I think I mentioned previously that the Omaha Public Schools were going to open half and half, with students in school two days a week, and online two days. They would alternate Wednesdays. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men....now things have changed. The PTB declared that Nebraska would be in the next phase, which means that bars, pubs, and restaurants, and I believe movie theaters, could open. That was a few weeks back, and surprise, Covid cases are on the uptick.
It isn't easy being a school superintendent these days, especially in an urban district. The superintendent of OPS, Cheryl Logan, vented a little in this morning's news: https://omaha.com/news/local/education/ops-superintendent-says-she-made-poor-choice-of-words-in-comments-on-insidious-attitudes-of/article_a1dd8c51-36fe-591e-8962-d5fd9f550e53.html#tracking-source=home-top-story
"In a Zoom meeting with a South Omaha neighborhood group Thursday night, Logan blasted what she perceived as the priorities and attitudes of other parents and community members during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, she said, she gets 25 angry calls a day about whether kids will be allowed to play football."
"Logan also said some people “in the western part of this community” seemed to want OPS to close its doors to prevent the spread of the virus — so other schools could remain open and sports could continue — with little concern for how it would hurt the district’s students."
“They are much more concerned with, you know, can their kids play sports, and, you know, if your kids have to stay home, so be it,” she said. “It’s bad. I’m telling you, I’ve seen the worst of humanity during this time. I’ve seen some good, but … I have definitely seen the worst of humanity during this time.”
"...On Friday, Logan announced that the district would push the start of school back a week and go to all-remote learning through October amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Douglas County."
"In a statement later, Logan said the past five months of the pandemic have been incredibly difficult for OPS families, staff and the entire community. “None of us wanted to be in this position,” she said. “I have witnessed, up-close and personal, the emotional toll this pandemic has taken on families.” Still, she conceded that she “could and should have chosen my words more gracefully. My intent was not to offend anyone.”
"Asked Friday afternoon what changed in less than 24 hours, Logan said there were new warnings about rising case levels in Omaha. On top of that, a number of staff members had to be tested or quarantined because of possible COVID-19 exposures after being back for only a few days to receive training and set up their classrooms."
Ms. Logan, an African American, has gotten a lot of pushback for saying the quiet parts out loud. The parts about some parents being too focused on sports, rather than education. And the parts about the divisions in the city, "west" being in a higher income demographic than "north" and "central", which are poorer, and having more minority families."
It's well known by anyone who lives in Nebraska that sports are the tail that wags the dog, educationally that is. It's also known that we don't like to talk about income disparities and how those affect the spread of the virus.
I see in some of the comments on the article that cancel culture is already at work. It isn't only in left leaning circles where it happens. In this case, it's "shoot the messenger".
Your post sent me to our local district to check on plans. How students are gathered for education will affect community spread, so not just a concern for parents, teachers and kids.
ReplyDeleteHere they're running half days M/T and Th/F with an online day Wednesdays that janitorial staff will use for deep cleaning. There are other precautions.
This sounds good as far as it goes, but my guess is that the weak spots will be buses (rural area where everybody rides the bus) hallways, and bathrooms. There will also be noncompliance with masks, despite these being added to the dress code.
So, same problems as at Mass, where some parishioners are saying that they are already distanced in the pews so why should they wear masks? This is now keeping Raber at home.
Surrounding school districts are staying closed for the first six weeks and reassessing every few weeks thereafter. It's hard to imagine anything improving when flu season starts up in November.
Raber and I were imagining a dystopian near-future in which a vaccine provides weak protection and requires yearly boosters, and we get a plague in slo-mo, which leads to societal upheaval.
Both kinds of polio vaccines require 3 doses, but provide good protection after that. DPT has to be renewed every 10 years. I would be satisfied with that kind of scenario.
DeleteSome potential Covid vaccines are already in human trials. At least one of them is said to induce a better immune response than actually having the disease, which is encouraging. If an effective antiviral is found that would also be a big help.
One can hope, but I think that less sunny scenarios might encourage people to think about preparedness. We seem to be awfully invested in vaccines that are still being tested.
DeleteGov. DeWine (R-Ohio) talked last night on the News Hour about ensuring that the U.S. stop off-shoring manufacture of emergency equipment and to have better pandemic plans in place for the future. He seemed frustrated that Trump is spending his time talking about how Joe Biden is going to abolish religion and guns, and hurt God. But it shouldn't be a surprise.
