AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18

[utee94 15825]

3 minutes ago, mdmost said:

We just had the close call where our oldest complained of a sore throat to the school nurse so we had to come pick her up on Wednesday. Called the pediatrician who told us to come in for a swab test. Tested positive for strep and today tested negative for Covid. So that was fun. So I guess she can come out of her room now as she's already on meds for strep. 

Glad to hear it's the strep and not the rona, hope she recovers quickly!

 

[Your Mom 4806]

Basketball in AISD is being played with masks on.  Also visiting teams are not allowed to have any spectators.  Home teams can have 2 spectators per player.  I was at a middle school game last night and there were less than 20 people in the bleachers in the entire gym.  7 players and a single coach per team on the opposite side of the gym.  Of course they are still having contact and heavy breathing through the masks.  It's certainly less safe than a masked-up outdoor sport.  But for our kid who doesn't play any of the outdoor sports offered right now and who has seen his friends exactly one time in the last 10 months the benefit outweighs the risk.  

Apparently all sports are now required to be played and practiced with masks on, without exception.  Our cross country runner was previously required to wear the mask during warm ups and strength work but could take it off during runs as long as they stayed distanced from each other.  Not anymore.  They'll be running 11 miles at Town Lake this weekend masked up for the entire run.   

I'm not complaining about any of this and I realize that it's not free of risk.  But it's also not the super spreader event the crazy mom-crowd on FB is making it out to be.  

[Born to Run 6569]

Basketball in AISD is being played with masks on.  Also visiting teams are not allowed to have any spectators.  Home teams can have 2 spectators per player.  I was at a middle school game last night and there were less than 20 people in the bleachers in the entire gym.  7 players and a single coach per team on the opposite side of the gym.  Of course they are still having contact and heavy breathing through the masks.  It's certainly less safe than a masked-up outdoor sport.  But for our kid who doesn't play any of the outdoor sports offered right now and who has seen his friends exactly one time in the last 10 months the benefit outweighs the risk.  
Apparently all sports are now required to be played and practiced with masks on, without exception.  Our cross country runner was previously required to wear the mask during warm ups and strength work but could take it off during runs as long as they stayed distanced from each other.  Not anymore.  They'll be running 11 miles at Town Lake this weekend masked up for the entire run.   
I'm not complaining about any of this and I realize that it's not free of risk.  But it's also not the super spreader event the crazy mom-crowd on FB is making it out to be.  

Yeah my kid played soccer in Aisd and they had to wear mask the entire practice and games. Several games cancelled because a shortage of players and grades.

Oddly his club team do mask at practice but refs were not letting players on the field with masks during games. Inconsistent shit.

[XYZ 2154]

In a sport such as basketball does anybody think that masks are gonna make much of a difference?

[Ollie Slatt 289]

At Gullett Elementary they have been strongly discouraging kids from coming in person even though the school has had virtually no cases (only one case per the AISD dashboard and no new cases).  Parents have been getting almost daily emails suggesting not to send the kids this week or next week.  The expressed rational is that AISD wants to minimize the spread and better allow for social distancing.  But, for my son's grade, the school consolidated all of the kids still attending in person into a single classroom for this week . . . so there was even less distancing than before.   To make matters worse, that classroom cycled through a different teacher everyday this week, so there cannot even be an argument that this move is about protecting the teachers from exposure.  The approach does not make any sense.  

This whole year has been frustrating.  It appears the principal has been MIA from campus all year, and there does not appear to be much accountability for the teachers.  The kids literally play on an iPad all day.  My second grader has not had a spelling test all year and is currently at a lower reading level than he was at last year.  When we raised this issue with his teacher, the only response was that we should not worry because he is ahead of most of the other children in his class, which is not at all reassuring.   

[atomheartbevo 89686]

AISD is asking the in-person folks to send their kids back if they had them out the past few weeks.

Quote

Below please find the data we are using to make this determination:  Austin ISD

• There has been a 35% decrease in daily positive cases reported since the first week of returning from Winter Break.
• There has been a 28% decrease in the cumulative number of weekly cases reported to the district since the first week of returning from Winter Break.
• The district currently has a 4.01% positivity rate. This is a 43% decrease from the positivity rate that we were seeing in the district before and right after Winter Break (our highest positivity rate was 7.07%).

Quote

Austin/Travis County. While we are still considered to be in Stage 5 in Austin/Travis County, we are seeing a decrease in positive cases within Austin/Travis County.

