2021/2022 School Year

Michelle Nelson4 said:It feels like some people here have thousands of posts, yet they act like they just landed from Mars. It’s been over for a long time; anyone who has recovered or been vaccinated isn't heading to intensive care. Besides, the standard protocol is for an epidemiologist to mandate isolation for the classroom, with a note stating that anyone providing proof of recovery or vaccination (which is a relatively recent update) can step forward to receive an exemption.

Well, I suppose that protocol looks fine on paper, but in the real world, it doesn't really work that way.
It feels like they just go ahead and mandate the shots for everyone without any exceptions, and since most high schoolers are just hanging out online anyway, they don't even bother reaching out to claim those exemptions if they were recently sick 🤣(actually, a huge chunk of them caught it last year between October and December when things were getting pretty chaotic, so the whole "prior infection" thing doesn't even apply to them anymore)
I mean, ask me how I know.😒
The wheel keeps spinning, I guess; it never really ends.🤦

Michelle Nelson4 said:It feels like some people here have thousands of posts, yet they act like they just landed from Mars. It’s been over for a long time; anyone who has recovered or been vaccinated isn't heading to intensive care. Besides, the standard protocol is for an epidemiologist to mandate isolation for the classroom, with a note stating that anyone providing proof of recovery or vaccination (which is a relatively recent update) can step forward to receive an exemption.

Since when was that "ages ago"? How are parents supposed to know? They don't even notify the parents.
A standard notification would look like this: "Good morning parents, this is Slavko, the teacher. We have one positive student; children are being sent into quarantine as contacts, but those with proof of prior infection or vaccination will be exempt."

Does anyone actually think people have the patience to follow their nonsense and take them seriously?
I stopped taking any of this seriously back when Plenković's fist bump with Djokovic happened.

A more competent government would have conducted widespread serology testing across the entire student population before the school year started. That would have made it perfectly clear who needs to quarantine and what the health risks are, ensuring classes could proceed without interruption.

I'm reading through this now.
Not a single one of these criteria has actually been evaluated. What the epidemiologists are doing is a total mess—shoving students into homeschooling exactly 96 hours after some supposed contact without even checking if anyone shows symptoms is just pure incompetence.
They’re obsessed with bureaucratic paperwork instead of actually monitoring what’s happening on the ground over a four-day period.

"- spending time in an indoor setting (like a classroom, a conference room, or a waiting area in a healthcare
facility, etc.) with someone who has COVID-19 at a distance of less than six feet for a duration
longer than 15 minutes – spending time indoors at a distance greater than six feet might
still constitute close contact, depending on whether the sick person has symptoms, mask usage, and the ventilation
of the room… every single indoor contact needs to be assessed on an individual basis"

Quote:>

urbantinker8 says: Look, nobody—and I mean absolutely NOBODY—can force you to pick an elective subject. So, your "no" is perfectly valid. I honestly have no idea why you're having this massive meltdown right now. If you ended up saying "yes" anyway, well, that’s on you. Spilling your guts all over this forum isn't going to change the outcome. Furthermore—yeah, epidemiologists are sending entire classrooms into isolation again because following some vague, half-baked "stay left, stay right" guideline is basically impossible.🤦> Kids aren't wearing masks en masse, some schools are reverting to in-person instruction, kids are mingling with everyone instead of sitting with the same three friends, and don't even get me started on the chaos of arriving at school or those weekend parties. God, it looks like we're headed for another fake "online" school year, just long enough for 100% of the adult population to get vaccinated. Kids are just going to keep passing this plague back and forth; who knows how many new mutations will pop up or how dangerous they'll be for that age group? And since they're supposedly "safe" right now, there won't be any peace until scientists start aggressively pushing for mandatory vaccinations for everyone from infants to eighteen-year-olds.🙄>

urbantinker8, please, where is this hysteria coming from? It's not like that. Of course I didn't pressure my kid into an elective just because of rural life. I don't have a problem with anyone. If they don't want to do it, they don't do it, and the teacher should just do their job. My enrollment was a critique of the system—not just regarding COVID and masks, but everything else. In this case, even these stupid electives; it feels like they're trying every trick in the book to manipulate people through pressure. No matter how you spin it, things never seem to work out when you're dealing with a bunch of slackers.

