Maybe you need to look into the science regarding the probability of transmission related to a positive contact. Get back to us when you fully comprehend the vast scientific research available on this subject... and stop pushing inane "what ifs".
Maybe you need to piss off with your fear porn narrative, because none of us give a shit. And come back when you have data.
All over the U.S. as COVID-19 takes out teachers -- and schools cannot find substitute staff... There aren't enough substitute teachers to step in when coronavirus keeps Texas teachers out of the classroom Administrators, school staff and uncredentialed stand-ins are being sent into classrooms to cover for teachers who fall ill or have to isolate. But even those improvisations aren't keeping classrooms fully staffed. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/02/texas-substitute-teachers-coronavirus/ When high school teacher Jennifer Lee came down with COVID-19-induced pneumonia during winter break, first-year teacher Hana Oglesby-Hendrix “adopted” her class. The two teachers share a portable building at Harker Heights High School in Killeen Independent School District, and substitutes are harder to come by than in previous years. Since the beginning of January, Oglesby-Hendrix has regularly rushed to the door separating the two classrooms to make sure Lee’s students have everything they need, sometimes interrupting her own work if a student walks in late or needs help with an assignment. She receives supplemental pay, up to $120 per day. Lee’s students regularly share their unhappiness with the arrangement. "They basically have become virtual students because that's where most of their work is," Oglesby-Hendrix said. Texas school districts, like those across the country, are having trouble keeping their classrooms staffed as teachers stay home for COVID-related quarantine or isolation and the well of substitute teachers is drier than in past years. Like many other industries requiring in-person work during the pandemic, schools are being disrupted by the persistent employee absences and the inability to easily find replacements. School leaders are coming up with solutions on the fly: tagging in paraprofessionals and administrators to take over for teachers, combining multiple classes in a room and even reverting to virtual school for days at a time. Texas is now requiring all school districts to offer in-person instruction with few exceptions. But school leaders and teachers know that, even with more students back in classrooms, normalcy is close to impossible until the pandemic is fully under control. “Anything that you’re doing that’s adding instability to that environment is going to lower your students’ ability to uptake knowledge,” said Monty Exter, lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators. “To think that’s not going to affect the learning of students whether they’re virtual or in person — it’s going to impact it.” Lee, a family and consumer sciences teacher who is part of her local teachers union, started to feel sick on Christmas Day, eventually driving herself to the hospital when she couldn’t breathe. Throughout the crisis, she wondered fearfully: Who is going to teach my students? At the beginning of the school year, Harker Heights High administrators had sent an email warning they were anticipating a substitute shortage and asking neighboring teachers to “adopt” one another’s classes in case of an emergency. Even once she knew her teaching neighbor was taking over her class, Lee worried about how her students would take her absence. "They get frustrated. They come to class and they never know if they are going to see their teachers. It's kind of become the new norm to walk into a new classroom and go, 'Oh, I guess my teacher has COVID, there's a sub here,'" she said. "They never know when or whether they will get their teacher back." She sent an email to her students' families explaining that she was sick, that students were not exposed and that she wouldn't be back for at least another week. She promised to post their assignments on their online learning system and said she would start grading as soon as she could. "While I am out, recovery and rest have to be my priority, so I am not checking my messages and emails daily. Please be patient in waiting or a response," Lee wrote. For a few weeks in the fall, Lee covered for a teacher in the same class at a different campus, posting lessons and recorded videos for both sets of students until administrators found a full-time teacher. She is most concerned about students' mental health needs, noticing that every time a teacher is absent, students wonder if that teacher is dead. "It's kind of like they're constantly braced for someone to die," she said, fighting back tears. National studies show that substitute teachers are harder to find than in past years, resulting in some districts lowering their standards for education requirements. In Texas, each school district