• The current positivity rate of 12.8% for Austin/Travis County is a 28% decrease from the overall positivity rate that we saw returning from Winter Break (17.8%). In the past 3 days, the positivity rate for Austin/Travis County has decreased by almost 21%.

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by atomheartbevo

[Anastasis 23474]

Data out of UK on transmissibility by age and activity type.   Doesn't really say what if any mitigation plans were in place or modeled for the education setting.

 

 

[Gardner Barnes 1562]

Eanes apparently thinks they are the honey Badger since the new year.  Despite high positivity and lots of parents avoiding getting their kids tested it’s over 50 percent back even in high school.  We’re keeping our kids out of even extra curricular school activities for the next few weeks until this wave passes.
I am kind of surprised unless vaccination is just so out in front of everyone else (it’s not)

Whs is on fire this week. A few fucking football parents threw a post game 500 person party at the Lowes hotel.

Now the positives are starting to pile up.

[Anastasis 23474]

26 minutes ago, Gardner Barnes said:

Whs is on fire this week. A few fucking football parents threw a post game 500 person party at the Lowes hotel.

Now the positives are starting to pile up.

People are fucking stupid. 

[Captainant 27679]

28 minutes ago, Gardner Barnes said:

Whs is on fire this week. A few fucking football parents threw a post game 500 person party at the Lowes hotel.

Now the positives are starting to pile up.

[Gardner Barnes 1562]

People are fucking stupid. 

Yep.

Now a science teacher is in the hospital. Not related to the FB party but probable honeybadger school transmission

[BrazilHorn 6611]

12 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

AISD is asking the in-person folks to send their kids back if they had them out the past few weeks.

 

The district pos rate data is horseshit. Where are they getting the denominator from? You don't have to declare when you get tested if you are an AISD student or not.

They must be using only from those that are tested at AISD sites that were opened up. Just a stupid metric and hospital admits are higher then when they sent their "stay the fuck home" email.

Middle & High Schools ( at least O'Henry and Austin High) were fucking ghost towns even before the stay home email. There were like 70 kids at OHMS in person prior to that note being sent. Austin High I think even fewer.

I don't trust the data that was sent as part of this note due to fact that they aren't truly tracking at this level.

 

[atomheartbevo 89686]

AISD has done a massive update to their dashboard, with pretty charts.

[GRHorn 105]

15 hours ago, Gardner Barnes said:

 

 

Whs is on fire this week. A few fucking football parents threw a post game 500 person party at the Lowes hotel.

Now the positives are starting to pile up.

 

 

How many kids are positive there? Just trying to get a gauge on what counts for on fire. 

[atomheartbevo 89686]

Heads up, just got this email (already knew about it)

This is a reminder that this Friday, Jan. 29 is our first asynchronous day. On this day all students will participate in online lessons off campus. To be prepared for this day, students are encouraged to take home their laptops and devices by Thursday. To further protect our community from the spread of COVID-19, Austin ISD will use this time to do additional deep cleanings of our campuses. 

Please take a moment to mark your calendars for the following asynchronous days:

• Friday, Jan. 29
• Friday, Feb. 26
• Friday, March 5
• Friday, April 9

[Your Mom 4806]

On 1/12/2021 at 9:57 AM, BrazilHorn said:

Just checked the data through Jan 2nd. There are 4 confirmed caught on campus cases for students & staff for all of AISD, all other cases were off campus.

Quoting an older post, but I’m curious where you’re getting that from. I’m more interested in the contact tracing data than positivity rates and total cases but I’m not seeing that data on the AISD dashboard. 

[BrazilHorn 6611]

1 minute ago, Your Mom said:

Quoting an older post, but I’m curious where you’re getting that from. I’m more interested in the contact tracing data than positivity rates and total cases but I’m not seeing that data on the AISD dashboard. 

https://dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus/schools/texas-education-agency/

They update by week. You can search by school district. The dashboard AISD shows counts ALL cases whether or not it occurred in school or not so it tends to misrepresent the impact in terms of CV19 exposure to teachers/staff.

All the data shows that in school transmission is far lower than typical "outside world" transmission

Here is a synopsis of three recent studies that have emerged

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/01/three-studies-highlight-low-covid-risk-person-school

With all of the screening prior to school admission every day, mask usage and hand washing/sanitizing I would argue being in school is far safer than being out and about in daily life.

