Thoughts on this statement from school disctict.

My thoughts are that every school superintendent in the country is spewing the same lines.

There’s no school transmission.
We’re going back to in-person learning in January (like this is going to be some magical reset)
These metrics don’t apply to us.

Blah blah blah.

I’m convinced they have their own NSBR site somewhere where they all hang out.

From the letter

"Based on our first semester experience, we have a greater chance of operating successfully the closer the incident rate is to 500 cases per 100,000 people. "

The UK went into lockdown for a second time with lower incident rates.

Our lockdown ends today but my area where the rate is about 100 in 100,000 remains in tier two(high alert). There are three tiers and the top two tiers pretty much include everyone, the tiers are a watered down version of lockdown. No meeting people indoors, although schools and colleges are open. In secondary school masks have to be worn in communal areas.

Links to an article on current figures in the UK
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274

Our school had to go all virtual because, due to people having covid or coming into contact with people who have covid, we don't have enough teachers to teach and we can't get subs.

Our superintendent is saying the same thing as the OPs, and misses336 explained it right. They aren't seeing covid transferred at school when they contact trace.

I think part of that is that our school has been so careful- everyone wears a mask, we only have half the kids in class at a time (6-14 kids), we sit the kids as far apart as possible (but definitely not 6 feet apart- it is impossible with the size of our classrooms) and if someone has covid we send home every other child that was sitting near them, less than 6 feet away, for more than 15 minutes.

I don't think covid cares if you are 6.5 feet away or you have only been sitting beside someone for 13 minutes, but that is the guidelines my school follows. I think those are state rules?

So when we had one kid with covid we ended up sending 32 kids home- those near them in class, at lunch, on the bus, etc. It knocked out 10% of the kids at school- we only have 300 in the building at a time.

I am glad we are at home- we have had 3 kids with covid and 3 adults, and several other teachers had to stay home because their kids had it. It is getting to the point that everyone I know knows someone who has had covid. I'm sure if we stayed in school longer our numbers would have gone up dramatically.

Maybe it depends on the area? Around here it seems to be a contest of who can pack buildings with the most students. It’s true that many, if not most, districts are remote at present. The plan is to get as many back as possible. There are some districts here that are planning on returning to regular operations in January- meaning bringing everyone back. Wearing masks will be the only real consideration.

I’m lucky in so many ways and I know it. I’m a special educator (SLP) and we’ve had to totally reinvent ourselves but we’re getting out there and serving our students. I'm doing some of my best work, and I never would have guessed that was possible. I will also add that I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on equipment and materials to achieve that.

this exactly. So far the cases in my small district have all been link to outside school exposure. So far, none of the kids quarantined through contact at school have developed symptoms or tested positive.

Therfore, schools must be safe to open...

Your first paragraph seems to be the strategy here as well. The district maintains that everyone following safety protocols cannot possibly contract the virus at school, so if there’s a positive case, it must have been caught elsewhere.

This is bullshit, of course, but it allows them to maintain the fiction that there is no spread in schools. If that’s the case, though, I wonder why they bother quarantining those who do test positive and their classes? We have the entire 4th grade out for the next two weeks because one teacher tested positive yesterday after eating lunch with her teammates on Monday while all sitting six feet apart. But at the same time they maintain she couldn’t have gotten the virus at school following the same protocols the students do. It allows them to deny her covid leave and require her to use up her own sick days. It allows them to say there is no spread in schools.

It’s nuts.

Even the CDC, now unfettered by Trump who has lost interest in the pandemic, is saying that kids are spreaders and school spread happens more than we previously thought. The kids don’t show symptoms, but they pass it to the adults, who do.

ETA: On our district dashboard as of today, we have 55% more staff cases than student cases. But students outnumber staff throughout the entire district by like 3 or 4 to 1 (normally 6 to 1, but a chunk of kids are still at home). You can't tell me the kids aren't spreading it around and giving it to the staff.

That letter could have been written by several superintendents around here a few months ago.    In my county most of the school districts gave students the choice of full remote or full in person. No compliance with more than 3 feet of social distancing in the buildings and lax mask enforcement. And many of those school districts have struggled with outbreaks and most of them are going full remote following the Thanksgiving break. One of the largest districts which has absolutely resisted mitigation measures time and time again announced a slew of new cases yesterday bringing them close to 100 cases between students and staff. Two school secretaries from 2 different districts died last week.

Our school district went hybrid or remote for the high school and offers hybrid, in person or all remote for the other grade levels and they are able to maintain 6 feet of social distancing in all classrooms, buses and the lunchrooms. Mask wearing is strictly enforced. So far (knock on wood) we haven't had any in school transmission and only a handful of cases among students or staff throughout the fall. A good friend works at the high school and he got sick 2 weeks ago; he believes he was exposed at his son's rec hockey league and right now, rec hockey does seem to be one of the biggest transmission vectors for kids in the county. Our district also opted to go fully remote this week only to limit the risk of transmission from families which didn't follow the Thanksgiving guidelines. At any rate, I was very skeptical at the outset that this would be a successful model but so far it's working. It's impossible not to see the stark differences from the adjacent school districts which resisted following any guidelines. As the spread of the virus gets worse and worse in this county though (every day we break a new record between cases, hospitalizations and deaths) it's hard to imagine that we'll be able to avoid shutting down for much longer.

