Last year my grandkids were remote learning.
This year they will be in person, masked.

We aren’t even allowed to go to the market.

Last year it was like nothing had happened.

Last year, my daughter was fully online. About 70% of her classmates were. The ones that went to school in person were masked, distanced, hand washing, etc.

This year, school kids in Massachusetts are all going in person but masking with safety protocols. This could easily change back to remote learning though.

My daughter’s in college this year and they require vaccination to be there and masking in certain buildings. Same at the university where I work.

Interestingly, my wife just applied for jobs at two universities both of which asked on the job application if you are vaccinated — stating it is required to work there.

Georgia started a week ago Friday.

Major changes for the grandkids:

1) no masks
2) all in school, no remote
3) lunch in the cafeteria, not at their desks in the classroom (like last year)
4) classrooms more crowded (remote kids now back in the room)

and most importantly

5) grandson now wears glasses.

Ask me again after school starts.

@elbanditoroso Does it concern you? Sounds like your grandkids are back to 100% normal.

@JLeslie The 13-year old got the vaccine as soon as he could. I wish the 11-year old could as well.

@elbanditoroso I think the 11 year old will be able to soon. I think they are weight adjusting the dose in the trials for the younger children.

I just heard Shelby County, TN (where Memphis is located) just put in a mask mandate. I’m shocked. The schools are following up on it and making kids wear masks. Not all the schools there are in the county system, but it probably will affect most of the schools.

I live in a different place now.

New place:
– was closed last year
– opening this year with high-quality school filtration systems, mask mandates for everyone, prioritizing opening windows and taking children outside when possible, fans in high-volume areas (lunch room, gym, etc.), social distancing
– new schools will close if contact tracing determines within-school spread (kid-kid, kid-adult, or adult-kid)
– I have no idea if delta is causing parents pause to send kids back to school. I can’t wait for mine to be in-person. The lack of socialization and anxiety and all of the other unintended consequences are too much for us, right now. I trust the new district to make science- and evidence-based decisions.

Old place:
– we opted for remote learning all year
– is re-opening without mask mandates

Last year:
– remote offered to all families
– hybrid offered at the end of the year
– masks mandatory
– mandatory covid testing every two weeks
– 6’ social distancing
– MERV-13 for filters in all classrooms
– sterilizing and cleaning all surfaces

This year:
– remote offered to families with medical need
– in person offered in the fall
– masks mandatory indoors
– masks optional outdoors
– recommended covid testing
– social distancing guidelines relaxed
– MERV-13 filters in all classrooms
– less focus on surface transmission

Some families are opting to homeschool due to Delta.

School starts today, Aug. 16, 2021. Masks are mandatory.

In the CT county that’s closest to me, masks are now mandatory indoors (stores, public buildings, etc.).

In the NY town that I live in, masks will be mandatory this school year. I’m glad I bought masks on clearance at Costco when I saw them, in the summer, when everyone was hopeful that Covid was over.

My daughter was reminiscing yesterday about how in March, when she found out that school was closed for two weeks, it was so exciting.

I remember when I went home from work with a bunch of stuff – plants and stuff – it was so exciting to be off work for what I thought would be two weeks, without having to charge it to vacation time. Little did we all know that we’d be home full time from work until summer, and school would be closed until spring a year later.

First day of school today.
So many mixed emotions!

Youngest is going into first grade. Even though she’s not in kindergarten, it’s her first time actually on campus. She sprung out of bed so excited! But then burst into tears in the middle of breakfast. Guess there’s a lot of mixed emotions for the littles too.

I’m super nervous because the school just sent out a notice that someone had a positive covid test at the kindergarten meet-your-teacher, in-person event last week.

Slightly less stressed after Newsom passed vaccine mandate for teachers. Masking is mandatory indoors. And every classroom has MERV-13 filter running.

Just have to take a deep breathe, accept this is the new norm and trust that the best that could be done is being done.

The house is so quiet.
It’s both sad and exhilarating.

Welp…just got a notice that our kid in middle school was exposed on their first day.

Now they are testing all six classrooms.

Fingers crossed for us?