The main motivation here isn't about education or the kids (and schools exist for the kids, after all)—it's about "how can I make things convenient for myself." When it comes to COVID, plenty of people working in schools haven't hesitated to label children as "spreaders" or the most dangerous part of the population. They act like kids are just a nuisance... like useless burdens that need to be locked away at home. Honestly, spit on teachers like that. They should be the first ones to understand what this does to children. Seriously... Here come the official guidelines, yet they still try to force everyone to stay home. I don't hear the schools protesting. Oh, kids are socializing? Well, adults socialize too, don't they? I honestly don't know how you people deal with yourselves...

It feels like it’s always easiest to play the disciplinarian when dealing with kids. Even after all those various tests are conducted, they still go ahead and force an entire classroom into isolation just because of one single case of infection. Doesn't it seem to me that these epidemiologists, who appear to be driven more by political agendas than anything else, are exponentially spreading nothing but nonsense?

Susan James said:Think about it—you’d have a teacher or a homeroom instructor who’d essentially have to take the heat for naming "Student A" and "Student B" just because they sat closest to someone testing positive. Without having to dig through every single lesson plan or grading sheet, how many teachers do you honestly think would step up and pick two specific kids? Instead, they’ll likely just invite a parent into the mix—one parent who refuses to let their child go into remote learning, versus five others who are desperate for it because their kid didn't make the cut for some selective program.

On the flip side, we spent the entire last school year hearing about constant infections, yet high schools saw a massive wave of positive cases.
There must be a significant number of people who have been vaccinated; otherwise, the local health officials would have been panicking on these forums all year long. Remember, the vaccinated group includes those with probable infections who haven't even taken a test yet, plus those using rapid tests. I’ve heard about plenty of vaccinated high schoolers, not just the 16+ crowd.

So, picture this: out of 25 students, 15 are vaccinated and 5 are not. Most don't even need to switch to remote learning. Are we really going to hold online classes just because of those 5? They might not have even been near the infected student, and they're probably wearing masks anyway.
In my opinion, that's only an issue if a teacher personally prefers teaching online and is pushing for it.

If the majority of the class is moving to remote learning, then sure, everyone goes online.
Though, if you ask me, kids could actually use the exposure right now. It’s still sunny and warm outside, so they can spend plenty of time outdoors. Plus, they’ve built up their Vitamin D levels over the summer, and vaccines are still doing their job for the elderly. It feels a bit silly to force them into isolation and keep them cooped up at home—who are we actually protecting? Is it just the ones who are hesitant about the vaccine?
Maybe just give them two days of isolation, run a quick test, and send them back to school.

It seems like we are constantly trying to protect the people who won't get vaccinated. But it's pretty clear that those of us who haven't been vaccinated don't want to be "protected" in that way—we just want a normal life and to take personal responsibility for our own health.

mellowskipper said:It seems like we are constantly trying to protect the people who won't get vaccinated. But it's pretty clear that those of us who haven't been vaccinated don't want to be "protected" in that way—we just want a normal life and to take personal responsibility for our own health.

Well... what exactly haven't you recovered from yet?
Even if your immunity has technically worn off, there's still a chance it holds up. It seems silly to force people into isolation, and it also seems silly to insist on vaccination.

In places like Seattle, where they don't get much sun, immunity usually lasts about 12 months.
If schools were hit hard last fall, those kids should still have some lingering protection today.
Plus, it's not like you won't catch something if you have minimal exposure, but at least you have some resistance. 🤔
This whole idea of forced isolation, especially for kids, really needs to end.
If you're sick, stay home. If you're fine, get out there.