[Homercles 10206]

/Stupid rant asking to get negged: 
 

Does AISD have designated asynchronous days each month for the rest of the year?  RRISD has the first one Monday so teachers can ‘plan’, and I’ve been a little pissy about it because I believe there’s been one full week since early December due to all the holidays and the snow day (which is no ones fault).  
 

It’s probably because my wife is a counselor and therefore I know a lot of teachers, many of whom seem to constantly complain.  They are absolutely underpaid and under appreciated, but between long breaks for holidays, summer off, spring break, frequent long weekends for things like MLK Day...it feels like there’s a shitload of long weekends and ‘staff days’ where they could do this planning without putting parents in more positions to supervise their elementary kids while trying to work themselves.  
 

Again I wouldn’t probably care if I didn’t listen to some teachers complain so much and thankfully I have a white collar job where I can flex my schedule as necessary...don’t know how a lot of y’all do this, or how people with critical in-person jobs manage.  I work plenty of nights and weekends as necessary as it is to make up for the holidays/staff days. 
 

If my kids were older it’d probably be no worries but my oldest is a first grader so beyond holidays I now have four more days this school year where I have to carefully manage my calendar at work.  

[BrazilHorn 6611]

1 hour ago, Homercles said:

/Stupid rant asking to get negged: 
 

Does AISD have designated asynchronous days each month for the rest of the year?  RRISD has the first one Monday so teachers can ‘plan’, and I’ve been a little pissy about it because I believe there’s been one full week since early December due to all the holidays and the snow day (which is no ones fault).  
 

It’s probably because my wife is a counselor and therefore I know a lot of teachers, many of whom seem to constantly complain.  They are absolutely underpaid and under appreciated, but between long breaks for holidays, summer off, spring break, frequent long weekends for things like MLK Day...it feels like there’s a shitload of long weekends and ‘staff days’ where they could do this planning without putting parents in more positions to supervise their elementary kids while trying to work themselves.  
 

Again I wouldn’t probably care if I didn’t listen to some teachers complain so much and thankfully I have a white collar job where I can flex my schedule as necessary...don’t know how a lot of y’all do this, or how people with critical in-person jobs manage.  I work plenty of nights and weekends as necessary as it is to make up for the holidays/staff days. 
 

If my kids were older it’d probably be no worries but my oldest is a first grader so beyond holidays I now have four more days this school year where I have to carefully manage my calendar at work.  

The asynch day is the biggest horseshit. We are told it’s to deep clean school. 
Fine if so but why not have a full day of work via Zoom. Instead students were given minimal (practically zero) work assigned via Blend and my 8th and 5th grader were done by 9:00. 
It’s just stupid. 
I feel for parents who can’t WFH. They’re fucked. 

[atomheartbevo 89686]

 

[atomheartbevo 89686]

In case anybody missed it, AISD is virtual Tuesday for sure, and probably Wednesday.  

 

[Cruisrad 7]

My son plays basketball at GMS and my daughter plays soccer at Bowie. You wouldn’t know they attend the same school district based on the differences in mask enforcement.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

We are done for the week. Too many people without power to even do virtual. Tried to meet with my grade levels today and only about half could get on. What a shit year.

[mdmost 43004]

Dallas ISD is closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Virtual on Thursday and Friday. We won't have to make up the days later which is nice. 

[Bevo Num1 1021]

We are done for the week. Too many people without power to even do virtual. Tried to meet with my grade levels today and only about half could get on. What a shit year.

It's the right thing to do. Why add increased electricity demand when we are beyond capacity in addition to many not having power to begin with.

[South Austin 52515]

Voice mail from AISD said that Friday is asynchronous, but all classes are cancelled through Thursday. 

[XYZ 2154]

4 hours ago, Bevo Num1 said:

4 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

We are done for the week. Too many people without power to even do virtual. Tried to meet with my grade levels today and only about half could get on. What a shit year.

It's the right thing to do. Why add increased electricity demand when we are beyond capacity in addition to many not having power to begin with.

What electricity demand? You mean powering up a computer?

[Bevo Num1 1021]

What electricity demand? You mean powering up a computer?

Yes, times the number of studentsth that need to do it. When you are asked to conserve energy because of current grid conditions, the shit adds up. Plus, no one knows if their power goes out from one hour to the next.

Not to mention asking mobile hotspot bus drivers to drive in adverse conditions to neighborhoods where students live who don't have access to internet in hopes that they have electricity to do their schoolwork that is assigned by a teacher who also hopefully has electricity.

