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

[Your Mom 4805]

My trusty bone did some stuff I was very ashamed of and I had to censure it too.  

[midtown 3345]

I read a brief part of a study out of England yesterday which does not mask kids in school and found that the positivity rate was something like 0.2%.  Basically making the case for not quarantining kids upon exposure in school.   The US has really done a full 180 to what science is saying about school and covid.  

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

30 minutes ago, midtown said:

I read a brief part of a study out of England yesterday which does not mask kids in school and found that the positivity rate was something like 0.2%.  Basically making the case for not quarantining kids upon exposure in school.   The US has really done a full 180 to what science is saying about school and covid.  

That number doesn’t jibe with what we have been seeing in schools over here.  There may be other factors at play influencing that number. 

[CooterBrown 18003]

 

50 minutes ago, midtown said:

I read a brief part of a study out of England yesterday which does not mask kids in school and found that the positivity rate was something like 0.2%.  Basically making the case for not quarantining kids upon exposure in school.   The US has really done a full 180 to what science is saying about school and covid.  

You may want to read the entire thing if what you're inferring is that masks cause an increased rate of COVID transmission. I have not read the article but I have a hard time believing that masks are the sole or primary factor in increased COVID transmission.

 

 

 

[midtown 3345]

The biggest difference that I know of was that UK didn't shut down their schools and so I assume those kids have been exposed from the beginning and largely asymptomatic and were dealing with the original.  Those kids have been picking up immunity for well over a year.   Counter in the US that went full shut down and even when optioned to go back so many parents ignored the science and kept their kids home.  Now everyone in the US is back and no one has any immunity except likely those who went back in last year.   That sounds like a reasonable explanation.  

[dcbc 14465]

Chapel Hill ISD reports that COVID cases have fallen 84% since they implemented a mask mandate.

https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/chapel-hill-isd-positive-covid-cases-have-dropped-84-since-mask-mandate-implemented/

[Samson's Wig 3191]

So now both sides of this mess can just say, "the other side didn't follow the science" and we just take that at face value?   So "science" is now like "truth" or "facts"?  It just doesn't exist any more except in the mind of the person bloviating?   Asking for a friend.

[Eskimohorn 5630]

So now both sides of this mess can just say, "the other side didn't follow the science" and we just take that at face value?   So "science" is now like "truth" or "facts"?  It just doesn't exist any more except in the mind of the person bloviating?   Asking for a friend.

One side flings poop to muddy any argument, including undermining the credibility of scientists and medical experts, by using the directive “follow the science” when picking and choosing parts of science convenient at the time.

The other side is attempting in real time to follow the science.

[conVINCEd 21469]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

Chapel Hill ISD reports that COVID cases have fallen 84% since they implemented a mask mandate.

https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/chapel-hill-isd-positive-covid-cases-have-dropped-84-since-mask-mandate-implemented/

Fuck that speed trap town.

edited to add: and good for them for taking the most basic measures to reduce spread in their speed trap town.

Edited September 22, 2021 by conVINCEd

[CleverNickname 1308]

My kids 4th grade class had its 2nd case of the year. Teacher has a 16 month old who is watched by his in-laws. And.... he quit. So that's fun. Thanks 2 parents who refuse to mask!

[dcbc 14465]

6 hours ago, conVINCEd said:

Fuck that speed trap town.

edited to add: and good for them for taking the most basic measures to reduce spread in their speed trap town.

Why not both?  Meanwhile, TylerISD voted 5--2 against masks because reasons.

[Hawndoh 2386]

Plano ISD board voted not to extend mask mandate that is expiring this week. It originally passed 6-1 but failed to continue 4-3. 

The board members who flipped from the original vote couldn't really give any good reason for the change.

[Satoshi 129]

7 hours ago, Eskimohorn said:

One side flings poop to muddy any argument, including undermining the credibility of scientists and medical experts, by using the directive “follow the science” when picking and choosing parts of science convenient at the time.

The other side is attempting in real time to follow the science.

The whole school drama and all its issues is probably the last place to throw out that one particular side is steadfastly following the science. 

[Eskimohorn 5630]

The whole school drama and all its issues is probably the last place to throw out that one particular side is steadfastly following the science. 

Science - “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”

Following science isnt easy or clean.

[Guest Lobo]

3 minutes ago, Eskimohorn said:

Science - “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”

Following science isnt easy or clean.

You know what else isn't easy or clean?

You guessed it!

Anal Sex.

