Re-opening schools during a pandemic

[no_hypocrisy]

As a teacher, I was thinking of the entire school day. Logistically, maybe you can space out the desks and regulate hallway traffic.

How do you keep boys rooms and girls rooms virus-free, not to mention restrooms for teachers and the teachers' rooms?

But for elementary and middle schools, will recess be canceled? There's no way to enforce kids playing together with social distancing. Not to mention the expected bullying. When I was a kid, someone could be singled out and made a pariah over something as abstract (or real) as "cooties." Will personnel on the playground know about and stop kids from attacking an unpopular classmate by "Run away from Jack! He's got Covid!"

And school administration should have their files up to date, such as does a student live with aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.? Should that child receive heightened scrutiny as s/he could be a potential carrier of the Virus even without getting sick him/herself. Multiply that risk if that child has siblings.

[AllyCat]

1. This all went into play when we voted to keep our schools virtual

Literally would have had to hire extra staff to keep kids safe. And that costs money. Oh yeah, we have no money.

[Iliyah]

2. The present administration have no qualms about . .

putting children, teachers and staff in harms way all for that almighty dollar.

[Igel]

3. I don't know of a school district that keeps records of everybody living with a student.

They come, they go.

District's having a hard enough time keeping track of kids living with friends or relatives after their parents moved.

Outside's not the big concern. We can't say "anti-lockdown protests are bad", "BLM protests don't transmit COVID," "playground will transmit them." Outside's outside. Asl ong as the kids are running around, shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Phys ed in a gym, choir in the choir room, jocks in the weight room ... more of a concern. Masks help, I guess. (Apparently frequent mouthwash can, too, but that gets crazy real quick.)

Hallways are a problem. Kids pulling on masks, taking them off, sharing them. Stopping, talking in groups. Some groups might closely bunched together than others. It's going to be more than a bit of a nightmare, even with most districts around where I live (near Houston) with 50-60% of students opting for on-line only. That means (high school) classrooms will have 14 kids in a room that usually hold 30.