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I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

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Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#461

Post by darth_avocado »

labster wrote: post #368
darth_avocado wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be year 3 of covid and this is 100% the fault of the same people who have created every other problem in the education system: the administrators. There is no perfect way to open schools, that much is certain after looking at other countries. But looking at the state of things, it doesn’t even seem like people are trying. Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capa…

If students only come in every other day, schools will only receive 50% funding in the US. In Japan, schools are often privately funded, but a solution that cuts public funding of education by half in the US is a non-starter. It would likely take a constitutional amendment in California to change the school budget formula. But we’re not going to have a third year of COVID anyway. Nearly everyone is going to catch the…

I’m not aware of this funding logic but how does this even work? Like in COVID, all students were remote, but finding never stopped. And last I checked, if my kid doesn’t go to school for a week, school funding doesn’t get impacted. I mean coming in on alternate days doesn’t mean you’re not learning, you can still do online classes on that day.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#462

Post by darth_avocado »

timr wrote: post #425
darth_avocado wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be year 3 of covid and this is 100% the fault of the same people who have created every other problem in the education system: the administrators. There is no perfect way to open schools, that much is certain after looking at other countries. But looking at the state of things, it doesn’t even seem like people are trying. Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capa…

> Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capacity. Mask mandates, social distancing and temperature checks are enforced strictly. Citation? I am familiar with Japan's national Covid policies, and I have heard nothing of this. In general, Japan allows the prefectures to make their own decisions, and for issues like this, prefectures issue requests , not mandates. This paper…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japan-coro...

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#464

Post by Spivak »

whimsicalism wrote: post #429
rdl wrote: post #84

This sounds like some kind of incarceration or at best day care program, rather than actual learning. Unclear if that is the baseline for schools vs something specific to a Covid surge. I don’t have children but if I were to do so I don’t think I would put them in a schoool like this for 12+ years.

Many schools are basically an incarceration like day care program.

You didn’t have “SCHOOL IS A PRISON” as random thing to shout back in your day?

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#465

Post by stefan_ »

gus_massa wrote: post #83
II2II wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus is dangerous, albeit not in the way that most people think. Our institutions, like health care and education, have been running so close to the edge for so long that the added pressure is pushing them over the edge. Before the pandemic, teachers would show up to work sick since they knew there may not be a substitute to take their place (and certainly not a substitute who would ensure continuity in teaching…

> Our institutions, like health care and education, have been running so close to the edge Do you have some hard numbers about this? Here in Buenos Aires we had a big wave in July 2021, and we had a daily report of the ICU occupation rate and at the peak it was like 95%. We delayed some medical procedures to keep the number under 100% and there was a huge discussion about increasing the lockdown. Lucky, we keep the n…

The ICU will never be "over capacity". At that level of occupation, there is permanent triage (oh no! bad word! the ethicists haven't written their op-eds yet!) as the "least likely to die" patients are moved out of the close observation in ICU. Make no mistake, when ICUs are full of COVID patients, it is a really bad time to be in a car crash or have any other kind of emergency.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#466

Post by sva_ »

stefan_ wrote: post #426
sva_ wrote: post #365

I read this post earlier today, and found it quite shocking. I really hope this is an exception rather than the normal. I previously didn't think about it this way, and thought closing schools was the more sensible choice. But we're failing a whole generation like this. It more and more feels like we live in a society that sarcrifices their young, just to keep old people on their life support machines a little longer…

I don't understand. This is what you took away from this? I thought this post shows that keeping schools open is an absolute fantasy. This is one of the best funded schools in NYC; it's going to be absolute shambles in the rest of them.

It seemed to me like remote schooling leads to students not paying attention at all (in particular younger students who need guidance), and just minimizing the stream while doing other stuff, based on other posts I read. Hence it seems like a lose-lose.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#467

Post by jonnydubowsky »

Blackthorn wrote: post #435
darth_avocado wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be year 3 of covid and this is 100% the fault of the same people who have created every other problem in the education system: the administrators. There is no perfect way to open schools, that much is certain after looking at other countries. But looking at the state of things, it doesn’t even seem like people are trying. Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capa…

> the administrators What throws me about all this is that their entire job, the reason they draw a paycheck in the first place, their raisin d'oatmeal, is to keep things running smoothly when the unexpected happens. Now going into year three and they've managed to do fuck all to create solutions. Which is, y'know, their JOB. Generally they've just made problems worse by sticking their noses into things. What the hel…

"raisin d'oatmeal" is my new favorite saying.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#468

Post by Laforet »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #406
labster wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If students only come in every other day, schools will only receive 50% funding in the US. In Japan, schools are often privately funded, but a solution that cuts public funding of education by half in the US is a non-starter. It would likely take a constitutional amendment in California to change the school budget formula. But we’re not going to have a third year of COVID anyway. Nearly everyone is going to catch the…

Dumb question and I realize it may be. I've seen that said before, "Nearly everyone is going to catch omicron within the next 2 to 6 months"; the range changes both the quote is similar. I haven't really seen a why, it just seems to be a given. I know it's more virulent, but why is everyone going to have it so soon?

Virulence refers to the ability of a pathogen to cause disease. Omicron is not more virulent. If anything it is likely to be much less virulent as it lacks the ability to infect lung tissue.

On the other hand because the infection is now concentrated in the upper respiratory tract, patients are much more likely to exhale and spread the virus. On top of that, the virus has sufficiently mutated thus existing vaccines and prior infections have very limited protection. Combined with the lack of ventilation and increased time spent indoors in winter, this translates to more infections.

I don't know whether "everyone" is going to get it eventually. However I have heard anecdotes that multiple insular communities in the US that have largely avoided the previous Covid strains are now badly afflicted by omicron. That is how infectious the virus is.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#469

Post by MisterBastahrd »

steveylang wrote: post #334

The current procedures in place were for a Delta pandemic. If schools are to remain open now, the rules need to reflect Omicron. Either you believe Omicron is contagious enough that you have to go back to 100% remote learning, or it is generally harmless enough (especially if you’re vaccinated) that you don’t have such strict standards in place (I am for the latter but that’s just my opinion.) But the situation descr…

Covid isn't some seasonal ensemble. It's still very possible to catch the Delta variant.

Re: I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control

#470

Post by timr »

darth_avocado wrote: post #462
timr wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan has students come in on alternate days, so that the school can operate at 50% capacity. Mask mandates, social distancing and temperature checks are enforced strictly. Citation? I am familiar with Japan's national Covid policies, and I have heard nothing of this. In general, Japan allows the prefectures to make their own decisions, and for issues like this, prefectures issue requests , not mandates. This paper…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/japan-coro...

So a link from June 2020. The CBS news link I posted post-dates it, and contradicts it.

Edit: actually, it doesn't even contradict it, per se. The articles are saying the same thing, but the WaPo story just tries to generalize from a single school, without admitting it. FTA:

> At Hoyonomori Gakuen, a school in Tokyo’s Shinagawa ward, the new rules, including temperature checks, are set down in a 28-point plan designed by the school to minimize risks.

So, again, the schools determine their response. This is also my understanding of the situation.

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