For our school district, with contract tracing we are seeing that those who have Covid in school are getting it from outside sources - not from contact with anyone in the school. Because of this, precautions set in place, strict quarentine measures and massive cleaning efforts our rates within our schools is extremely low.

The letter explains that while kids don’t seem to spread the virus to each other at school, the more prevalent it is in your community the greater change of kids, infected elsewhere, can come to school and create an exposure. Exposures and transmissions at school are two different things. It sounds like this school district wants to wait for in person school until the community can get more of a handle on the virus.

Schools mimic what is going on in the community even though kids don’t seem to pass it on to each other at school.

In our school districts, teachers seem to pass it on to each other in staff rooms, lunch rooms, just talking about students, versus kids getting it from other kids. There have been 2 schools where a teacher who sees multiple grades / classes in an elementary setting has been a super spreader and has spread to 7 kids. The kids aren’t catching it from each other as often. Our schools have been open since September and we have less than 12 incidents of school transmission- mostly teacher to teacher, or teacher to student, not student to student. In our community, kid to kid transmission has happened more at parties, gatherings, on the soccer field / on the ice rink but these cases are few. Usually an adult brings it to a gathering or activity. Our adults are now banned from kids activities unless it’s a masked coach.

In communities where the virus is more prevalent they have far more exposures at school but the kids are catching it at family gatherings outside of school and are then bringing it to school.

This letter from the school district sounds fine to me. If the virus is so prevalent in the community they are worried about exposure at school. Increased exposure results in teachers at home isolating or kids at home isolating and then in person school might not be as worthwhile.

ETA - I didn’t get the whole students / parents not reporting positive cases. That just doesn’t happen here because the health authority is responsible for reporting to the school / school district. Most families will report a case to be transparent / respectful but the local health authority reports to schools / school district. It is also the health authority that decides who in the school needs to self isolate in response to the exposure. This takes the pressure off of everyone.

Yes to all of this. 

I've read that parents everywhere aren't reporting cases so that schools won't have data indicating spread. Therefore, schools can stay open. It's a recipe for disaster. 

"Meaningfull Way" would indicate their data shows most children who get covid do so in situations other than school.

But since school is where a child is with others the greatest portion of the day that's hard for me to believe.

I’m sure there are some parents here who don’t get their kids tested as well. Some kids are sick for half a day and then they feel better and Covid doesn’t cross everyone’s mind. Our pedi and our school infectious disease expert think that once symptoms are gone the ability to pass on the virus is gone (in kids) but I don’t know exactly. Dd 11 was home with a stuffy nose in October. I kept her home until the stuffy nose was gone (3 days). She received a negative Covid test on day 1. The school didn’t require a negative Covid test for her to return. They required no symptom. If someone in our house or a contact of hers was positive she would have required a negative test to return.

I feel so hopefully with Britain approving the Covid vaccine today. I can’t wait for school to return to normal.

The rest of the world implements lock downs by closing highest risk activities first and prioritizes keeping students in school. The US closes schools first. My kid's school just went to all remote learning. But everything else is still open - just the generic - no personal gatherings - but someone just asked my daughter if she was going to an in person ballet class this morning. Because you know 10 kids in a classroom is extremely dangerous, but 10 people in a ballet studio is super safe.

www.cnn.com/2020/11/13/world/schools-covid-europe-us-lockdown-intl/index.html

In our state, districts can still choose what can be offered, but the state has closed gyms, indoor and outdoor youth sports, bars and restaurants.

Most districts are full remote or hybrid only for elementary now, but some are still meeting more than that. I know my district plans of going back to hybrid secondary/f2f elementary in January, but our community spread is really high, and I don't know it will go down enough by then.  I would agree that at the high school, KNOWN school spread was limited.  It was the lack of subs for teachers due to covid/quarantined and the last couple weeks the community spread made it really hard for students as well.  We had a lot of students out due to covid (with symptoms for many since I teach HS) and contact tracing on sports teams and lunch/social groups.

Of course, the loudest anit-mask/anti-shutdown/"let them play" people are usually the loudest about kids being in school and don't see the irony in that at all.  

Almost everyone wants to go back to school.  Hopefully, people start figuring it out, so we can get community spread down to pre-October levels.  There are still a lot of anti-maskers/deniers at various levels in my area, but they are shifting some since it is pretty hard to deny the seriousness when everyone knows people who have it, got really sick with it and most know or know of people who have died with it in the area.