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Teachers and Educators in the Times of Covid


JanasTattooParlor

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On 10/24/2020 at 8:33 AM, WiseGirl said:

At this point just call it until January folks.

And that is what we are doing. Going in for hybrid in January.  Ignore the rise in cases and that it is two weeks after Winter Break. I am constantly baffled by the district's decisions. 

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1 hour ago, WiseGirl said:

And that is what we are doing. Going in for hybrid in January.  Ignore the rise in cases and that it is two weeks after Winter Break. I am constantly baffled by the district's decisions. 

I don't think many care about the staff at all. I am thankful my state extended the pause for in person high school into winter break. I am trying not to think about January. I am not hopeful my district will take into consideration what is best for the staff or even the community. I can't see people behaving during the Holidays. Cases are going to rise.

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I don't see my grandkids going physically into a classroom this school year unless the entire staff of the district is vaccinated or at least offered vaccination.

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5 hours ago, Ali said:

I don't think many care about the staff at all.

This is 100% correct, imo. 

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https://wjla.com/news/local/go-build-a-snowman-school-district-cites-snow-a-year-of-loss-for-canceling-school

This made my eyes leak a little - what a compassionate and joyful thing to do!  Cheers to this lovely administrator who clearly understands students are stressed and have lost so much this year, and wants to bring them a little happiness, however brief.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

COVID numbers are up so of course we shall be starting back hybrid in a few weeks.  Ugh

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  • 3 months later...

Feeling very frustrated (again) today. Vaccines for teachers in my district were announced mid March, then put on hold while they sorted out the Astra Zeneca thing. They announced a week ago that it was going ahead. Info from the district so far is abysmal. There was clearly no attempt to use the delay to get organized, so the plan so far does not yet include Teachers on Call (me) Itinerant staff (who may visit more than one school in a day,) or any other staff who are not based at one single job site. So, you know, no plans for the people most at risk because they are in contact with the most people. There is a plan for student teachers. There is a plan for the office staff at the school board, but people who might catch it and unknowingly spread it around? NO SUCH PLAN.  

The Superintendent's office told me to be patient as they are working on it. They also  tried to pass the buck and say it's a Health Region initiative - which is also frustrating me since I cannot find any relevant contact information for the Health Region at all. 

The Union is trying to push for more information (once the TOCs brought it to their attention) but nothing so far. 

In the meantime the Province lowered the age limit for all (not just Teachers) to book for an Astra Zeneca at certain pharmacies. All were fully booked right away, so waiting list only there too. 

I am also registered for a vaccine through the Provincial age based program. My age group hasn't been allowed to book yet. 

Everywhere I turn there is some possibility of a vaccine, but nothing is panning out. Meanwhile, I started my week with notifications from 2 schools I worked at last week that there was a Covid exposure at those schools on the days I was there. I get those notifications all the time. It's like playing Russian roulette. 

And I'm frustrated with not being able to complain to anybody with any power to change things. Argh. 

I've seen quite a few TOCs on our Slack group say that they are not taking calls to work right now. Leaving us out of the vaccine roll out plan was the final straw. We are the ones most at risk, yet we are at the back of the line. 

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  • 1 month later...
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Starting to get nervous about the upcoming school year. Last year we started the year with no vaccines, no mask mandate, and lots of unknowns to worry about, but we did have only a fraction of the normal amount of students in school to pass around a virus.

This year teachers are vaccinated (well, all were eligible, but it isn't mandatory) but all the kids under 12 are not vaccinated. They took away the mask mandate at the beginning of the summer and haven't put it back yet.

They decided in June that all students would return in person in September. That sounded ok then, but now cases are rising again. So no masks, kids still unvaccinated, and full classrooms? Yeah, no problem at all. 🙄

We don't go back until after Labour Day, so still time for them to make some changes in this "plan." Keeping my fingers crossed. 

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19 minutes ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

Starting to get nervous about the upcoming school year.

You and me both. I go in next week and the kids start the week after. My area is now under a mask mandate All students are to be in school. This whole thing makes me nervous. I don't know if I will feel safe enough to visit my elderly parents after I go back.

 

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4 hours ago, PreciousPantsofDoom said:

They decided in June that all students would return in person in September. That sounded ok then, but now cases are rising again.

