Peter Greene thought his small school district could somehow escape the pandemic. He was wrong.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2020/11/new-update-from-what-is-no-longer.html
He wrote:
It has been just about two months since I told you that if anyone had a shot of starting school up without major Covid consequences, it would be my little corner of the world. I’m here to report that things are not going well.
Back on September 7, the number of cases for the whole county, since March, was 70. People were not panicked, but cautious, with the usual outlying groups of deniers and total freak-outers. Okay, lots of deniers–this is Trump country, and at this point locals know that there are some stores you avoid if you take masking seriously. Our four school districts went ahead and opened, with two choosing a sort of gradual “soft” opening, and the other two just going for it.
By October 15, the number of cases had doubled. Two of the four high schools had had two cases each. One shut down to clean for 48 hours; the other sent forty students to isolation. Everyone’s sports are still going on, but with limited audiences.
Yesterday, the state said we had our highest single day total–46 confirmed cases. I’m sure that’s nothing in major cities, but we’ve got fewer than 50K in the whole county. And our totals are probably lagging because there is no place to go get tested in this county.
That brings our grand total to 359. As you can see, we’re escalating quickly.
In schools, things are going poorly. At my former district, somehow, they managed to expose the entire administration team, so all administrators and most of the main office staff have been in isolation. This week the district has gone to virtual school. Two weeks back, an entire fifth grade team was sent into isolation. In another district, three teachers have just tested positive. The state has met with several local superintendents, and schools are going to the hybrid model next week; one administrator has already told his people that after a week of hybrid, they’ll be going virtual.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Peter is always thoughtful and interesting. Very sorry to hear that his little town is experiencing this.
There hasn’t been enough attention to the problems in schools when they reopen.
I think it’s yet another example of how disconnected and clueless our political leaders have become about public schools. They didn’t attend public schools, don’t send their children or grandchildren to them, and spend little or no time on them in comparison to their single-minded zeal for promoting charters and vouchers.
They think this is a debate about “open” or “close” and it’s much more complicated than that. The virus doesn’t magically disappear when schools open. It’s still a huge problem. It still creates all kind of chaos and uncertainty.
But our political leaders don’t know this, because they no longer know anything about public schools. How can they aid public schools in a pandemic when they’re not at all interested in public schools and exclude public schools from 90% of the discussion?
I agree. 😐
I agree, with the Chicago Teachers’ Union keeping Chicago Public Schools closed. 😐🔔
We’ve had some of the same issues but I still think schools should try to open. It is really difficult and we do get no practical help from the state or federal government, all that is still true, but at least most of the kids will have gotten at least half a school year.
He said “Trump Country.” I assume there are no county wide mask requirements. My schools have partially opened—small classes, masks, social distancing—with about half the students staying home. No sports. We have had a few cases of students testing positive; contact tracing indicates they got it from social events, not schools. The economy here is based on tourism and restaurants, so positive cases in general are rising. Locals are, for the most part, good about masks. I still see some partying occurring in my neighborhood, though. So in spite of 70% of the county going for the candidate who supports science, we have some magical thinking happening.
Here is a map of the current outbreak over the last 7 days. The worst states are all lead by republican governors that want to follow batsy devil and czar donnie the first and force the kids back to school no matter what. The truth is, the numbers say we should be shutting down in-person instruction not increasing it. Most schools should cease in-person when they begin Thanksgiving break and not return until at least January.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days
Rural areas and smaller cities are not accustomed to changing their behavior as a result of the pandemic. Unlike the hard hit cities, many people in these rural areas have not worn masks and practiced social distancing. Now that the virus is much more pervasive, these communities must learn to be responsible or else the virus will continue to spread and cause widespread devastation. I recently read that control of Covid is much more dependent on human behavior than seasonal weather changes than we originally thought.
The kids have been really good about the masks in schools, which is kind of amusing since the adults in our community have been so bad.
I went to my son’s public school to drop off info on a music fundraiser we do – I was outside the(glass) entry doors- but I saw a class change while I was waiting and it was 100% masks. They seem to have adapted to wearing them with no problems at all.
While some students and teachers have contracted Covid at school, the numbers are relatively low where teachers and students are taking precautions seriously.
We are close to hitting the 250,000 death marker in the pandemic. Texas is the first state to register 1 million cases. NY leads the death count, but it was the first to be hit and had to learn what to do, lessons that benefitted those that followed.
I teach in a place like that. My bout with Covid convinced me that this is no laughing matter. I tested positive back on October 26. Today I went out and split firewood without feeling tired. My Quarentine overlapped the two weeks of totally virtual school we just experienced. We are a primarily rural location, like the one Peter describes here.