[atomheartbevo 89686]

1 hour ago, Bevo Num1 said:

Yes, times the number of studentsth that need to do it. When you are asked to conserve energy because of current grid conditions, the shit adds up. Plus, no one knows if their power goes out from one hour to the next.

Not to mention asking mobile hotspot bus drivers to drive in adverse conditions to neighborhoods where students live who don't have access to internet in hopes that they have electricity to do their schoolwork that is assigned by a teacher who also hopefully has electricity.
 

They've already said they probably won't be able to provide mobile hotspots.  Those kids without internet would be contacted by phone by teachers.

But I'm hearing Friday will be canceled as well.

I'm taking a few classes at ACC, and two out of three profs keep losing power, and the third is using her phone for internet.   It's the same everywhere - even if you have students who have internet access, their teachers probably live in another part of town and don't, and/or both groups may not even have power.

 

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

Plan childcare for next week. Should be back to “normal” after that. Lots of damaged buildings, water issues, etc.

[atomheartbevo 89686]

3 hours ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Plan childcare for next week. Should be back to “normal” after that. Lots of damaged buildings, water issues, etc.

Got the phone call - off Monday and Tuesday, virtual on Wednesday and Thursday, Async on Friday, then back to "normal" the following Monday.  Gives them a week to get a shit-ton of pallets of bottle water in the schools, and fix all of the problems from the power outages and water pipe problems.

Thanks to Nextdoor/Facebook, I'm hearing which schools have been having problems as well.  

Hopefully the district has their own in-house plumbers.

[SquishMitten 10408]

Don't really know where to post this. We started 2020 off in AISD so we got iPads issued from them. Then we moved to Eanes, got new iPads, and at the end of the year they were very on-top of getting all of them back. But AISD still hasn't asked for theirs back. They don't have bar codes or names on them so I don't think they even kept track of who they gave em out to. Did they ask anybody to return them? Are they waiting to see how next year looks? Or did we all get free iPads? Think there's some kind of tracking on them and a resource officer might come kick my door down?

[atomheartbevo 89686]

6 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Don't really know where to post this. We started 2020 off in AISD so we got iPads issued from them. Then we moved to Eanes, got new iPads, and at the end of the year they were very on-top of getting all of them back. But AISD still hasn't asked for theirs back. They don't have bar codes or names on them so I don't think they even kept track of who they gave em out to. Did they ask anybody to return them? Are they waiting to see how next year looks? Or did we all get free iPads? Think there's some kind of tracking on them and a resource officer might come kick my door down?

They will come looking for them - the iPads have serial numbers and do check in with the mothership.

[atomheartbevo 89686]

AISD = in-person only.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/aisd-heads-back-to-classroom-in-2021-2022-no-online-learning-options/

Quote

There won’t be any online learning in the Austin Independent School District next school year.

AISD officials made the announcement via a press release Friday, saying they are “all-in” on students returning to classrooms in August for the 2021-2022 school year with no virtual option available.

Previously, the AISD board was going to allow a hybrid learning option that combined in-class and online curriculum.

Quote

“By following guidelines from Austin Public Health, the CDC and more, we’re confident we can safely reopen to all our students,” said Anthony Mays, AISD chief of schools. “We know and realize that this will be a big shift for our students, so we’re committed to doing everything possible to help them in that regard.”

 

[SquishMitten 10408]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

They will come looking for them - the iPads have serial numbers and do check in with the mothership.

Lame

[Samson's Wig 3192]

Don't get me wrong, Squish should return them on principal, but AISD is too busy trying to make certain all campuses are failing equally to give two shits about something silly like conserving resources for a school district with no money.  

[Updawg 2267]

My daughter kept her chrome book as well. Are they needed for any kind of summer project? If not it seems like they would have collected them the last week of school.

[Texas Jeff 1945]

2 hours ago, SquishMitten said:

Don't really know where to post this. We started 2020 off in AISD so we got iPads issued from them. Then we moved to Eanes, got new iPads, and at the end of the year they were very on-top of getting all of them back. But AISD still hasn't asked for theirs back. They don't have bar codes or names on them so I don't think they even kept track of who they gave em out to. Did they ask anybody to return them? Are they waiting to see how next year looks? Or did we all get free iPads? Think there's some kind of tracking on them and a resource officer might come kick my door down?

