S/O Parents--what has your district said about the virus?

We have one student at a middle school who is confirmed positive. It was announced over the weekend and it was also announced they are not closing the school. They hired some kind of specialty cleaning company who went through the school over the weekend and anyone known to have close contact with the student is being self-quarantined. They said this is the recommendation of our state and county health departments.

The student was the 8th confirmed case in our county.

Of course, they are putting extra emphasis on hand washing and similar hygiene practices with all students.

NY just announced that any school with a confirmed case MUST close for 24 hours while they determine next steps.

Our school has given a generic statement about the evolving situation.

Our district hasn’t put anything out in a week, since before there were confirmed cases in NC. And it was the standard “we’re watching things, making response plans, wash your hands, stay home if you’re sick” kind of guidance.

All the students in the district have school issued computers, but I’m sure not all have consistent connectivity. Many students are already behind from the several months they missed last year from Hurricanes. Those days were made up through taking away parts of holiday breaks, adding time to each day, teacher work days, and ultimately the state just waived the attendance requirement so instruction was missed.

Youngest ds already can’t get a flu shot, and dd has been struggling with mono and other infections and some liver/kidney issues, so it’s concerning. Oldest ds is away at Univ, and rumors are running rampant among students and parents with testing “campus affiliated” people and plans/procedures that maybe implemented, but nothing official but the school reiterating they are monitoring the situation and cancelling all study abroad programs/trips. He’s supposed to come home for spring break in a week; no idea if he will be able, or should, or will end up stuck here or what.

Lots of wait and see!

My DD is on an exchange program in Australia Some of her friends have had their programs cancelled and had to go home. Her home university here in Canada has said follow the protocols of your host country. I think she is likely as safe in Australia as she would be traveling home. I keep reminding her of hand washing, avoiding crowds, etc. Youngest DD goes to university in the next province. She lives in residence but says she hasn't heard much from her school in the last week.

a high school near us was closed for 5 days.. my child at the state university--they have cancelled events.. but classes go on. my kids class could not be taught online.. kanji..

Nothing from the high or middle school. If needed we could do online classes. DS doesn't need his woodworking class to graduate. I'm not sure how his concurrent enrollment class would work. The kids don't have spring break until April. But we are rural enough maybe it won't show up here until then?

The university has made a couple of announcments about keeping an eye on how things progress. They are all back to school today after spring break. I imagine someone picked it up and it's only a matter of time. Graduation is in 7 weeks. I just need them to make it that far. I don't even care if they cancel commencement. I asked DS if he could take his classes online if he needed to. All but one. It`s a lab. They are building drones and have to meet there to do the work.

They've just sent the link to the cdc about protecting yourself through hand washing, and told us they will keep us informed of any changes due to the virus.

My school district has been following the state recommendations as found here: education.vermont.gov/news/covid-19-guidance-vermont-schools. Basically handwashing, stay home if you are sick, and cough into your sleeve or a tissue. They are disinfecting the school regularly.  The situation is being monitored.

just monitoring the situation, wash hands, stay home if unwell, self-quarantine on return if you travel to certain countries during Spring Break (next week) for my 7th grader. Going virtual would be VERY hard in this district - rural, poor, and without universal internet availability. I know teachers who don't have internet at home (because it's simply not available to their homes).

college student is on spring break this week - no communication from the college yet (to parents - she's receiving emails - basically they're monitoring the situation) but I wouldn't be surprised by a move to online classes

I'm in Connecticut and we've had a case in two of the towns bordering us. But school is business as usual - even the school play which will be performed this weekend.

My kids are in Seattle Public Schools, which is (as it sounds like) the public school district in Seattle. We get daily communication from the district now. They have been clear about several things:

1. They aren't closing unless they absolutely have to. If a student tests positive in a school, they will close the school for a day and deep-clean. Students will not have absences held against them in any event.

2. All events, however, have been cancelled. Field trips, school performances, assemblies, you name it. The only thing that is still going is school sports. Which the schools claim aren't really school-based -- since there are outside sporting governing bodies, they are pretending that sports are something separate and are continuing to have athletic competitions and after-school practices. Seriously, don't get me started.

3. It's not that easy to switch to online learning. Not every kid has access to an electronic device. The district at one point experimented with giving 7th-12th students Kindles, but it didn't work out, at all -- between failures with individual devices, losses, breakages, and, most importantly, students who didn't have internet access in the first place, my kids' classes stopped using them at all (I am not sure if the district stopped the program altogether or not, but I haven't had a kindle issued to a kid in several years, so I imagine so).

4. Also in any district that isn't an affluent district, you're going to have a lot of kids for whom it is safer to be at school than not. Part of it as has been publicized is food; part of it is that you can't necessarily stay home from work just because school is cancelled, so school closures mean a lot of unsupervised kids. A lot of kids get various necessary social services through schools. It's all well and good to yell at people about how we expect schools to do too much and parents use them as babysitters, etc., but the thing is that other countries provide those services elsewhere (subsidized child care! socialized health care!) so let's not get all indignant about the fact that in this country we use schools as our locus for providing a lot of those services.

Anyhow, a lot of friends have been emailing me about doing some homeschooling collectives for the next few months, and I am considering it :/. But I have a flexible job at which I am tenured, so it's a lot easier for me than for most working parents.