[Baboontyme 2809]

I've got two kids upstairs who are intermittently running 102 who are foolproof anecdotal evidence that lack of a mask mandate doesn't work. 

[conVINCEd 21469]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

Why not both?  Meanwhile, TylerISD voted 5--2 against masks because reasons.

You live in East Texas.  It is what it is.  Your posts would indicate that you are a well-meaning, responsible citizen and have taken the proper precautions to make sure your family is safe and they are not contributing to the spread of Covid.  Tyler still gonna Tyler.

[dcbc 14465]

1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

You live in East Texas.  It is what it is.  Your posts would indicate that you are a well-meaning, responsible citizen and have taken the proper precautions to make sure your family is safe and they are not contributing to the spread of Covid.  Tyler still gonna Tyler.

Yes.  Yes.  And, sigh, yes.

/live here; not from here

Edited September 23, 2021 by dcbc

[atomheartbevo 89628]

RR voted to extend mask mandate.  Hours of public comment.  Need to find the greatest hits.  
https://www.kxan.com/news/education/round-rock-isd-board-to-discuss-mask-requirements/

[MonkeyDoughnut 10229]

On 9/22/2021 at 12:37 PM, dcbc said:

Chapel Hill ISD reports that COVID cases have fallen 84% since they implemented a mask mandate.

https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/chapel-hill-isd-positive-covid-cases-have-dropped-84-since-mask-mandate-implemented/

Are there districts (anywhere in the country) that after a month of school haven't seen a marked decline?

[midtown 3345]

29 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Are there districts (anywhere in the country) that after a month of school haven't seen a marked decline?

I assume the bulk of the decline is coming from the fact that all the kids have mostly been infected by now and less about masks which probably don't do much in schools.

[dcbc 14465]

1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Are there districts (anywhere in the country) that after a month of school haven't seen a marked decline?

Tyler ISD still is burning hot and steady.  I check it regularly (that's our district), and I don't think there's any way an 84% decline is a coincidence or an anomaly unrelated to the one thing that district changed.

/I read that county.  But the answer stays the same.

Edited September 23, 2021 by dcbc

[dcbc 14465]

1 hour ago, midtown said:

I assume the bulk of the decline is coming from the fact that all the kids have mostly been infected by now and less about masks which probably don't do much in schools.

Doubt it.

Edited September 23, 2021 by dcbc

[Willfully Horn 8002]

17 hours ago, Lobo said:

You know what else isn't easy or clean?

You guessed it!

Anal Sex.

[Cody2422 270]

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

Tyler ISD still is burning hot and steady.  I check it regularly (that's our district), and I don't think there's any way an 84% decline is a coincidence or an anomaly unrelated to the one thing that district changed.

/I read that county.  But the answer stays the same.

Our district started the year off hot, 10+ new cases per day for the first week.  Then 5-6, then 2-3, now it’s mostly 0 per day with an occasional 1 scattered in about once per week.

Must be the non existent mask policy to credit our 99% reduction in cases.  Let’s write a news story

[Horns99 155]

I assume the bulk of the decline is coming from the fact that all the kids have mostly been infected by now and less about masks which probably don't do much in schools.

Kids elementary school has over 800 kids, currently 4 positive cases, that’s down from a few weeks ago. No mask required.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[midtown 3345]

Doubt it.

What's more logical? That in a month thousands of kids have gotten covid or exposed to covid and are all now immune or that cloth masks in class and then not used at all at lunch or before after school when kids are talking to each other is the responsible for mass reduction in cases.

Im 100% pro mask but people hanging their hat on them as some kind of panacea is completely irrational

[dcbc 14465]

1 hour ago, midtown said:

What's more logical? That in a month thousands of kids have gotten covid or exposed to covid and are all now immune or that cloth masks in class and then not used at all at lunch or before after school when kids are talking to each other is the responsible for mass reduction in cases.

Im 100% pro mask but people hanging their hat on them as some kind of panacea is completely irrational

3,500 kids in one school district and nearly all have had COVID at this point?  That would be nearly 20% of all of our county's COVID cases since the pandemic started.  Look, I'm not saying there aren't other variables, but I don't think it's burned that hot yet.  We haven't seen anything approaching that level of decline in my kids' district or in our county. If other schools and counties are, for whatever reason, good on them.  But some of these district wide high numbers mentioned above by aspiring Pulitzer winning journalists above look like the daily numbers just from my son's high school as of even this week.  We've had this discussion before, and I know you're not generally antimask.  And I'm not someone that thinks masks are the end all be all of the equation.  But in a county with relatively low vaccination numbers compared to the state as a whole, I'd be content if our school district would do the least bit of mitigation.  But some folks like to watch things burn. 

