First, let me say I am over masks. I am over wearing them, I am over telling kids to wear them, and I want nothing more than for them to be in the rear window of history. That being said, I will continue to wear them; you see, I don't know most of the people out there and don't trust the ones I don't know to do the right thing, and Jacksonville's vaccination stats, that say only a little over a third of the city (41 percent over 18) is vaccinated, despite there being plenty of supply has borne that out. Even though the CDC says going maskless to large evens is ill advisable and that Jacksonville is still at substantial risk, Greene has said @&%$ it and made masks optional for graduation ceremonies.

 What the CDC says about large gatherings, including graduations.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/large-gatherings

Here are Florida and Jacksonville's vaccination numbers.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view

It's like we have run a race and decided to stop when  CONTINUE READING: Education Matters: Greene ignores CDC guidelines, continues to put people in jeopardy

If you are over sixteen and haven't got vaccinated yet, that's a choice you have made. Greene has now made masks optional for graduation ceremonies. Does this decision support people who believe in vaccinations and masks or those that don't?

The change the name ordeal has gone on for nearly a year, racists and deniers have come out of the woodwork over and over again. Robert. E. Lee is an option to change the name of Robert E. Lee too. Has this process benefitted the people who want the names of those schools to change or those who want to live in a time when children of color were second-class citizens?

Jeb Bush is the man responsible for most of the school reforms of the last two decades, A-F school grades, privatization, high stakes testing, and blame the teacher evaluations, or you know the things that pro-public education people are against. So when Green joins Bush's Cheifs-of Change, is she telling the people who CONTINUE READING: What base is Green playing to? It certainly isn't public education

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday clarified coronavirus advice for U.S. schools, recommending the continued, universal use of masks and physical distancing, after the agency’s sudden announcement that vaccinated Americans could forego masks indoors.

All schools teaching students from kindergarten through grade 12 should continue to implement proper mask-wearing through the end of the 2020-2021 school year, the C.D.C. said. The agency also kept in place its suggestions to observe physical distancing and to test for coronavirus infections.

About 122 million people had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in the U.S. as of Saturday, but the average number of vaccinations per day has dropped since its peak in April, according to C.D.C. data. News of the C.D.C.’s sweeping change to mask rules that were introduced a year ago came suddenly last week, prompting elation among many Americans but also some confusion over how to respond to the new guidance.

The C.D.C.’s advice for schools attempts to clear up some of the confusion. On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in the United States. But some parents are still hesitant about the vaccine. And no vaccines have been authorized yet for children under 12. CONTINUE READING: C.D.C.: Schools in the U.S. Should Continue to Use Masks - The New York Times

“Late last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued updated guidance on school reopening, saying that 3 feet, not 6 feet, of physical distancing between students was sufficient in most elementary schools—regardless of the level of community spread of COVID-19.

“At the same time that CDC officials were updating school policy, they were also warning that B117, a variant strain 50% more transmissible than the wild-type virus, would likely become the dominant strain in the United States by April. In some states, such as Florida and California, the variant, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, already accounts for 25% of cases.

“Now several experts are concerned that schools may be opening during an inflection point in the pandemic and are being misguided about how to do so.

CDC, states struggle with school openings

“Across America almost all schools closed in March and April of 2020 as the pandemic entered its first wave and peaked in places like New York City. A barrier to reopening in the fall, especially in crowded, urban school districts, was that classrooms could not accommodate students with the CDC-recommended 6 feet of physical distancing.

“The CDC said mounting evidence shows little difference in school transmission rates when students are separated by 3 or 6 feet, and it points to mounting research on student mental health, physical health, and even parental job security that shows that in-person instruction is superior for most American children and families.

“‘It's a balance,’ said Ruth Lynfield, MD, Minnesota state epidemiologist. Minnesota, along with Michigan, and North Carolina, has seen school-related B117 outbreaks spread into the community in recent weeks. ‘We are in a race to vaccinate as variants spread, and currently kids and their CONTINUE READING: glen brown: "Several experts are concerned that schools may be opening during an inflection point in the pandemic and are being misguided about how to do so"

On Wednesday, the US Department of Education hosted a “National Safe School Reopening Summit,” bringing together figures from the Biden administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and handpicked school district superintendents, union officials, teachers and students to advance the ruling class campaign to reopen schools before the pandemic is contained.