Anyone who was worried could have protected themselves with the vaccine. Look at Florida—it's a huge hotspot, but it's still packed with tourists. The only ones I see stuck in isolation are students.
(And even those poor students sitting in cafes right outside their school! Someone really needs to tell them to move a block or two down the street.)

placidnomad87 said:It feels like it’s always easiest to play the disciplinarian when dealing with kids. Even after all those various tests are conducted, they still go ahead and force an entire classroom into isolation just because of one single case of infection. Doesn't it seem to me that these epidemiologists, who appear to be driven more by political agendas than anything else, are exponentially spreading nothing but nonsense?

And they are—mostly through sheer laziness.
Instead of actually assessing the situation on the ground through real contact tracing, testing, and looking at the clinical symptoms of students to make informed decisions, they fight the pandemic with bureaucratic red tape like these COVID passes.

Susan James said:Well... what exactly haven't you recovered from yet?
Even if your immunity has technically worn off, there's still a chance it holds up. It seems silly to force people into isolation, and it also seems silly to insist on vaccination.

In places like Seattle, where they don't get much sun, immunity usually lasts about 12 months.
If schools were hit hard last fall, those kids should still have some lingering protection today.
Plus, it's not like you won't catch something if you have minimal exposure, but at least you have some resistance. 🤔
This whole idea of forced isolation, especially for kids, really needs to end.
If you're sick, stay home. If you're fine, get out there.

Anyone who was worried could have protected themselves with the vaccine. Look at Florida—it's a huge hotspot, but it's still packed with tourists. The only ones I see stuck in isolation are students.
(And even those poor students sitting in cafes right outside their school! Someone really needs to tell them to move a block or two down the street.)

They expect healthy children to endure ten days of total solitude.
Because "isolation" is supposed to mean being alone, but that's not how it works in reality. These students are just cut off from the world while still having constant contact with everyone else in their household. Someone actually thinks it's possible to maintain true isolation in a 600-square-foot apartment with multiple people living there.
But hey, as long as they follow the protocol. If they started testing all other gathering spots—shopping malls, retail chains, government offices, sports clubs, military bases, police stations—absolutely everything would be locked down if they applied the same laziness and flawed logic used by these school epidemiologists.

Alex Roberts4 said:Quote:>

urbantinker8 says: Look, nobody—and I mean absolutely NOBODY—can force you to pick an elective subject. So, your "no" is perfectly valid. I honestly have no idea why you're having this massive meltdown right now. If you ended up saying "yes" anyway, well, that’s on you. Spilling your guts all over this forum isn't going to change the outcome. Furthermore—yeah, epidemiologists are sending entire classrooms into isolation again because following some vague, half-baked "stay left, stay right" guideline is basically impossible.🤦> Kids aren't wearing masks en masse, some schools are reverting to in-person instruction, kids are mingling with everyone instead of sitting with the same three friends, and don't even get me started on the chaos of arriving at school or those weekend parties. God, it looks like we're headed for another fake "online" school year, just long enough for 100% of the adult population to get vaccinated. Kids are just going to keep passing this plague back and forth; who knows how many new mutations will pop up or how dangerous they'll be for that age group? And since they're supposedly "safe" right now, there won't be any peace until scientists start aggressively pushing for mandatory vaccinations for everyone from infants to eighteen-year-olds.🙄>

urbantinker8, please, where is this hysteria coming from? It's not like that. Of course I didn't pressure my kid into an elective just because of rural life. I don't have a problem with anyone. If they don't want to do it, they don't do it, and the teacher should just do their job. My enrollment was a critique of the system—not just regarding COVID and masks, but everything else. In this case, even these stupid electives; it feels like they're trying every trick in the book to manipulate people through pressure. No matter how you spin it, things never seem to work out when you're dealing with a bunch of slackers.