I was reading a piece by Sharon Astyk (which I now can't find because Facebook sucks) which was looking at ideas for society adapting to live with covid, and one was running in person school through the warmer months when covid was lower. I have no idea if that would work.  Another thing I remember reading in an article from a 1960s readers digest that my grandma had where they were running a 15 weeks teaching; 3 weeks holiday (I think) system in three streams which essentially meant a third of the students were on holiday at any given time (in retrospect this was a response to the baby boomers moving through the school system) - I've always wondered how that ended up going, and whether that could work now. Short version: I think we (as a society) are probably going to need to adapt our structures as well as relying on vaccines, and hopefully we can start getting creative soon.

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On 8/16/2021 at 5:06 PM, Ozlsn said:

I was reading a piece by Sharon Astyk (which I now can't find because Facebook sucks) which was looking at ideas for society adapting to live with covid, and one was running in person school through the warmer months when covid was lower. I have no idea if that would work.  Another thing I remember reading in an article from a 1960s readers digest that my grandma had where they were running a 15 weeks teaching; 3 weeks holiday (I think) system in three streams which essentially meant a third of the students were on holiday at any given time (in retrospect this was a response to the baby boomers moving through the school system) - I've always wondered how that ended up going, and whether that could work now. Short version: I think we (as a society) are probably going to need to adapt our structures as well as relying on vaccines, and hopefully we can start getting creative soon.

The anti-maskers would probably have a meltdown over their summers being stolen.

I am a teacher and my district would need to address the lack of air conditioning if they wanted us to work through the summer. My room is miserable in warm weather. There was one day in the spring where I stopped teaching the lesson to the last class of the day because I could not even focus. We went outside and hung out underneath a big shade tree while they completed part of the assignment.

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I was talking with my daughter today (high school history teacher) after her first day in the classroom.  She is fully vaccinated, and her students are old enough to be vaccinated, but she figures many are not (this is a conservative community).  She has decided to wear her mask when she moves around the classroom, a student approaches her desk, and in the hallways.  When she is lecturing she will stay at her desk/near the board in the front of the room, which is around 8 feet from the nearest student desk and will not wear her mask.  She has problems with her vocal cords, so having to talk through the mask causes stress on them.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Marty1227 said:

She has problems with her vocal cords, so having to talk through the mask causes stress on them.

Does she have a microphone? I have one that goes around my neck and I love it.

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14 hours ago, Ali said:

The anti-maskers would probably have a meltdown over their summers being stolen.

Sadly I laughed at that then went "yep..."

14 hours ago, Ali said:

my district would need to address the lack of air conditioning if they wanted us to work through the summer.

I was thinking through what my child's school would need, and it would certainly move air conditioning and blinds up the priority list. That and finishing the shade cloth (short term) and tree planting (long term) shade increases for the playground.

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3 county health departments (so far) in my state has issued mask mandates for K-6 until 8 weeks after the 12 year-olds and under can be vaccinated. The antis in my district (including president and vp of the school board) are going ape shit. I really hope they can't use school funds to fight the health department. Fighting for the right for the kid to possibly get sick is mind boggling. And the same false narratives are being used to try and fight the masks. I'm mad because if everyone that could get a vaccine (from age 12+) got a vaccine we wouldn't have mask mandates. These idiots don't realize they are the reason we have masks mandates. The society of taking no responsibility for their own actions. :(

Thanks for letting me vent. I am so tired of all of this, I think I feel like what Sisyphus must have felt like. :(

For some levity, I saw this as a clap back to "But it isn't approved!"

 image.png.8745ed957116c68b907a15cacc4c18a0.png

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So here's what makes no sense to me and where I don't think anyone is giving any form of sound guidance.  Why on earth are we requiring masks for children ages 2 to maybe 5 or 6?  At those ages, children are not capable of wearing masks properly for any sustainable length of time.  For masks to be effective, they must be worn properly.  At those ages children just cannot do that, they do not have the physical and developmental skills yet to actually handle this situation.  So if we really believe that children in those ages are susceptible to COVID, whether it's dangerous to them, or we're concerned that they could spread it to the vulnerable population, shouldn't we just be closing early childhood education and daycares?  I realize everyone would lose their minds if we closed daycares and early childhood education centers, but seriously, either this is real and we're actually concerned about this and therefore we need to look at the practical abilities of children in those age ranges and keep children at home, or we need to acknowledge that the risk to children in those ages statistically is less than the risk of the flu and pneumonia unless the child has a serious underlying condition.  Either way, masks are a stupid solution for that age group and when groups I've respected like the AAP recommend them, it causes me to lose all respect for the AAP's competency.  If the risk to children changed significantly with the delta variant, do the right thing and close daycares/preschools, if it didn't change, stop scaring people!