The three-and-a-half hour event, chaired by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, had an Orwellian and highly contradictory character, in which the various speakers distorted science and sought to sugarcoat the reckless drive to reopen schools. Everyone at the summit participated remotely, with only one occupant visible on each screen, in stark contrast to the packed classrooms into which educators and students are being sent.

The current state of the pandemic and the horrific experiences of mass death and suffering over the past year were glossed over with vague references to “trauma,” while every speaker referred to school reopenings as “safe” and “scientifically based.” The entire event was designed to suppress science and chloroform educators and the broader population into accepting the reopening of schools. CONTINUE READING: Biden demands resumption of in-person learning in “school reopening summit” - World Socialist Web Site

Covid-19 is a strange phenomenon without any proven how-to guides. Recommendations and contradictions surrounding Covid-19 and schools have raised uncertainty. When there’s a lack of clarity, people become suspicious of what they’re told, and they wonder what and who to believe.

Parents and Teachers Can’t Agree

Many parents believe schools are safe, few children get sick, Covid-19 is not real or not as bad as it’s made to sound, and teachers’ unions are remiss for their caution about in-person learning.

On the other hand, persons of color are hesitant to send their children back to school.

According to Mother Jones:

The pandemic has dealt a disproportionately heavy blow to Black Americans. According to CDC data published in September, Black youth accounted for 29 percent of COVID-19 deaths among people under 21, twice the percentage for white youth. The federal agency also found Black children under 18 at a significantly higher risk of hospitalization—almost four times higher than white children and teens.

Mixed Messages From the CDC, Pediatricians and Dr. Fauci

Parents who blame teachers for schools not fully opening, do so partly due to a sloppy push to make schools sound safe from the CDC, pediatricians, and Dr. Fauci.

Many claims ignore problems with school infrastructure and how schools work, while CONTINUE READING: Covid-19 School Contradictions, Confusion, and Mistrust

Proponents of fully reopening schools got a major boost on Friday when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that elementary school students and some middle and high school students could be spaced three feet apart in classrooms.

The previous guidance of keeping most students six feet apart had in many school districts become a big obstacle to welcoming students back for full-time instruction because it severely limited capacity. Many experts now say a growing body of research shows that six feet is not much more protective than three, as long as other safety measures are in place, like mask wearing.

Public health experts, parents and school officials cheered the new recommendation. Teachers’ unions, which have used the six-foot guidance to oppose bringing children back for normal schedules, did not.

EDUCATION BRIEFING: The pandemic is upending education. Get the latest news and tips.

In the U.S., after some hesitation, the Biden administration seems to be encouraging rapid opening of schools, despite high levels of community transmission in many places, before robust mitigations are completely in place. Many Republican governors and officials also demand the step, including former President Trump in his recent CPAC address. Languishing under lockdowns and zoom or hybrid classes, many exhausted parents, anxious employers, and bored students seem receptive, though polls show widespread reservations about whether premature reopening might trigger new waves of infections. In recent days, more and more states have moved to mandate full in-person classroom instruction within a few weeks.

Accompanying these decisions are organized efforts to recycle earlier studies of school safety[1] designed to reassure skeptics that reopening schools to full-time instruction is really safe, even as new variants of COVID-19 spread that are more contagious and possibly more dangerous than earlier forms. Even the Center for Disease Control is joining this rush to CONTINUE READING: Institute for New Economic Thinking

I haven't been a hard liner on keeping schools closed and am trying to listen to science. If we were still at the original COVID I'd say let's go with the low rates for kids and teacher vax but variants are still a wild card and children seem to be susceptible. But consider the article and comments below including long-term lung scarring from even people with mild cases. Every single person I know who had it even a year ago complains of some shortness of breath or being more tired. I may never leave my house again. 

As usual the UFT and AFT are waffling. Do we think the CDC is suddenly not politicized under Biden who has promised to get schools open and viola, distances shrink from 6 to 3 feet.

Naked Capitalism - 

 New CDC Guidelines to Reopen Schools, Based on Outdated, Cherry-Picked, and Misinterpreted Data, Put Students, Teachers, and Communities at Risk

 

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Biden repeatedly promised to “follow the science” in developing Covid policies. But as has become the norm in American medicine, the science has instead been distorted in the interest of profits and political expedience. This post provides a devastating takedown of the Biden plan to reopen schools with little in the way of additional protections for teachers and students, particularly more ventilation (how about the simple expedient of opening windows?). It explains why Covid cases among children have been severely undercounted and where population-wide surveys were made, children were vastly more likely to introduce Covid into a household than adults. It also shreds the CDC’s astonishing assertion that distancing as little as three feet would be OK.