The main motivation here isn't about education or the kids (and schools exist for the kids, after all)—it's about "how can I make things convenient for myself." When it comes to COVID, plenty of people working in schools haven't hesitated to label children as "spreaders" or the most dangerous part of the population. They act like kids are just a nuisance... like useless burdens that need to be locked away at home. Honestly, spit on teachers like that. They should be the first ones to understand what this does to children. Seriously... Here come the official guidelines, yet they still try to force everyone to stay home. I don't hear the schools protesting. Oh, kids are socializing? Well, adults socialize too, don't they? I honestly don't know how you people deal with yourselves...

it feels like nobody does.
but I guess what can we really do about it? am I supposed to just march down to the Department of Health or the Department of Education and go on a hunger strike until they scrap these isolation rules for everyone?🤣

Susan James said:Well... what exactly haven't you recovered from yet?
Even if your immunity has technically worn off, there's still a chance it holds up. It seems silly to force people into isolation, and it also seems silly to insist on vaccination.

In places like Seattle, where they don't get much sun, immunity usually lasts about 12 months.
If schools were hit hard last fall, those kids should still have some lingering protection today.
Plus, it's not like you won't catch something if you have minimal exposure, but at least you have some resistance. 🤔
This whole idea of forced isolation, especially for kids, really needs to end.
If you're sick, stay home. If you're fine, get out there.

Anyone who was worried could have protected themselves with the vaccine. Look at Florida—it's a huge hotspot, but it's still packed with tourists. The only ones I see stuck in isolation are students.
(And even those poor students sitting in cafes right outside their school! Someone really needs to tell them to move a block or two down the street.)

well, we aren't living in Scandinavia. ☕
the big surge happened between October and December last year (though I suppose some people still refuse to believe that😂) so for those kids, that whole bit of immunity—which is basically just an administrative technicality anyway—has either already run out or is running out right about now.
it's just one of those things.
and so, once again, everyone is eligible for isolation.
it just never seems to end.

coastalorca43 said:And they are—mostly through sheer laziness.
Instead of actually assessing the situation on the ground through real contact tracing, testing, and looking at the clinical symptoms of students to make informed decisions, they fight the pandemic with bureaucratic red tape like these COVID passes.

They expect healthy children to endure ten days of total solitude.
Because "isolation" is supposed to mean being alone, but that's not how it works in reality. These students are just cut off from the world while still having constant contact with everyone else in their household. Someone actually thinks it's possible to maintain true isolation in a 600-square-foot apartment with multiple people living there.
But hey, as long as they follow the protocol. If they started testing all other gathering spots—shopping malls, retail chains, government offices, sports clubs, military bases, police stations—absolutely everything would be locked down if they applied the same laziness and flawed logic used by these school epidemiologists.

I suppose I agree with you, though I should probably mention that there's no such thing as "school health officials."

Susan James said:Think about it—you’d have a teacher or a homeroom instructor who’d essentially have to take the heat for naming "Student A" and "Student B" just because they sat closest to someone testing positive. Without having to dig through every single lesson plan or grading sheet, how many teachers do you honestly think would step up and pick two specific kids? Instead, they’ll likely just invite a parent into the mix—one parent who refuses to let their child go into remote learning, versus five others who are desperate for it because their kid didn't make the cut for some selective program.

On the flip side, we spent the entire last school year hearing about constant infections, yet high schools saw a massive wave of positive cases.
There must be a significant number of people who have been vaccinated; otherwise, the local health officials would have been panicking on these forums all year long. Remember, the vaccinated group includes those with probable infections who haven't even taken a test yet, plus those using rapid tests. I’ve heard about plenty of vaccinated high schoolers, not just the 16+ crowd.

So, picture this: out of 25 students, 15 are vaccinated and 5 are not. Most don't even need to switch to remote learning. Are we really going to hold online classes just because of those 5? They might not have even been near the infected student, and they're probably wearing masks anyway.
In my opinion, that's only an issue if a teacher personally prefers teaching online and is pushing for it.

If the majority of the class is moving to remote learning, then sure, everyone goes online.
Though, if you ask me, kids could actually use the exposure right now. It’s still sunny and warm outside, so they can spend plenty of time outdoors. Plus, they’ve built up their Vitamin D levels over the summer, and vaccines are still doing their job for the elderly. It feels a bit silly to force them into isolation and keep them cooped up at home—who are we actually protecting? Is it just the ones who are hesitant about the vaccine?
Maybe just give them two days of isolation, run a quick test, and send them back to school.