Side note, my vaccinated, previously infected 16 year old had drainage and a sore throat today.  Thankfully negative.
 
 

Edited September 23, 2021 by dcbc

[smoky 840]

What's the chapel hill area covid slope look like?

If was going up and kids cases are going down, now that'd be something.

But more likely is the school district trend followed the gen pop.

[dcbc 14465]

What's the chapel hill area covid slope look like?

If was going up and kids cases are going down, now that'd be something.

But more likely is the school district trend followed the gen pop.

A co-worker of mine's wife is a teacher there. I don't know the answer to that question

[smoky 840]

3 minutes ago, dcbc said:

1 hour ago, smoky said:

What's the chapel hill area covid slope look like?

If was going up and kids cases are going down, now that'd be something.

But more likely is the school district trend followed the gen pop.

A co-worker of mine's wife is a teacher there. I don't know the answer to that question

Yeah, I tried looking it up.  That's a no man's land of data.

Best I could find was from the Tyler Telegraph:  "In one week, the rate of community spread of COVID-19 in Smith County has decreased by more than 37%, the Northeast Texas Public Health District reported Thursday."

[dcbc 14465]

21 hours ago, smoky said:

Yeah, I tried looking it up.  That's a no man's land of data.

Best I could find was from the Tyler Telegraph:  "In one week, the rate of community spread of COVID-19 in Smith County has decreased by more than 37%, the Northeast Texas Public Health District reported Thursday."

That's probably close over the last 7 days.  UT Health Dashboard is only showing reports twice a week.  So even the 7 day average is a jagged line.  We've been pretty steady at 158 cases per day on a 7 day average, but it may have dropped a few dozen points in the last week (time will tell), and hopefully that's the case.  Still showing a 1.5 rT for Smith County though, which is almost twice the state as a whole.

I looked for that article.  Only thing I could find is that hospitalizations are down, and another article saying community spread is highest in east Texas since the start of the pandemic. 

https://www.kltv.com/2021/09/22/covid-19-community-spread-east-texas-among-highest-levels-since-pandemic-began/

 

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by dcbc

[conVINCEd 21469]

2 hours ago, dcbc said:

3 hours ago, smoky said:

What's the chapel hill area covid slope look like?

If was going up and kids cases are going down, now that'd be something.

But more likely is the school district trend followed the gen pop.

A co-worker of mine's wife is a teacher there. I don't know the answer to that question

Chapel Hill is in between Houston and Austin on 290.  Hence my earlier speed trap comments.  Aren’t you in Tyler?  I checked.  I’ll be damned, there are two Chapel Hills in TX.

[atomheartbevo 89628]

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/austin-isd-parents-sue-district-over-covid-19-policies/

Quote

Parents within the Austin Independent School District are suing district leaders and the school system itself over mask rules and COVID-19 policies.

Quote

According to the lawsuit obtained by KXAN, Austin Parents for Medical Choice, Loni Faye Neuffer, Steve
Wagner, Sarah Wagner, Collette Antoine and Tom Lonsdale are listed as plaintiffs.

Quote

Plaintiffs bring this action pursuant to the Texas Open Meetings Act because AISD adopted these policies without an open vote, the Texas Declaratory Judgment Act because the mask and quarantine policies are unsupported by Texas law, and violations of the Texas Constitution.”

The group is seeking “a declaration that AISD’s mask and quarantine policies are void and unenforceable.” They are asking for “injunctive relief to end ongoing irreparable harm that these policies are causing to their minor children.”

Quote

A district spokesperson told KXAN after an August survey, 80% of families were in favor of masks, and the district will keep the mandate in place throughout the school year.

“We are seeing an overwhelmingly positive and compliant response to our mask mandate — we know that masks work,” said Eduardo Villa, media relations specialist with Austin ISD.

I want the schools to stay open and not have my kids constantly coming home.  

[atomheartbevo 89628]

Added, as one of the parents is claiming her kid is epileptic and can’t wear masks 

Quote

Parents or guardians or staff who may need a mask exemption can go to visit the campus health room,” Villa explained. “In order to get a mask exemption, there will be some sort of input from a health care professional, so a medical form saying a mask exception is needed.”

 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

5 hours ago, conVINCEd said:

Chapel Hill is in between Houston and Austin on 290.  Hence my earlier speed trap comments.  Aren’t you in Tyler?  I checked.  I’ll be damned, there are two Chapel Hills in TX.