or region sets requirements for hiring substitute teachers, which may not include a teaching certificate or bachelors degree. Some Texas districts are also increasing pay and lowering requirements to attract more substitutes, according to local news reports. Studies show that schools with higher needs and fewer resources already had a hard time finding substitute teachers. When districts struggle to find substitutes, they have to get creative. "To be able to get a substitute teacher, it's almost like winning the lottery right now," said Priscilla Dilley, who runs a network of five public schools inside Fort Worth ISD. "Staff that don't traditionally have a classroom per se are the ones covering our classes for us." Last academic year, 68% of teacher absences in schools Dilley oversees were filled by a substitute; this school year so far, only 38% of teacher absences have been filled by a substitute. Two days before school let out for winter break, Seguin Independent School District had to require all high schoolers to learn remotely so it could use that school's employees to fill in at the elementary and middle schools. Paraprofessionals, office staff and administrators from the high school headed over to the understaffed campuses so those students could continue to learn, said Superintendent Matthew Gutierrez. More teachers in Seguin ISD, outside of San Antonio, have resigned or retired this year than at this point the previous academic year, exacerbating the problem. About 80% of students are learning in person, compared to half when the school year began. So far, the district has not been given COVID-19 vaccines to distribute to eligible teachers. "One of the things that I have communicated is that we are prepared to continue operating the way we are right now in the fall. And even if there are additional vaccines available, I don't anticipate significant changes coming when we start school again in '21-'22," Gutierrez said. Substitute teachers are especially hard to come by in rural districts without the added problem of a pandemic. And rural teachers are accustomed to taking on several roles and covering for their peers. Now the problem is worse. “We don’t have a great number of subs we can pull from, so we have to do a lot of modifying and adjusting and combining and filling in,” said Follett Independent School District Superintendent Jamie Copley. “I’ve filled in classes.” Copley also filled in as principal of the district’s single campus for two weeks in January when she was out with COVID-19, returning the favor from November when the principal filled in for her. Fortunately, very few students have tested positive for COVID-19 in the isolated Panhandle district. But to date, about six or seven employees have tested positive, a small number but significant percentage of the district’s staff of 30. “Until everybody is vaccinated or the virus is contained … we’re going to be dealing with these issues. Students coming in and out and staff coming in and out, which is difficult,” Copley said. “But our goal has not changed, which is to provide a quality education for our students.” Lee, the teacher in Killeen, returned to school Monday. She no longer needs supplemental oxygen and has her symptoms — severe coughing, fever flare-ups, exhaustion — more under control. For a couple of days last week, Oglesby-Hendrix was unable to substitute, busy running a blood drive as the sponsor of a student health group. Luckily, this time, the district was able to find substitutes to cover both classes.
Typical political narrative. Take one story with actual people, paint the whole country (or in this case, the state) with same brush. Offer no backup data. The only statistics quoted: Last academic year, 68% of teacher absences in schools Dilley oversees were filled by a substitute; this school year so far, only 38% of teacher absences have been filled by a substitute. All this says is that teachers are getting harder and harder to find. Could be COVID, could be other reasons: More teachers in Seguin ISD, outside of San Antonio, have resigned or retired this year than at this point the previous academic year, exacerbating the problem. About 80% of students are learning in person, compared to half when the school year began. Well. If the "whole country" is following suit like Seguin ISD, outside of San Antonio, then retiring and resigning might have come from - schools being closed and teachers having to find gainful employment. Or just retiring. Or because of COVID. Or who knows? But don't let possibilities get in the way of perfectly good narratives. Substitute teachers are especially hard to come by in rural districts without the added problem of a pandemic. And rural teachers are accustomed to taking on several roles and covering for their peers. Now the problem is worse. Right. And because they're especially hard to come by in rural districts anyway, lets pick a rural district and run an article on it to push a narrative. "news".