I would just take them back to the campus where you got them, go the office and hand them in.  Most of the campus are pretty vacant right now but I know the admin staff at the high school level will be back in by mid-July or so.  Certainly you could take them back when school resumes.

AISD did send out emails to groups like graduating seniors, people not returning, etc telling them to turn in their technology in May, but you may have missed it if you've completely left the district.

[Texas Jeff 1945]

BTW, Austin ISD's Robin Hood payment is expected to be around $709 million next year.  I think it was around $618 million two or so years ago.  They collect the money; they just can't keep the money.

We are approaching a $10,000 Robin Hood payment per enrolled student -- currently around $9400 per kid.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

Students are keeping devices over the summer unless you leave the district. When we switched to virtual, we made the decision to get devices into student hands as quickly as possible. When we are talking about 80,000 students, it would have taken months of planning to do this in a completely organized way.

These are PTA/school purchased devices pulled off campuses in addition to the newly purchased ones. That’s why some are bar coded and others aren’t. At the beginning of the pandemic we were having bus drivers go campus to campus finding any iPad or chromebook they could, loading them on busses and delivering them to houses. Speed was prioritized over accounting.

[zman13 180]

Feels like we are headed towards a showdown soon. City of Austin may move to Stage 4 soon. TEA says no funding for remote school. AISD says no remote or hybrid school.  Delta variant is spreading. 

[South Austin 52515]

14 minutes ago, zman13 said:

Feels like we are headed towards a showdown soon. City of Austin may move to Stage 4 soon. TEA says no funding for remote school. AISD says no remote or hybrid school.  Delta variant is spreading. 

Unless there are bodies in trees, I don't think Stage 4 will change anything as long as the Governor and the TEA hold firm.  The only decisions will be on the parental level, as we'll decide whether to make our own kids wear masks to school, as the school districts will not be able to mandate masks.

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

I don’t see any changes coming at this point. There isn’t the political will for it. My biggest concern is the number of parents that don’t send their kids back because there will be little social distancing and not many masks. This is disruptive to a school to have so many kids in and out and obviously hurts their eduction. At the most basic level, we staff schools for the number of children. Having 400 in August and 600 in December (after kids are vaxed) it would be a staffing difference of 9-10 teachers.

I don’t expect the numbers to be that drastic, but I am already hearing from parents that won’t be sending their kids back until they are vaccinated.

[utee94 15825]

Just now, Larry T. Spider said:

I don’t see any changes coming at this point. There isn’t the political will for it. My biggest concern is the number of parents that don’t send their kids back because there will be little social distancing and not many masks. This is disruptive to a school to have so many kids in and out and obviously hurts their eduction. At the most basic level, we staff schools for the number of children. Having 400 in August and 600 in December (after kids are vaxed) it would be a staffing difference of 9-10 teachers.

I don’t expect the numbers to be that drastic, but I am already hearing from parents that won’t be sending their kids back until they are vaccinated.

So... what's stopping them from getting their kids vaccinated?  Other than age for those under 12, but that doesn't seem to be what you're addressing.

Vaccination appointments for kids have been readily available all over Austin since June.  That's when we got our 13yo vaccinated, to ensure she'd be 100% by the time school starts.  Our 11yo is not yet eligible but he will be after his birthday in September and that's when we'll get him vaccinated.

 

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

It’s an elementary school so they aren’t eligible yet.

[utee94 15825]

1 minute ago, Larry T. Spider said:

It’s an elementary school so they aren’t eligible yet.

Ok.  So they're waiting for approvals for under 12.  Which might take years, but at earliest I guess I've seen midwinter?

Edited July 20, 2021 by utee94

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

The doctors in my school community seem to think they will have access in October or November.

[South Austin 52515]

9 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I don’t expect the numbers to be that drastic, but I am already hearing from parents that won’t be sending their kids back until they are vaccinated.

Maybe I'm missing something, but if the State isn't allowing a remote option, then what are these parents who won't be sending their kids back going to do?  Home school?

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

5 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Maybe I'm missing something, but if the State isn't allowing a remote option, then what are these parents who won't be sending their kids back going to do?  Home school?

Yep, or setting up pods again. It’s an affluent area.

[South Austin 52515]

1 minute ago, Larry T. Spider said:

Yep, or setting up pods again. It’s an affluent area.

Seems risky to assume that homeschooling or pods can keep up with the school's curriculum, when you don't even know what that curriculum is because there's no remote option, and then just dropping them into school in the middle of the academic year after the kids are vaccinated.