It has been just about two months since I told you that if anyone had a shot of starting school up without major Covid consequences, it would be my little corner of the world. I'm here to report that things are not going well.
Back on September 7, the number of cases for the whole county, since March, was 70. People were not panicked, but cautious, with the usual outlying groups of deniers and total freak-outers. Okay, lots of deniers--this is Trump country, and at this point locals know that there are some stores you avoid if you take masking seriously. Our four school districts went ahead and opened, with two choosing a sort of gradual "soft" opening, and the other two just going for it.
By October 15, the number of cases had doubled. Two of the four high schools had had two cases each. One shut down to clean for 48 hours; the other sent forty students to isolation. Everyone's sports are still going on, but with limited audiences.
Yesterday, the state said we had our highest single day total--46 confirmed cases. I'm sure that's nothing in major cities, but we've got fewer than 50K in the whole county. And our totals are probably lagging because there is no place to go get tested in this county.
That brings our grand total to 359. As you can see, we're escalating quickly.
In schools, things are going poorly. At my former district, somehow, they managed to expose the entire administration team, so all administrators and most of the main office staff have been in isolation. This week the district has gone to virtual school. Two weeks back, an entire fifth grade team was sent into isolation. In another district, three teachers have just tested positive. The state has met with several local superintendents, and schools are going to the hybrid model next week; one administrator has already told his people that after a week of hybrid, they'll be going virtual.
Districts had protocols in place before the year started, but those aren't always being followed. Teachers are largely on a DIY basis for PPE. Plenty of folks, including some teachers, are pretty sure CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: New Update From What Is No Longer The Trailing Edge of the Pandemic
Teachers and support staff at Glamorgan Junior Public School, in the Toronto borough of Scarborough, walked off the job Monday to protest school authorities’ decision to keep the school open despite a major COVID-19 outbreak. The outbreak was declared last Friday after nine teachers and two students tested positive for the potentially lethal virus. Fifty-eight students have been ordered to quarantine.
The work stoppage continued yesterday as reports emerged of a further student testing positive. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has flatly refused to close the school, citing an inspection carried out last week by the Ontario Ministry of Labour and the opinion of Toronto Public Health that the building is safe. The authorities have sought to justify this with claims that the coronavirus infections have been confined to one wing of the school.
These claims are nothing more than self-serving justifications for the murderous “herd immunity” policy being pursued by Ontario’s Doug Ford-led hard-right Conservative government. Ford, the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the entire ruling elite are determined to keep schools open so that parents can be forced back to work to produce profits for big business.
Since schools reopened in Ontario in September, over 2,300 infections have been recorded among teachers, students and school support staff. In Quebec, there were 422 new COVID-19 cases among elementary and high school students and staff just on November 2, bringing the total there to 7,444.
In an anonymous statement sent by the protesting Glamorgan JPS teachers to CONTINUE READING: Teachers Walk Off The Job After COVID-19 Outbreak - PopularResistance.Org
I may have just read the worst essay I have ever read submitted by a student—since the beginning of time.
And that occurs in this context: I have been teaching adolescents and young adults to write for 37 years.
Of the tens of thousands of student submissions I have read, of course, this essay cannot really be the worst. But that sort of dramatic overstatement is exactly what brings me to discussing that essay and many just like it submitted recently as we near the end of the semester.
Again, as context, many of these essays have been submitted after more than two months of first-year writing seminar where I have explicitly focused on vivid and engaging openings and closings.
Here is the opening of that essay (lightly edited so readers can focus on what CONTINUE READING: Overstating Nothing: Why Students Often Write their Worst Sentences First (and Last) – radical eyes for equity