While I may disagree with you regarding the data, facts, and statistics regarding school re-openings --- you did get one thing right -- "The narratives they are changing". Now that Biden is pushing re-opening schools in his first 100 days suddenly all the Democratic state politicians have hopped on the same bandwagon. Here is Gov. Cooper from North Carolina today... Cooper, Cohen, NC education leaders call for reopening more schools https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/co...ers-call-for-reopening-more-schools/19504991/
Wake County schools in North Carolina with 161,000 students are re-opening for in-person school on February 17th for traditional schedule school. Pre-K through 3 will be open will open with all students daily - while 4th through 12th will rotate students. It appears that Wake County has not learned its previous lesson. The classrooms in Wake County are already overcrowded with most class sizes already above the state maximum. The last time they tried to open elementary schools in late October -- they had to close all the schools by early December because the staff was overrun with COVID with over 20% of them out and the system could not find subs (even after raising sub pay). The schools are being opened again without any changes to safety procedures, improvements in social distancing (which is impossible with full classrooms to even maintain 3 feet), or cleaning procedures. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result. Last time the school re-openings lasted a mere six weeks.... now with community spread of COVID at a higher level do they expect different results? Of course, the Wake County school board is under pressure from parents who want their kids back in school. In many ways they are caving to these vocal parents -- while effectively throwing the school staff under the bus. Wake County schools will reopen for in-person learning https://www.wral.com/wake-county-schools-will-reopen-for-in-person-learning/19504682/ The Wake County Board of Education approved on Tuesday night a proposal to reopen schools for in-person instruction starting Feb. 15 and Feb. 17. Jim Martin was the sole "no" vote of the nine board members. The board amended Tuesday's agenda to include the vote after previously only listing reopening plans as a discussion item. District staff recommended, and the board approved, that pre-kindergarten through third grade students return for in-person learning daily and that fourth through 12th grades return to classrooms on rotation. Modified and year-round calendar schools will reopen Feb. 15, and traditional calendar schools will reopen Feb. 17, following a teacher work day. The decision followed hundreds of written public comments urging school reopening and parent survey results that showed a desire to get students back in the classroom. Most of the 33,000 parent responses to the survey said they didn’t want to continue with full remote learning, district officials told the school board Tuesday. All board members stressed the importance of students returning to classrooms, but board member Jim Martin opposed the resolution because it didn’t include enough safety precautions. He said studies showing lower COVID-19 spread at schools looked at districts that have taken more precautions than the resolution Tuesday laid out, such as physical barriers between students. “I will stick with the science,” Martin said. (note he was the one board member to oppose opening. He is a chemistry professor at N.C. State with a STEM background) Board member Chris Haegarty said the school district needs do more than required by the state to protect students and teachers, but he favored reopening the classrooms. “I think we can do more than the bare minimum required, and I think we owe it to everybody in the county to do more than what’s required ,but I don’t think that’s a barrier to keep us from moving forward and accepting the staff’s recommendation,” Haegarty said. Board member Monika Johnson-Hostler said the board needs to advocate at a higher level for things like teachers getting vaccines sooner rather than later. Giving teachers access to vaccines would help protect them and alleviate concerns the board has had with staffing in case teachers must quarantine or isolate. “The reality is we are still not there with staffing,” she said. District Superintendent Cathy Q. Moore presented the proposal to the board for the first time Tuesday, but it is similar to what the district has done and planned previously. Pre-kindergarten through third grade students will be on Plan A, where social distancing isn’t required but is recommended, as they had been before winter break. Fourth and fifth grade will be on Plan B, as they had been in the fall, although different from what the district initially planned for the spring semester. Sixth grade through 12th grade will return on rotation, as had been planned for the spring semester. District precautions for reopening include daily temperature and symptom checks upon school entry, mask and face covering requirements, disinfecting supplies in classrooms, potentially altered lunches, hand sanitizing stations and social distancing. By Friday, Moore said the district will have more detailed plans on the reopening, including plans for distributing free and reduced lunch to students and coordinating high school busing. Martin made a motion to require that classrooms not exceed capacity, contending that some lower grade classrooms, according to a principal survey, can’t accommodate for three feet of social distancing. That means they’re over