Our students are almost militantly unmasked, or were before the virtual period. Perhaps they will be better after they return. Probably not.
This thing is not going anywhere. Teachers are burning out, frustrated at teaching both virtual and in-person students. Parents have frayed nerves; administrators as well.
And that is the way it is on the rural Covid front.
Glad to hear you are feeling better.
I don’t like splitting firewood even when I am feeling 100% (although I have done a lot of it over the past ten years, since we get most of our heat from a wood stove)
Ohio still hasn’t passed a school funding bill.
Once again public schools were the last priority of lawmakers. They may get around to it sometime next year, then again they may just spend yet another year promoting and funding private school vouchers.
The 90% of students and families who attend public schools in this state are really poorly served. Our schools aren’t fashionable enough for anyone to bother with.
Trump will do one of his victory dances where is feet stay in the same spot, if he hears about the increase of infected people in that one area. Remember when he said, “Death is Death” as if it were no big deal to die as long as it wasn’t him.
After all, Trump said he wanted “herd mentality” in the United States to get over the pandemic faster.
How do we interpret DT’s Freudian slip? Did DT really mean he wants everyone in the United States to do what he wants without question?
“Only one death” is one too many.
It is great to get Peter Greene’s covid report on his small NW PA county’s 4 school districts, along with safety-protocols being used, and the degree to which schools are fully open. That’s the kind of granular info that helps one put a picture together. From MSM we’ve been getting “Keep Calm & Carry On” type bromides from people with an agenda– based on figures from multiple sources, some of which have an agenda & none of which report the same way, nor do they provide the context Greene does.
So, in the interests of supporting that effort, here’s news from my neck of the woods. I live in a 30k pop central/north NJ town
SCHOOLS We have one town-wide K plus 6 gr1-5 elemschs, 2 midschs. & 1 hisch. Only 16% students chose all-virtual instruction: 84% began a hybrid schedule on 9/9. On 9/17 the hisch went to all-virtual for 2 wks due to a cluster of new cases, suspending sports & extra-curriculars as well, then resumed 10/1. 10/9 the townwide K closed for 2 wks due to 2 staff members contracting covid. 10/22 the hisch again went to all-remote for 2wks due to 6 new cases in a week—then extended closure through Thanksgiving due to a total of 23 new student cases & more being reported. BTW, reports are that all kids have been cautious & observant, esp w/ masks, in school. School-age cases have been traced to sports, family/ social [out-of-school] gatherings.
TOWN: Total # of cases to date is approximately 450, with 43 deaths.
We get weekly reports. Latest snapshot: between 10/30-11/5, the town’s health dept reported 28 new cases: 7 were school-aged. They advise there were add’l self-reported school cases to the schools during the week; this reflects only lab results to date. Other cases by age: 5 in their 20’s & 30’s, 11 in their 40’s & 50’s, 4 in their 60’s, 1 aged 83.
STATE: The state context is not good. After months of keeping stats low, we have ramped back up nearly to where we were in April. Govr has new restrictions in place starting today on hrs/ # cap for indoor gatherings of every type. The populace around me is generally observant of masks/ distancing [all stores require it], but I’ve noted an increasing carelessness locally—outdoors [unmasked distancing], & indoors regarding distancing, & keeping mask on face, over nose– even as cases have jumped up.
In Western New York the count has more than doubled over the past two weeks. This includes the local school districts who are using a hybrid model of two days in school, 2 remote instruction and Wednesdays to deep clean the schools where students have independent work. There was also a fully remote option. Ironically, it’s the upscale and private schools (where parents pay for full time instruction) that have seen the most problems with several temporary closures, although the pandemic has touched all but a couple of school districts. Some districts decided to take a wait and see attitude and were just going to start in school classes over the next few weeks. That is now in doubt. The largest school district, Buffalo Public Schools, remains fully remote.
Even though the numbers are low compared to other states, it doesn’t take long for the stats to explode. Although many complain, there are reasonable restrictions which have recently been instituted and the majority of people wear masks when in public. I now live in a “Yellow Zone” but I’ve been living a Yellow Zone lifestyle, so as far as I’m concerned, it’s all good. Wear a mask, Stay safe! 😷
Exponential means exponential.
Many (perhaps most) people don’t understand what exponential growth means.
They see the fairly slow, “flat” increase at the beginning and conclude “no worries” in the case of disease infections.
And at the other extreme are people (economists, for example) who just assume that exponential growth (eg, in the economy) can go on forever , even when there are obvious limiting factors that preclude it (not least of all, the fact that the physical world is finite– hardly a minor detail)
Americans seem to have a particular problem understanding the latter fact, perhaps because we have been taught to believe that “God helps those who help themselves” — the Buffet Theory of Everything.