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Where I live (Victoria, Australia) doesn't require masks under age 12 and hasn't the entire time. Delta has changed things in that the spread between children appears to be a lot higher, so at present we are in lockdown again and daycare and pre-schools have just closed as of yesterday (schools were already closed). At present roughly half our cases are in children - the profile of who is getting sick has shifted downwards in age groups, as is being seen overseas.

On 8/21/2021 at 2:04 AM, Melbelle said:

we need to acknowledge that the risk to children in those ages statistically is less than the risk of the flu and pneumonia unless the child has a serious underlying condition.

I don't think we have the data to be able to say  that with Delta yet to be honest. With the earlier strains that may have been the case or not, but certainly we still don't know enough about how the virus is causing disease and what makes some people significantly more susceptible than others outside very broad factors like age, and that seems to have changed.

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16 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Where I live (Victoria, Australia) doesn't require masks under age 12 and hasn't the entire time. Delta has changed things in that the spread between children appears to be a lot higher, so at present we are in lockdown again and daycare and pre-schools have just closed as of yesterday (schools were already closed). At present roughly half our cases are in children - the profile of who is getting sick has shifted downwards in age groups, as is being seen overseas.

 

I respect this and think this is a logical way to handle the situation if this is having a greater impact on children under the age of 12 now or even if we're just thinking that it might be trending that direction.  Where I live (US, in a state that statistically is very healthy, very liberal, and has high vaccination numbers) we have never had a mask mandate for children 11 and under.  Our governor still isn't enacting a mask mandate for this age group, however some health departments and school districts are. At this point in time, no one has said there is an uptick in cases for children in our region, though it certainly may be coming.  The specific county in which I live just hit 75% vaccination rate.  In key demographics like over 70, we're at 98% and even our 12-15 is at 50% and 16-17 is at 63%. 

But my issue isn't with a mask mandate in general, it's specific to the ages of 2 to maybe 5 or 6 years old.  It's just unreasonable to expect children those ages to properly wear masks and more so than any other age range, I think this could have lasting and detrimental effects on those children's cognitive development.  The study out of Brown University that shows a dramatic drop in IQ scores of children born during the pandemic really feels like just the beginning when it comes to seeing dramatic damage done to our children during this time.  For me, it's a matter of if the people that have the most access to the data about number of cases, age ranges, and underlying and co-morbidity issues, really believe things are so bad that they even think trying to get masks on kids these ages is necessary, then we need to close the daycares and preschool because masks are not reasonable for those ages. We also need to provide the parent/guardian/caregiver that will need to stay home with their children resources, tools, and adequate income to compensate for what they lose by children not being in daycares and preschools.  I'm just enraged and exhausted that we're this far along into this and we don't have logical contingency plans for these issues.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/08/19/children-born-during-pandemic-show-lower-cognitive-scores/?sh=47c3a884af41

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On 8/22/2021 at 10:32 AM, Melbelle said:

But my issue isn't with a mask mandate in general, it's specific to the ages of 2 to maybe 5 or 6 years old.  It's just unreasonable to expect children those ages to properly wear masks and more so than any other age range, I think this could have lasting and detrimental effects on those children's cognitive development. 

And yet my son's preschool has an pretty high percentage of kids who wear a mask correctly, and in fact that's probably what helped keep a case that came in over last year from spreading to the teacher and other students. I've seen plenty of two to six year olds in my public-facing job that can and do wear masks properly. While there are those who can't for whatever reasons, I think saying that most/all kids that age can't is underestimating them.

As far as the cognitive development, I suspect the isolation because of the spread by unmasked adults is more of a problem than wearing masks/seeing other people wearing masks. My older child, who wears a mask when we go out, is not having problems. My younger child, less than a year old when the pandemic started, is definitely having issues being out and around other people/in new places because of having to keep him away from other people who may be unvaccinated and wearing a mask improperly or not at all.