Yeah, definitely stopping the off-shore manufacture of emergency supplies is something we should do. Also securing our food supply by not having all our eggs in one basket, especially if that basket is owned by foreign companies. There are four big food processors that control most of our food. One of them is a Chinese company, and another is Brazilian. Incidentally Brazil is a direct competitor for most of our agricultural products.
DeleteTrade globalization is not a bad thing. It brings many benefits, not the least of which is that nations are less likely to wish to go to war with trading partners. But we should have policy that not *all* of critical items like medications should be offshored, especially to countries which don't wish us well.
DeleteThere were four towns and four high schools in Webster County, Ky. back in my Eager Young Reporter days. Someone suggested that one combined high school might be better because it could have things like laboratories. A public gathering was held. The majority of the crowd was ag'in it. As one said, "What if we build an expensive lab and none of the children wants to take science?" When the dust settled, I asked the beloved local doctor, who had delivered almost everyone at the meeting, what it had been all about. "Basketball," he said. "With a consolidated high school, three towns lose teams."
ReplyDeleteTom, he nailed it.
DeleteThere is a lot of screaming here over high school seniors losing college scholarships if they can't develop an athletic record. In my view, athletics is not scholarship, and jocks should not receive free rides on their ability to maneuver balls around a given boundary. But I realize that puts me beyond the pale of Decent American Thinking.
DeleteI also know that band programs--often the only music program at a school--are viable only because they provide a soundtrack for games. A lot of music students will also lose ground this year as music programs are put on hold.
The Palm Beach County School Board decided to open with all distance learning and pushed back the opening day to Aug. 31 to allow more time to making learning at home more "amazing" than it was last school year.
ReplyDeleteGov. Fumbles still insists, in season and out, that every parent should have a right to send her child to a building. He says he is not afraid. The locals are trying not to hear him.
But he has distracted himself now to save football. U of Florida and Florida State are in different conferences, both of which decided not to play out-of-conference games this year. Gov. Fumble announced he will personally see to it that the rivalry continues. So maybe he'll forget about school until after the Bowl season. Who knows?
The fear of losing football is the epitome of Americans' fundamental seriousness about the pandemic. I believe two college football conferences, the Mid America Conference and the Ivy League, neither of which qualifies as Big Time Football, have suspended their seasons. Undoubtedly even their conference commissioners are receiving blowback from fans.
ReplyDeleteI meant to say that the fear of losing football is the epitome of Americans' fundamental *un*seriousness about the pandemic.
DeleteKatherine, do you know whether the numbers support the parents' theory that the virus is widespread only in the poor and minority neighborhoods? That would have been true in the Chicago metropolitan area back in April and May. But now the script has flipped: the City of Chicago has a lower rate of inflection than the suburban areas that surround it.
ReplyDeleteThe state is stingy about statistics regarding Covid. They only report cases per county. I don't know, there may be laws about getting more specific than that. It would be nice to have a map of our own county showing where the clusters of cases were. But that doesn't happen. I suppose there is something to the idea thst the virus spreads more where conditions are more crowded. But as you say, the script sometimes flips. Especially if people get careless.
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ReplyDeleteThis NCR article talks about what Catholic colleges are doing this fall. There is an item near the end that colleges are reducing their housing availability; some colleges are going to have one rather than two students per traditional dorm room. Some are permitting only freshmen to live on-campus. One of my sons had to scramble to find alternate on-campus housing for the fall because his original choice for a dorm has now been designated the COVID-positive dorm.
ReplyDeleteThose sound like good safety precautions, as far as they go. But as I understand it, the implication is that if you don't qualify for university housing and don't live within easy commuting distance of your college, you're on your own to find student digs. For most students that means finding an off-campus apartment. I would expect that off-campus housing would be no safer, and probably less safe, than living in an on-campus environment. Honestly, I see this as a liability shift, with the schools saying, "Hey, non-freshman student, if you come down with COVID, it won't be our fault, because you're not living here, so deal with it yourself."
The NCR article is here: https://www.ncronline.org/news/coronavirus/catholic-colleges-face-financial-strain-campus-life-changes-fall-semester