From where I’m standing, I’m pretty convinced those types don't even exist—and if they do, they’re definitely some kind of weirdo.

Every single professor I personally know seems to be dealing with some sort of digital-age burnout from all that remote learning.

urbantinker8 said:I suppose I agree with you, though I should probably mention that there's no such thing as "school health officials."

It’s perfectly clear to me: there is simply an epidemiologist responsible for that specific school district.

coastalorca43 said:Since when was that "ages ago"? How are parents supposed to know? They don't even notify the parents.
A standard notification would look like this: "Good morning parents, this is Slavko, the teacher. We have one positive student; children are being sent into quarantine as contacts, but those with proof of prior infection or vaccination will be exempt."

Does anyone actually think people have the patience to follow their nonsense and take them seriously?
I stopped taking any of this seriously back when Plenković's fist bump with Djokovic happened.

A more competent government would have conducted widespread serology testing across the entire student population before the school year started. That would have made it perfectly clear who needs to quarantine and what the health risks are, ensuring classes could proceed without interruption.

We got a message from the teacher first, then a phone call, and finally an official email. Those who already had it or were vaccinated don't have to go for testing. Also, under the new protocol, if they were wearing masks during testing, only the ones within 2m of the case have to go—not the entire class like they did last year.

That's how it went for us in California.

hiddendriver34 said:From where I’m standing, I’m pretty convinced those types don't even exist—and if they do, they’re definitely some kind of weirdo.

Every single professor I personally know seems to be dealing with some sort of digital-age burnout from all that remote learning.

Same here, honestly.
I mean, I get this actual psychosomatic reaction whenever someone even brings up the concept of online classes.
Or when people talk about hybrid setups—you know, half the class on screen and half in the room.
It honestly makes me feel physically ill.

And just to throw another thing in there—SI isn't even 10 days anymore, it's actually 14.

Karen Wilson5 said:We got a message from the teacher first, then a phone call, and finally an official email. Those who already had it or were vaccinated don't have to go for testing. Also, under the new protocol, if they were wearing masks during testing, only the ones within 2m of the case have to go—not the entire class like they did last year.

That's how it went for us in California.

Things are slightly different in New York City, I suppose.

And yeah—in-person classes were brought back after 14 freaking days. 🙂

So, they're just calculating everything retroactively? It apparently only takes them four days to actually define anything.
In the meantime, the students are just left hanging.
Just yesterday—well, not me, but my kid's teacher informed us that the IEP lasts until September 22nd. Honestly, as a parent, I haven't even received an official notification yet. If my kid were trying to pull a fast one on me, I wouldn't even realize what was happening, considering we're already on day five.
According to the records, the IEP started on the 8th, yet I still haven't seen a single formal notice.

It's been 14 days since the contact, yeah.

coastalorca43 said:So, they're just calculating everything retroactively? It apparently only takes them four days to actually define anything.
In the meantime, the students are just left hanging.
Just yesterday—well, not me, but my kid's teacher informed us that the IEP lasts until September 22nd. Honestly, as a parent, I haven't even received an official notification yet. If my kid were trying to pull a fast one on me, I wouldn't even realize what was happening, considering we're already on day five.
According to the records, the IEP started on the 8th, yet I still haven't seen a single formal notice.

Last year, my kids ended up on medical leave five times total, give or take.
Not once did anyone ever call us. Our family doctor and the pediatrician both told us they don't really care about those specific diagnoses unless we actually start showing symptoms ourselves, and we'd usually only get the email regarding the medical leave halfway through the recovery period anyway.
The whole system just doesn't function the way it's supposed to, and I guess we shouldn't be all that surprised by it anymore.👎

The entire system is just bogged down in bureaucracy, obsessed with checking boxes rather than actually tackling the real health threats and plagues we should be preventing or fixing through decisive action where timing and consistency are everything.
To make a long story short.
They’re playing games with COVID-19. And they're doing it incredibly sloppily right in front of our eyes.