So yesterday was my birthday. I’m a big ole 36 now. We had a good day, starting with my oldest making eggs for breakfast. The kids and I had a lazy day, meaning instead of doing our daily education work, we watched movies. I cooked buffalo chicken for dinner, and we had chocolate cake.
In the middle of my birthday, I read our state department of education and our local district’s plan for opening up schools. So, school was supposed to start August 12, and we were to register this Monday for what choice we wanted for our children. Choice? Whether we would send them to school for on-site learning, or keep them home and they would do online Remote Learning (R.L.). That is a tough decision in itself. The governor has since issued a mandate that schools won’t open until after Labor Day, and kids/staff/teachers will wear masks on campus.
The reopening plan includes contingencies for those who choose on-site learning. If needed, the district could switch to plan A, which is Hybrid Learning (HL) that would include a few days at school and a few days online at home. They would rotate students, so some would be on-site Mon-Tues, and do online Wed-Fri, and others would do online Mon-Wed, and on-site Thurs-Fri. They would both be doing online on Wednesday, and that would give teachers/staff time to clean the building between on-site students. The district could also decide to go to plan B if the area gets bad enough with cases of virus. Plan B is called All Distance Learning (ADL). ADL means those on-site would be all online. I do not know if they would be doing to same as the R.L. during this time or not. There are still several questions unanswered.
Another thing that I have found out is that if a student in a classroom tests positive for COVID, all close contacts need to quarantine for 14 days. Close contact is less than 6 feet away for more than 10 minutes. So pretty much, the most of the class would need to quarantine. Furthermore, siblings of a positive test need to quarantine, obviously. Here is the kicker: the siblings quarantine doesn’t start until the positive test is finished with their isolation. So the positive test can go back to school after 14 days, and then the siblings have ANOTHER 14 days at home. So siblings might have 24-31 days home because of a positive test. The school could choose to close for 2-5 days after a positive case occurs. Or they could just rope off the areas the positive test had been known to be to thoroughly clean them.
So my thoughts are now, what is the point of sending them to school? Yes the likelihood of the children getting and spreading virus is a lot lower than the actual, but it could still happen. As of now, they are likely going to start the on-site learning in either plan A or B, not full time on-site. So the on-site kids will just be thrown around this semester, depending on the case load in or state, and depending on the small chance of someone bringing the virus into school.
We all pushed to return to “normal” after the shut down. It’s frustrating, because there will not be a “normalcy” this year for school. Even for those doing the RL, this is far from normal. Not seeing their classmates, not being able to play in school sports, being in front of a computer most of the day for learning, etc. This is what I plowed through on my birthday, and I still have no idea what is best. I’m going to really be putting my faith in God regardless of the choice I make.
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