Grand children start back tomorrow. This is Texas (‘nuff said?) so masking won’t be mandatory. Our bunch plan on wearing masks voluntarily, even the seven year old. The Governor is trying to knock down masking completely. Have to see what happens. On edit, no, the Delta variant has made no dent in Abbot and Cruztellos resistance comedy routine. Yet. Courts are challenging it all though. As stated, we’ll have to wait and see.

Didn’t the Texas governor just test positive for covid?

I wish – uh, I mean, haven’t heard. My bad.

Wait, I had not heard about the TX governor, but here it is: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/17/texas-governor-greg-abbott-positive-covid/

Good news: Got our negative test results back from exposure on 8/16.

Bad news: Just got another notice about a second exposure 8/18–8/20.

Yup. Four out of five days of our first week of school. :/

@raum It’s happening a lot I think. The kids are coming into the school already infected. The case rate was so high the past few weeks I think it was inevitable.

Are the kids working online while they have to quarantine? People are telling me their schools aren’t set up for it this year, and I can’t understand why some school districts did away with the option, like no kids will be infected this year.

No, there is now a modified quarantine. :/

They can continue to go to school so long as they 1.) have no symptoms and 2.) continue to test negative.

Which is a stupid policy since it takes 3–5 days from initial exposure before it registers on a test as positive. And the shedding period happens before you have any symptoms.

@JLeslie You either have to be full-time in a remote learning environment (which is VERY few students) or you just take home packets of work to do while quarantining here. Some districts use Google Classroom that I guess kids can log into from home, but no virtual learning like last year in the districts I am familiar with. I think it really comes down to budget, and the fact that school districts thought we were over the worst of it before this school year started.

@JLeslie No, our district decided to kick remote program down the line. Said that families could do remote through a nearby district. But that our district would not be offering remote this year.

It sucks. But it kind of makes sense. They’ve got to focus on a singular goal. There are so many moving pieces to make in-person work.

Or, at the very least, to try our best to make in-person work.

Thew new Governor of NY just put out mask mandates for all schools, so kids will have to wear masks indoors at school. There are parents who are protesting it but in our school, the parents are pretty compliant for the most part. They really don’t have a choice. They can be upset about it but if it’s the rule, it’s the rule.

The school just put out a survey asking about vaccines. The survey is voluntary.

Update for FL: a couple of days ago I heard on the news that over 50% of FL students have mask mandates in their schools. Today, a friend posted on Facebook: “U.S. NEWS
Florida Schools’ Covid-19 Mask Mandates Upheld by Judge
Judge says Gov. Ron DeSantis overstepped his authority and allows school districts to require students to wear masks.”

@JLeslie I believe most (if not all) of those districts allow families to opt out, so those numbers might be less meaningful. Otherwise, Hillsborough county alone wouldn’t have over 10,000 children and staff quarantining at home. If everyone was masked they could still attend school with regular monitoring and testing.

My kiddos had “prolonged contact” with people who tested positive for COVID at school (in CA), but since they were all wearing masks, my kids get to continue going to school while getting tested twice a week.

@Cupcake I don’t think the opt out was the problem. The quarantines started the first week of school. The kids walked into school with it from what I can tell. Have any of your friends there said the parents are opting out? My friends are in other counties.

Hillsborough is split regarding political part, I’m sure you know since you lived there. More Democrats, but I never know for sure where the independents lie.

@JLeslie LOTS of parents are opting out. I have lots of friends who they, themselves, or their kids are high-risk and there is just NO certainty that folks will be masked in schools there. Hillsborough is largely Democrat, for sure (less so outside of the city), but only one person in a room without a mask can make a big difference. You can’t do modified quarantine for exposure where you can stay at school if you test negative when not everyone is wearing a mask. Agreed that kids walked into school and were positive (symptomatic or not), but then their whole class had to quarantine. There were NOT 10K people quarantining with COVID.

@Cupcake I agree the opt out is a problem, I had thought most parents were probably going along with the masks, but I really wasn’t sure. I don’t know how many cases they actually had in the schools, they just keep publishing the quarantine numbers.