290 one has two P's.

[dcbc 14465]

Chapel Hill is in between Houston and Austin on 290.  Hence my earlier speed trap comments.  Aren’t you in Tyler?  I checked.  I’ll be damned, there are two Chapel Hills in TX.

Yeah. I assumed it was a speed trap too.

[statsman 5451]

Question- have any districts adopted “no mask required” policies for K-6 or K-8, while requiring masks for middle and high school? Or does it always seem to be all or nothing?

Because I can see the logic in such a policy.

[gsoda3 3245]

On 9/22/2021 at 8:47 AM, midtown said:

The biggest difference that I know of was that UK didn't shut down their schools and so I assume those kids have been exposed from the beginning and largely asymptomatic and were dealing with the original.  Those kids have been picking up immunity for well over a year.   

where'd you get that from?  England went full lock down before we did.  they tried reopening in the fall semester but then shut it down again at the beginning of this year.

[statsman 5451]

Says here that the UK prioritized face to face learning in 2020-2021 school year while even most everything else was shut down-

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/14/uk/england-schools-hit-by-coronavirus-pandemic/index.html

Edited September 24, 2021 by statsman

[yoladu 4090]

I hope I am not spiking the ball before getting to the endzone, but I have to say after 6 weeks of classes, things are much better than I thought they would be.

so kudos to AISD (and the students) and kudos to sticking to their guns on masking.

[South Austin 52453]

2 hours ago, yoladu said:

I hope I am not spiking the ball before getting to the endzone, but I have to say after 6 weeks of classes, things are much better than I thought they would be.

so kudos to AISD (and the students) and kudos to sticking to their guns on masking.

Same.  My kid's fifth grade class at Highland Park has reported only one positive test in his class, and that was after the first week of school.  I haven't received reports of many other positive cases in the school since then.  We did have three earlier this week (two were in the same family), but it had been pretty quiet before then.

[Samson's Wig 3191]

It's interesting that in a school district with a mask mandate rates of covid are relatively low.  Must be something in the water.

[gsoda3 3245]

5 hours ago, statsman said:

Says here that the UK prioritized face to face learning in 2020-2021 school year while even most everything else was shut down-

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/14/uk/england-schools-hit-by-coronavirus-pandemic/index.html

yes they did.  they felt the lost spring months in 2020 were enough.  then like i said, they had a fall 2020 semester which went pretty well but even then they still had to shut it down the beginning of this year.  it wasn't til the end of march i think where everyone was back in school.  

[Willfully Horn 8002]

5 hours ago, statsman said:

Says here that the UK prioritized face to face learning in 2020-2021 school year while even most everything else was shut down-

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/14/uk/england-schools-hit-by-coronavirus-pandemic/index.html

User name does not check out. From the 1/14/21 article you didn’t bother to read:

”On the morning of January 4, as children streamed into schools and he toured a hospital, Johnson touted "the efforts that we're making as a government to try to keep primary schools open."

Just hours later, he executed an about-face of acrobatic proportions. In a somber prime-time address to the nation, the Prime Minister said that he was ordering the closure, from the next day, of not just secondary schools -- which serve children 11 and above and are where spread is more likely -- but also primary, or elementary schools.”

[Cody2422 270]

17 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

It's interesting that in a school district with a mask mandate rates of covid are relatively low.  Must be something in the water.

So is it just as interesting that in a school district without a mask mandate, rates of covid are nearly zero?  Think there is something in our water too?  

[Baboontyme 2809]

The CDC has obviously had some issues but this is interesting.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7039e1.htm?s_cid=mm7039e1_w

[statsman 5451]

Per WSJ-

 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/schools-with-face-mask-requirements-had-fewer-covid-19-outbreaks-cdc-study-finds-11632515562
 

Schools with mask mandates had fewer outbreaks. 
 

Dammit! Baboontyme beat me!

Edited September 25, 2021 by statsman

[Guest Lobo]

You’re gonna believe the Wall Street Journal?  They’re just hyping up Covid to crash the stock market.  

[mdmost 42999]

I don't know if it's the mask mandate or enough families are getting vaccinated but DISD is doing a terrific job with Covid considering the massive size and amount of students attending DISD schools.

Total cases: 2899, 635 campus staff, 153 central staff, 2111 students.

Breakdown by grade levels: Elementary 1257, middle 619, high school 843. 

Older kid's school, preK to 8, has only had 11 cases so far, 5 staff, 6 students, no cases this week

Younger kid's middle school has 6 total, 1 staff, 5 students, no cases this week.