capacity, he said. The board rejected the motion after some members said they were concerned voting in favor of it could partly reverse the board’s earlier decision to reopen schools. The district surveyed parents and school staff last week on their thoughts on the fall term and returning to classrooms this spring. In the parent survey – parents were allowed to submit more than one response if they had multiple children in the district – 58% said they didn’t want to remain in remote learning while waiting for the county’s COVID-19 infections to go down, and 63.4% said they didn’t want to remain in remote learning until vaccines are more widely available. Most responses – 90.8% — said they were somewhat or very comfortable with returning to classrooms in rotation. Fewer responses – 70.3% — said they were somewhat or very comfortable with returning all students to classrooms everyday. Principals surveyed reported that most classrooms could accommodate for 3 feet or 6 feet of social distancing if students returned on rotation. Few middle schools and high schools reported that they could do 6 feet of social distancing if students returned to classrooms daily. The Wake County Board of Education has held off on reopening for in-person instruction this spring as COVID-19 cases have risen this winter and out of concern that the district would not have enough substitute teachers in the event teachers must quarantine or isolate. The district has added dozens of substitutes in recent months, with more than 80 attending a recent orientation and more than 40 scheduled to attend one Wednesday. Board members also heard Tuesday a report on attendance and student grades for the fall semester. The difference in academic performance was seen at the secondary school level, Assistant Superintendent for Academics Drew Cook told the board. The percentage of middle students failing a core course has increased from between 5% and 6% during the 2018-19 school year to between 13% and 15%, depending on the grading period, Cook said. For high school students, the percentage of students failing a core course rose from between 7% and 11% to between 15% and 19%. Course averages are about three to four percentage points lower than normal, he said. Attendance was worse this fall for non-virtual students than in previous years, and was significantly worse among Black and Hispanic students, whom officials said may face different challenges in attending school during the pandemic. Wake County board members discussed reopening just less than an hour after Gov. Roy Cooper, his secretary of health and top education leaders urged more schools to reopen for in-person instruction. Eric Davis, chairman of the state Board of Education, said schools can reopen safely if students wear masks, wash their hands and keep a safe distance from one another. “We know the pathway to effectively reopen schools,” he said during the state’s COVID-19 new conference Tuesday afternoon. The state will not move educators up in the vaccination protocol to coincide with the push. Educators remain in the essential workers category, which is next on the vaccine list. State leaders continued to acknowledge Tuesday that vaccine supply, as well as distribution, remain challenges in North Carolina. The debate comes as many parents say their kids are struggling with remote learning. Last week, hundreds of parents spent the day rallying in front of the Governor’s Mansion in downtown Raleigh pushing the governor to help reopen schools for in-person learning. Other parents said, as the school schedule is scrambled, they are forced to constantly readjust. Some Republican lawmakers in the state are also pushing for a return to classrooms. A bill filed Monday is still in the early stages but would require all public school districts to offer in-person learning, giving parents the option of virtual learning if they choose. Senate Bill 37, named “In-Person Learning Choice for Families,” is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. The group behind the proposal pointed to recent studies saying schools can reopen safely, including a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While there is broad support to safely return to the classrooms, other issues would still remain, including a shortage of substitute teachers.
Let's take a look at how school districts are trying to make their classrooms "safe"... Window fans may be Philly’s fix for schools with poor ventilation. But teachers and parents are saying no way. https://www.inquirer.com/education/...rict-ventilation-fans-reopening-20210202.html With the clock ticking toward school reopening, Philadelphia School District leaders Tuesday attempted to quell criticism of its plans to ventilate its old buildings by adding window fans to 1,100 rooms citywide. Chief operating officer Reggie McNeil said the district has been “putting a lot of work into making the environment safe enough for our students and staff to return.” Prekindergarten through second grade staff are due back Monday, and children on Feb 22. The news conference was called after pictures of the fans — in some cases the same sort of window units you would buy for your home at a big-box store — circulated widely, raising alarm in teachers and parents. “I think it’s appalling the district would think this is the answer,” said Samantha Rutherford, a kindergarten teacher at Bethune Elementary in North Philadelphia. “It is very terrifying.” It’s a problem most school systems simply don’t have: If rooms lack adequate ventilation, they fix the issue. In wealthy Lower Merion, the school