Comments on: Monday Is The Deadline For Escambia County Parents To Choose School Option For Their Child

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 21:32:45 +0000

The Florida Education Association has filed a lawsuit against the state. Sad that our governor is willing to let the numbers of cases and deaths continue to rise. Half the country is under mask mandates. Yet here we are. Maybe the plan is to let businesses fail and people lose their homes so folks who dont have to worry can pick up cheap real estate.

By: Melissa Pino

Melissa Pino — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:56:43 +0000

I’ve been watching the School Board Workshop that is coming on 6 hours.

They are NOT prepared to do this. There are good intentions, but they were forced to throw things together and it sounds like total chaos.

Chairwoman Hightower tried to get Malcolm Thomas to see the wisdom of waiting two weeks. Went about as well as you’d expect.

It’s an awful situation the people who need to get back on time for a paycheck. I’m so sorry for so many in our community who are in these impossible circumstances. But the dire situation we are in with this virus does not seem to have sunk in, at all.

Maybe the teacher’s union that filed a suit on the DeSantis’s administration can get this thing ground to a halt. Anybody watching this meeting who tells you they are reading to do this is fooling themselves and trying to fool you as well.

By: David Huie Green

David Huie Green — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 16:42:10 +0000

REGARDING:
“CRAZY how this COVID-19 at first was only dangerous to those 60 and older.
Next thing we know it’s being spread among the 20+ year old group.
NOW just before School Opens there are reports of the C-19 being active amongst the School Aged children and even Newborns.
Never ever heard of a Time-Release Virus.”

You have heard of instantaneous infections? Not me.
But I’m guessing you are talking about over months.

You wrote of it only being dangerous to those over 60. That was never the case. It was and is MOST dangerous to those over 65. Something like 33.6% of hospitalizations for the week ending July 11 are of people over 65.
About 3.5% of are birth through 17.
Which means 62.9% of those in hospitals for the week ending July 11 are 18 through 65.
So in general old folks are hit something like 10 times as often as kids but there has never been an age group not hit.

It is most likely to require hospitalization for people with things like hypertension, obesity, heart disease, lung disease but 48.7% of pediatric hospitalizations and 9.1% of adult ones have no known condition to go with it. On the other hand, how many adults don’t have some sort of problem?
https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_5.html

So it was never ONLY dangerous to the old, just more dangerous.

As to it being spread by the ones in twenties, they have more chance to reach each other and from greater distances — at least until school starts back up.

So it is not a matter of time release, rather of time of exposure and comorbidities which might make it worse.

Talking about deaths hits on the worst case. It doesn’t cover those who survive with organ damage and other problems, but if live/die is all you want, you might check CDC reports on that. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm
should help you. Understand they are not always up to date but the older data is likely to be accurate, more recent stuff still more fluid and subject to change.

David for truth

By: Sandi

Sandi — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 22:34:08 +0000

With a LARGE percent of teachers that age or health make the right risk.. Sad.. How many will retire.. The substitutes that have been WAYYYY under the numbers needed for YEARS are maybe more that are younger but they are teachers.. They didn’t sign up for the military or police force that would have them knowing their occupation was a dangerous one. In places like Australia virtual school is more than common. But.. I guess if we have kids who won’t do work at home. I’m sure they were honor students when in class.. NOT
Sticking head in sand to safety… Asking teachers to risk their health.. We can’t even get a government to say wear mask. Glad some food places will require them so my 80 yr old mom won’t have to shop at 7AM to be safer

By: No Excuses

No Excuses — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 20:25:26 +0000

@ Richard: Well said! I think we should all be doing remote or virtual teaching. I’m one of those older teachers with underlying health issues, and I am seriously considering retirement on disability rather than going back this year.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 19:11:08 +0000

@Lorilyn – To find your child’s school : http://www1.escambia.k12.fl.us/school_lookup.asp

By: pencil

pencil — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 18:52:46 +0000

There should be no choice . . . . . those who refuse to wear masks, send your kids to school and suffer the rewards of ignorance.

By: Richard

Richard — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:39:30 +0000

Some question to consider as you make your choice
• If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?
• If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?
• Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested? Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids’ families need to get tested? Who pays for that?
• What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive? Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?
• Where is the district going to find a substitute teacher who will work in a classroom full of exposed, possibly infected students for substitute pay?
• Substitutes teach in multiple schools. What if they are diagnosed with COVID-19? Do all the kids in each school now have to quarantine and get tested? Who is going to pay for that?
• What if a student in your kid’s class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine? Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious “may have been in contact” emails all year long?
• What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being? How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?
• How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?
• How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?
30% of the teachers in the US are over 50. About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65.

By: mq

mq — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:13:15 +0000

@Skip
Should have said WITHOUT a mask at BK.

By: Jw

Jw — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:05:04 +0000

Kids need to be in school I agree but just not now due to the current covid19 situation. Part of a well rounded education is learning how to make informed decisions based on hard facts. So does stuffing our kids into crowed buses and overcrowded schools at this time seem like a good idea? I understand parents need to work and society needs to move forward. How are we going to get out of this mess if we keep repeating our same mistakes. We are far worse off now than when things were shut down this spring. So why would we just ignore the current situation and open schools?
There just isn’t a normal anymore and people need to accept that and adapt. Protect your children and make your decisions wisely. Show your kids how to make informed and common sense decisions. ECSD needs to rethink the situation because all the reasoning behind in person school in this situation is not valid. I really don’t think teachers are looking forward to the risk associated with classroom instruction. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Ten years from now a delay in school start time right now won’t mean anything. Irrelevant!