On the one hand, parents and children are suffering due to the lack of in-person instruction. Keeping schools closed is politically risky for Team Dem, particularly since it is seen as a staunch ally of the (formerly) powerful teachers CONTINUE READING: Ed Notes Online: New CDC Guidelines to Reopen Schools, Based on Outdated, Cherry-Picked, and Misinterpreted Data, Put Students, Teachers, and Communities at Risk

The CDC changed its social distance guidelines, and I have no doubt the researchers found what they found. However, the reason they found it was more about keeping a campaign promise rather than keeping people safe.  

I like president Biden, but the only reason we are making this change is to keep his campaign promise to open more schools, and that with light finally at the end of the tunnel is inexcusable. 

The study sited has so many caveats you could drive a truck through it, and it is hardly representative of the country. They chose their set to study because they already had a conclusion they wanted to meet.  

This from the abstract,

Among 251 eligible school districts, 537,336 students and 99,390 staff attended in-person instruction during the 16-week study period, 

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab230/6167856

That might be impressive if it was from all across the country in districts big and small, rural and urban, but it wasn't. It was just from Massachusetts, and as you will see, it is only about half of this one safe.

This is Massachusetts. 

With the U.S. death toll from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic topping 541,000, the nation's two largest teachers unions responded cautiously on Friday to new guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revising its recommendation for physical distancing between K-12 students in classrooms—who are all wearing face masks—down from six feet to just three feet, based on recent research.

"We are concerned that the CDC has changed one of the basic rules for how to ensure school safety without demonstrating certainty that the change is justified by the science and can be implemented in a manner that does not detract from the larger long-term needs of students."
—Becky Pringle, NEA"While we hope the CDC is right and these new studies convince the community that the most enduring safety standard of this pandemic—the six-foot rule—can be jettisoned if we all wear masks," said American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten. "We will reserve judgment until we review them, especially as they apply in districts with high community spread and older buildings with ventilation challenges."

National Education Association (NEA) president Becky Pringle said that "for the sake of public trust and clarity, we urge the CDC to provide far more detail about the rationale for the change from six feet to three feet for students in classrooms, clearly and publicly account for differences in types of school environments, new virus variants, differences in mitigation compliance, and how study participants were tested for the virus."

"We are concerned that the CDC has changed one of the basic rules for how to ensure school safety without demonstrating certainty that the change is justified by the science and can be implemented in a manner that does not detract from the larger long-term needs of students," Pringle explained.

The CDC now says that U.S. elementary school students should be at least three feet apart while in classrooms, as should middle and high schools students, except in areas of elevated community transmission, where the six-foot recommendation still applies CONTINUE READING: Teachers Unions Want More Details on New CDC Guidance of Desks Only 3 Feet Apart | Common Dreams News

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance for schools. On Friday, the agency announced it "now recommends that, with universal masking, students should maintain a distance of at least 3 feet in classroom settings."

Previously the guidance stated, "Physical distancing (at least 6 feet) should be maximized to the greatest extent possible." The new guidelines still call for 6 feet of distance between adults and students as well as in common areas, such as auditoriums, and when masks are off, such as while eating. And the 6-foot distancing rule still applies for the general public in settings such as grocery stores.

The change is momentous because in many places around the country, the 6-foot guidance has been interpreted as requiring schools to operate on part-time or hybrid schedules to reduce class sizes. A 3-foot rule would allow many more schools to open in person full time.

The revision was spurred by some new research, including a study published March 10 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, which looked at schools in Massachusetts, where districts were given a choice of distancing students either 6 or 3 feet apart, and where the majority of districts also required universal masking. The study included more than a half-million students who attended school in person last fall.

"We didn't see any substantial difference in cases among students or staff in CONTINUE READING: CDC Says Schools Can Now Space Students 3 Feet Apart, Rather Than 6 | 89.3 KPCC

Summary of Recent Changes

Key Points

1. Evidence suggests that many K-12 schools that have strictly implemented prevention strategies have been able to safely open for in-person instruction and remain open.
2. CDC’s K-12 operational strategy presents a pathway for schools to provide in-person instruction safely through consistent use of prevention strategies, including universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.
3. All schools should implement and layer prevention strategies and should prioritize universal and correct use of masks and physical distancing.
4. Testing to identify individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination for teachers and staff provide additional layers of COVID-19 protection in schools.