system said its classrooms met ventilation standards pre-pandemic, but it upgraded ventilation and filtration systems, just in case. In the Eastern Regional School District, in Camden County, most classrooms lack air-conditioning, but the school system is trying out ceiling fans that create upward air flow and have special UV lighting to disinfect possible pathogens. Eastern Superintendent Robert Cloutier said fans were considered in the fall, but “at the time, there was no clear information on whether it was safe to use traditional room fans.” For the cash-strapped city school system, some buildings are more than 100 years old and decades of delayed maintenance means the fixes open to wealthier districts aren’t always possible. In Philadelphia, the fan issue crystallizes a deep distrust teachers and many parents have of the school system, especially around buildings: This is the district that let environmental hazards like lead paint and asbestos linger for years, and just last year bungled a $50 million construction project at Benjamin Franklin High School that sickened students and staff and kept students out of school for more than a month. Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. has repeatedly assured teachers and parents that any rooms used when schools reopen will be safe. Just last week, he told the school board the district’s 3,000 fans would have regulators on them to ensure that airflow requirements were being met. But on Monday night, Hite said there were actually no gauges. In an email to staff, he said he made “an honest mistake.” “Instead, each fan has the amount of air flow it generates in the manufacturer’s data,” Hite wrote. “We have taken the extra precaution of measuring the airflow of the fans with an air balancer to ensure that the manufacturer’s data is accurate.” He said ventilation “continues to be one of the layers of safety that will be in place in all of our school district buildings as we prepare to slowly and safely return to in-person learning.” McNeil said at the news conference Tuesday that the district has fixed airflow units in a few schools, canceling the need for fans, but that about 1,100 rooms citywide still require the fans. About 37% of the fans are installed, and the goal is for all to be in place Monday, when teachers are due back. McNeil said that building engineers will be responsible for monitoring temperatures, and that in spot testing rooms with known temperature issues, none had dropped below 68 degrees, the district-set minimum temperature. Fans will bring in fresh but not filtered air; McNeil said the district is looking at potentially adding air purifiers to some rooms, but has no immediate deployment plan. And while upgrading ventilation systems wholesale would be desirable, the district’s size and finances simply don’t allow that. “We have to work with what we have,” McNeil said. Jerry Roseman, the teachers’ union’s environmental scientist, has seen the fans and knows the schools’ ventilation systems intimately. “The use of the fans selected by the district is not a best practice in the school situation,” said Roseman, who has 35 years’ experience in the field. And the 15 cubic foot per minute of airflow the district pledges the fans will deliver “is not a standard or a control to undercut pathogens.” Yes, the fans will introduce fresh air into rooms that lack it. But they’re problematic, said Roseman: The fans will require blow-in air that’s too cold in winter months, bring in dust and dirt, and blow particles from person to person in a direct air stream — a danger in a pandemic. District workers have placed grates in front of them, which will hamper the fans’ ability to provide the air volume and distribution needed to mitigate the virus. “I don’t feel confident that these schools are safe in the way they’re being claimed,” Roseman said. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has a memorandum of understanding with the district that sets certain standards for reopening, and PFT president Jerry Jordan has said he does not yet have the data he needs to say schools will be safe. Both Mayor Jim Kenney and Thomas Farley, the city’s health commissioner, addressed the fan issue at a news conference Tuesday. Farley said he thought the fans were “a good idea,” and Kenney said they were “a simple solution or a simple way to address the problem.” In Chicago, teachers have refused to report to work over building-condition fears, blocking a reopening. A strike is possible. The PFT has said it won’t speculate on whether such action is possible in Philadelphia, but the Caucus of Working Educators, an activist group within the union, has said it will back any school employee who does not report because of safety conditions. Teresa Kelley Rugerio, a teacher at Elkin Elementary in Kensington, works in a school that last year alone had “damaged asbestos, filthy air filters, unregulated temperatures causing extremely hot classrooms, mouse infestations, and raw sewage standing outside the art room and main entrance to the school for four days,” she said. That the district plans to use fans to address ventilation issues to mitigate COVID-19 risk is simply unacceptable, Kelley Rugerio said. “I feel like there’s a lack of trust because of mismanaging over years and years of letting schools be in disrepair and making assurances that are not true,” she said.
Teachers have lost colleagues to Covid-19 and worry about being next. But, they say, no one's listening. So they are quitting. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/us/teachers-dying-covid-trnd/index.html