OldBoy

Mayor de Blasio announcing now on every news channel. If you know the NYC Metropolitan area, this is huge. they don't close for 6" of snow which most of NY state does. i feel bad for the kids who get free and reduced lunches everyday 8 mos of the year. this is only a few more, but hurts them so much. said closed at minimum until 4/20, but could be rest of year. seniors won't graduate. All schools in my area (Hudson Valley) closed. every educational center closed.

i know colleges are doing online and most kids can afford and do that, but not logical for K-12, 6-7 hours per day. this is crazy to me.

what do you think?

Draven

Yes, we’re trying to stop this. And if our leaders had done their jobs earlier we might not be here but we are so that’s on them to provide what is now missing from students’ lives.

Our school system is still giving lunches for students who need it and offering daycamp-type arrangements for children of healthcare staff and first responders.

Dr. Mantle

I live in Washington State. All schools were shut down until April 24th. It's a big hassle for parents, but better that than Johnny and Susie bringing the virus home to give to grandma.

Kurt D

I think your ability to start new threads should be cut off until the coronavirus situation is solved.

VinVega

I guess I could see doing it for a few weeks to a couple of months, but I don't think we can actually stop this thing anymore.

Dan

Please, please, please.

OldBoy

i thought it was a very topically offset from other thread to discuss. sorry. and no more inane than this...

https://forum.dvdtalk.com/other-talk...me-thread.html

The Cow

sracer

No. I don't think that schools should be closed. The secondary effects of having kids out of school will be worse.

Pharoh

Of course it won't be worse. That is ridiculous.

Face it, schools are done for the year, unless they resume in the summer.

VinVega

Oldboy is going to have time on his hands now, so there will be threads. That's my forecast.

JasonF

Assuming you're talking about COVID-19 and not OldBoy's posts ...

That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going. Social distancing is not an attempt to stop this. That ship has sailed. There is no stopping this. Tens, if not hundreds of millions of Americans are going to get COVID-19. Some portion of those cases will be serious enough to require extreme care (e.g., ventilators). I don't know what that number is, but let's say it's 5 million cases.

If those 5 million cases hit in the next 2 weeks, the system will be overwhelmed. We simply don't have that much capacity to treat that many people at once. So we're going to try to have those people get hit over a period of months instead of weeks. But there's no way to stop it any more. We had our chance and we blew it.

sracer

I'm not surprised that you would consider it to be ridiculous. There will be many jr high and high school students who will be out and about their communities if they aren't in school. They're not going to stay put in the house. Younger kids will end up at friends' houses as parents pool together supervision so that those who still have jobs can go to work. Other parents who can, will take their kids to work. Still other parents would leave their young children at home unsupervised. They would be that desperate. On second thought, yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.

Abob Teff

I did my first day of substitute teaching this past Friday ... I am not a germ-a-phobe (yet) but I wanted to RUN to a decontamination tent after being there. I was horrified watching kids share food and drinks, eat off the filthy desks, pass around community laptops that weren’t wiped down once, and on and on. Not to mention the teacher’s desk was awful — there was a half-drank McDonalds cup of water (no lid) left behind and wadded up (I hope not used) tissues under students’ papers ... The place was a cesspool!

One student will have come in contact with at least a hundred people in their first hour at school.

Absolutely schools should be shut down for now. They are one of the largest potentials for continued contamination.

The delay has come from trying to get plans in place — plans for meals, continued school work, or even online instruction. The shut down should have come sooner.

OldBoy

Not thinking of my job, but the kids will be harmed in many ways. As I said no breakfast or lunch, in house or roaming streets, and no education. It’s all devastating.

Abob Teff

I don’t try to beat up on posters here (still feel guilt from Taffer leaving) ... but do you teach in New York, Oldboy? Because I was able to do a Google search in a matter of moments and debunk almost everything you said.

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-l...navirus-update

Schools closed Monday for cleaning and disinfecting. Teachers report Tuesday through Friday to learn and develop remote learning plan. Remote learning begins March 23. More info at the link.

Grab and go meals will be provided for students daily at the schools.

Sorry, but any fear-mongering and continued spread of misinformation (either willful or or out ignorance) is intolerable.

Koby

Well I'm in Texas and schools have shutdown here for at least an extra week past Spring break, but no word if it'll be extended further. So they may be back in school as early as March 23rd... I don't think that one week is enough to have really done anything though. They'll probably realize this and keep schools shutdown a bit longer.

Abob Teff

It will be longer. The mistaken notion that people have is that the shutdown is to clean the schools. That’s not the purpose.

dex14

OldBoy... Google? Come on...

jfoobar

It is ridiculous. Everything you said is true. Some kids will indeed be out and about, hanging out with their friends, etc. Daycare pooling will also occur (a mother of a student at my daughter's Montessori school was trying to arrange one here, despite being told it is a bad idea). But many other parents will indeed ensure that their children stay home all day. But even the kids who go hang out with their friends or roam the streets are likely to come in close contact with far fewer people in a day than they would have at school. Overall, the average number of people that school children interact with within infection distance is going to go way down. That's the point.

Dan

Agreed. I wouldn't expect schools to reopen until after Summer vacation at this point. I have no idea how this can be managed... but yeah.

Mabuse

Abob said it. Kids are filthy. They are the biggest potential carriers. Avoid children. Yes, schools should close.

Pharoh

Didn't he come out some time ago and admit he was lying about being a teacher? I may be misremembering though.

Kurt D

We will rebuild!

Vibiana

I voted "other" because yes, I think the schools should be closed, but I also think federal intervention is necessary to make sure students still have access to breakfasts and lunches, their parents have child care if the kids are too young to stay at home, and we should have medicare for all so next time this shit happens we won't be caught so flat footed.