son's school being closed. She and her mother have been alternating taking days off from work to stay home with him as he cyber-learns. If this persists they will both exhaust their PTO stockpile before March.

I really feel like most of the parents online I see who shriek that they want "virtual only" school through June either don't work or can work from home. What about essential worker parents with no safety net who also can't rely upon daycares due to the daycare staffing shortages? If schools go remote only then we need another targeted Federal stimulus that directs funds precisely to essential worker parents who may need to take unpaid leave from work to help their children study from home.

[Independentthinking83]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Yep. Remote learning only so the economy can collapse again as essential worker parents with no safety net are forced back out of their jobs to stay at home with their children to cyber-learn. Sounds brilliant.

Believe it or not some workplaces that are already teetering on the brink of collapse would go over the edge i just one or two more people---parents with no possibility for alternative child-care---had to quit because schools went back to 100% virtual learning.

Not everyone can sit around all day and Zoom in their undies while doing laundry and dishes in between e-mails.

That’s very true but the unvaccinated are the main reason we are still talking about this. Had more people been vaccinated we wouldn’t be dealing with this. Thank your fellow Americans on this one. You know the patriots that stormed the capitol last year. The keyboard warrior mouth pieces that post on here. Those are the folks responsible for this mess. The covey spreaders with no decency, self respect and personal responsibility getting everybody else sick.

I just saw the 7th port authority employee died. Most likely unvaccinated.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

To be fair you and/or your spouse are also in the fortunate positions where if your son's elementary school shut down for the rest of the schoolyear you could probably alternate going into the office or working from home to make sure you are home with him to assist him with his cyber-studies. One mom that I work with does not have that luxury, and this week has been a nightmare for her with her son's school being closed. She and her mother have been alternating taking days off from work to stay home with him as he cyber-learns. If this persists they will both exhaust their PTO stockpile before March.

I really feel like most of the parents online I see who shriek that they want "virtual only" school through June either don't work or can work from home. What about essential worker parents with no safety net who also can't rely upon daycares due to the daycare staffing shortages? If schools go remote only then we need another targeted Federal stimulus that directs funds precisely to essential worker parents who may need to take unpaid leave from work to help their children study from home.

In 2020/early 2021, we did both indeed work from home during the pandemic while our son was in school. We could do that, but now that my mom is vaxxed/boosted, she doesn't worry about hanging out with our kids like she did back then. She actually drops him off and picks him up from school as it is. I'm sure if it was a short-term thing he could just do online school there now.

My understanding actually is online-only school was much, much more popular among black parents than white parents - both in the district and nationally.

[norcider]

Originally Posted by Independentthinking83

That’s very true but the unvaccinated are the main reason we are still talking about this. Had more people been vaccinated we wouldn’t be dealing with this. Thank your fellow Americans on this one. You know the patriots that stormed the capitol last year. The keyboard warrior mouth pieces that post on here. Those are the folks responsible for this mess. The covey spreaders with no decency, self respect and personal responsibility getting everybody else sick.

I just saw the 7th port authority employee died. Most likely unvaccinated.

Yes, and the recently retired Deputy Fire Chief, I know firefighters are mostly anti vax as well.:

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2022...a0ucMSkSt1M2Zw

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Independentthinking83

That’s very true but the unvaccinated are the main reason we are still talking about this. Had more people been vaccinated we wouldn’t be dealing with this. Thank your fellow Americans on this one. You know the patriots that stormed the capitol last year. The keyboard warrior mouth pieces that post on here. Those are the folks responsible for this mess. The covey spreaders with no decency, self respect and personal responsibility getting everybody else sick.

I just saw the 7th port authority employee died. Most likely unvaccinated.

Your narrative doesn’t fit, much like your strawman argument about a few thousand unarmed folks that left peacefully by curfew at 6pm. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bid...ed-falls-apart

How do you know they weren’t vaccinated?

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by norcider

Yes, and the recently retired Deputy Fire Chief, I know firefighters are mostly anti vax as well.:

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2022...a0ucMSkSt1M2Zw

How do you know he wasn’t vaccinated?

[Mtl-Cns]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

To be fair you and/or your spouse are also in the fortunate positions where if your son's elementary school shut down for the rest of the schoolyear you could probably alternate going into the office or working from home to make sure you are home with him to assist him with his cyber-studies. One mom that I work with does not have that luxury, and this week has been a nightmare for her with her son's school being closed. She and her mother have been alternating taking days off from work to stay home with him as he cyber-learns. If this persists they will both exhaust their PTO stockpile before March.

I really feel like most of the parents online I see who shriek that they want "virtual only" school through June either don't work or can work from home. What about essential worker parents with no safety net who also can't rely upon daycares due to the daycare staffing shortages? If schools go remote only then we need another targeted Federal stimulus that directs funds precisely to essential worker parents who may need to take unpaid leave from work to help their children study from home.

I hear what you're saying, but all this does is underscore how broken the education system is in our country since we cannot disassociate it from childcare. A school's job is to educate, not babysit, and if we want educational outcomes to improve a school cannot and should not focus on both. There is undoubtedly a childcare crisis in the United States. We've had nearly two years to deal with this realization and have made no strides to improve it.

Here's a link to an interesting article about what happens in more civilized places: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/u...are-biden.html

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Yep. Remote learning only so the economy can collapse again as essential worker parents with no safety net are forced back out of their jobs to stay at home with their children to cyber-learn. Sounds brilliant.

Believe it or not some workplaces that are already teetering on the brink of collapse would go over the edge i just one or two more people---parents with no possibility for alternative child-care---had to quit because schools went back to 100% virtual learning.

Not everyone can sit around all day and Zoom in their undies while doing laundry and dishes in between e-mails.

What’s the difference between the economy collapsing this time versus last time when shutting everything down was continuously touted? Zoom was so promoted last time. What’s changed this time?

[eschaton]

Guys, this shutdown is going to be over and done within a month, max.

The only reason it's happening is too many teachers or other school staff are sick or exposed. Within a week or two, they will all be back. Sure other staff will contract it as well, but we know Omicron peaks rapidly, and then goes away quickly. Hence this isn't going to be an issue into February.

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Guys, this shutdown is going to be over and done within a month, max.

The only reason it's happening is too many teachers or other school staff are sick or exposed. Within a week or two, they will all be back. Sure other staff will contract it as well, but we know Omicron peaks rapidly, and then goes away quickly. Hence this isn't going to be an issue into February.

We're almost two years into "two weeks to flatten the curve". Can you blame people for being extremely skeptical?