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7 minutes ago, NotQuiteMotY said:

As far as the cognitive development, I suspect the isolation because of the spread by unmasked adults is more of a problem than wearing masks/seeing other people wearing masks. My older child, who wears a mask when we go out, is not having problems. My younger child, less than a year old when the pandemic started, is definitely having issues being out and around other people/in new places because of having to keep him away from other people who may be unvaccinated and wearing a mask improperly or not at all.

I agree. I have a five year old and a two year old. I think the isolation has negatively affected them. We drove by Kroger recently and my five year saw a snack display in the entrance and was amazed at  the amount of food. It made me sad that those two had no concept of a grocery store. 

My two year old is very much two and he cooperates with wearing a mask better than some adults.

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A couple in Council Bluffs, Iowa has decided that since #CovidKim won't let local schools do anything to keep students safe that they'd send their kids to a Catholic school in Omaha, Nebraska instead.

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In Council Bluffs, mask mandates are not allowed in public schools because of a new state law.

A bright green sign greets elementary schoolers outside Hoover in Council Bluffs: happy first day.

Classes start Monday at Hoover and the Marfisi family won't be there.

They said they'll be going to a Catholic school in Omaha that has a mask mandate and more COVID-19 protocols.

 

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Some people really do need to see the inside of fucking jail cells

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Anonymous postcards with anti-vaccine and anti-mask messages recently showed up in the mailboxes of at least four Ankeny School Board members, board vice president Amy Tagliareni told Axios Monday.

Tagliareni said hers was mailed from New Hampshire, and linked to a self-described global network of activists fighting "fear-mongering, lies and propaganda" associated with the pandemic.

Why it matters: Area leaders are facing intimidation or bullying as local districts begin a new school year this week.

And it comes as back-to-school mask fights are getting scary and violent across the country, Axios' Ivana Saric reports.

Yeah I hope all the anti-mask fuck sticks out there still realize that my policy of sending this crap straight to the circular file is over now and these instead get handed over to the fuzz.  I realize there's little the fuzz can do but one never knows.  I turned that card in I got from the local old man mail harasser and I think that along with all the other goodies various citizens turned in to them over the years finally got the fuzz to get off their duffs and do something.

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My husband teaches 7th grade science and starts back Thursday for in-service. We're all vaccinated at our house, and our city has a mask mandate for all students and staff, so normally I wouldn't worry too much. But my mother starts chemo on Monday for pancreatic cancer, so now I'm worried he might bring the virus home somehow and she'll catch it since her immunity will be almost nonexistent. Mom and I had a 'chemo class' yesterday at the cancer center, and while chatting afterwards with the nurse who had presented the class, I apologised for having asked her to repeat stuff so often due to Mom's hearing issues plus the masks. Then I said, 'Do you think we'll ever get to the point where we don't have to worry about this virus anymore?' And she thought about it a minute and said, 'No. I think we're in this for a very long time.' 😢

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3 hours ago, Loveday said:

Then I said, 'Do you think we'll ever get to the point where we don't have to worry about this virus anymore?' And she thought about it a minute and said, 'No. I think we're in this for a very long time.' 😢

I read recently that experts think COVID will sooner or later become endemic - that it'll become more like the other four corona viruses (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) and be with us over the long term.  

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A Nature survey shows many scientists expect the virus that causes COVID-19 to become endemic, but it could pose less danger over time.

Five years from now, when childcare centres call parents to tell them that their child has a runny nose and a fever, the COVID-19 pandemic might seem a distant memory. But there’s a chance the virus that killed more than 1.5 million people in 2020 alone will be the culprit.

This is one scenario that scientists foresee for SARS-CoV-2. The virus sticks around, but once people develop some immunity to it — either through natural infection or vaccination — they won’t come down with severe symptoms. The virus would become a foe first encountered in early childhood, when it typically causes mild infection or none at all, says Jennie Lavine, an infectious-disease researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Scientists consider this possible because that’s how the four endemic coronaviruses, called OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1, behave. At least three of these viruses have probably been circulating in human populations for hundreds of years; two of them are responsible for roughly 15% of respiratory infections. Using data from previous studies, Lavine and her colleagues developed a model that shows how most children first come down with these viruses before the age of 6 and develop immunity to them1. That defence wanes pretty quickly so it is not sufficient to block reinfection entirely, but it seems to protect adults from getting sick, says Lavine. Even in children, the first infection is relatively mild.

 

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