OT: Whitmer to keep schools closed for the rest of the school year
Kids will not report back to school. Schools will have to provide some form of remote learning. Seniors determined to be in good standing will graduate. Students determined to be in good standing will advance levels. Schools will not take a funding hit. This year's juniors will take the SAT in the fall as seniors.
Good move.
Here in MA they just released a plan for how sports seasons would finish if schools open in May which seems a bit optimistic.
March 30th, 2020 at 11:07 PM ^
Yeah, we've been getting a number of emails about stuff like that and, at best, my expectations are that the school is open long enough that my kids can pick up the stuff they left behind. I can't even imagine holding sporting events.
No surprise and the best decision, in my humble opinion.
Sounds about right. I'd expect many states to follow suit.
Other rumors:
1) Schools must start remote learning on April 13.
2) School year will not extend into summer break past the last day scheduled in June.
3) Schools will get 100% of funding so long as they pay teachers their expected salaries through June 30.
4) Whitmer and the MDE had severe disagreements, which is why it took awhile to get the plan in place.
Do you have a source for these rumors? As an educator I'm curious, especially about what her and MDE disagreed on and which side "won".
March 31st, 2020 at 12:16 PM ^
The MDE sent out an email on 3/20 that this time can't count towards instructional time and other things. 1 hour later Whitmer sent out an email contradicting the MDE saying that grades and credit can be granted during the closure.
Later a lobbyists said that there was a "battle."
If I had to guess, they will do remote OPTIONAL learning activities, but they can’t make them count for grades because of issues of all students having equal access.
They would not only have to make sure every student in the entire state has a laptop or other type device they can access. But they would have to ensure that they all had wireless connectivity and a place where they could reliably use the device every day. Since there are a number of kids in the state who are homeless, that is a practical impossibility.
Many kids in rural districts simply have no access to internet even.
March 31st, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
This is the biggest argument as to why they don't have a plan given to the schools yet. Some want to work out a plan where kids won't get punished if they don't have access, but it is more than an option, which would amount to an early summer break.
Seemed like a formality at this point. The last few weeks have been difficult balancing work, my wife’s work and the kids. Gonna be hard to keep up through June.
I am completley against closing the schools, and disagree with making this call now.
My wife's a special ed teacher so I've been hearing a lot of how terrible this will be for kids, both sort and long term.
If she wanted to extend the close order till the end of April and align with the new stay-at-home order I could understand that. But there are still 6 weeks of school possible after that, and we do not know where we will be at that point.
I dread telling my daughter she will not be going back, I'm so sad for her.
Not from Michigan...6 weeks of school left at the end of April?! Is it normal for school to go into June there or is that because of snow days and this shut down?I can’t remember ever going past the middle of May in Illinois...
In Detroit, the kids start on Labor Day and typically end the 3rd or 4th week in June. Even without making up snow days, the school year was going to end on June 19th.
June 12th was the last day
So you'd rather risk sending them all back without a cure for this and before things are in a better position? The kids who made it through Katrina were academically fine for the next school year. Switching to remote learning for a quarter is not going to derail someone for life.
This is basically a once (hopefully) in a life time event. Yeah its a pain but we all need to get through this the smartest way possible.
Yes. There is no cure, and there likely won’t be one for the next 12-18 months. So do we cancel next year as well because there is no cure?
A cure is different from a treatment and vaccine. The first two are possible, though unlikely, in the next few months as long as it is not a novel API or DP. A vaccine is 12-18 months away at the earliest.
Although I don’t have a kid at school age yet, I tend to agree with you. The mortality rate age 40 and below is so low I think you can make a case for schools to open soon. As of a couple days ago there was only one child under the age of 10 to die of this virus in the US.
This seems like a good idea, but in Chicago, this type of move gives a significant advantage to wealthy kids and seriously impacts under-served kids in poverty. Not a good look in my opinion.
If you don't understand this by now it's because you don't want to.
The issue isn't kids getting sick and dying, which is bad on its own. It's the schools becoming the vector for the second wave that will almost inevitably hit in some capacity.
Here's where you tell me the flu doesn't survive warm weather, and I bash my head on the desk again.
That’s why my desk is made out of pine. It’s a softer wood that doesn’t hurt as much when I bash my head into it.
You are a dumb fuck plain and simple. The flu gets severely limited due to the weather. Warmer weather limits the flus spread. That’s why you don’t get flu in the summer. It’s well documented. I hope you don’t hurt your head.
Idiot
/insert<headasplode.gif>
March 30th, 2020 at 10:10 PM ^
Oh I get it. You did the thing he said you were going to do to be funny. Good one.
March 30th, 2020 at 11:16 PM ^
For the flu, yes. This is not the flu. This is not the flu. This is not the fucking flu. How many fucking times does it have to be said. It is not like the flu in terms of mortality rate, infectiousness, etc, etc, including the fact there is little evidence warmer weather will meaningfully help.
Most of the population gets it. But for some reason there's always a dumb fuck like you who refuses to understand. And then you live in some form of denial where you think all the doctors and public health experts are morons and that everyone is in on some conspiracy.
It's all just a reflection of your painfully unhealthy ego, really.
Question for you: is this virus just the flu?
6.8.0To call someone an idiot on the heels of saying th eflu is not experienced in the warmer months is rich in irony. It does exist in the summer and all months, regardless of average temperature. There are two sites to visit to inform yourself: CDC and WHO. The transmission slows because of a variety of reasons but it exists. Now, when you have a virus exponentially easier to transmit and with an exponentially higher fatality rate, you, sir, are the idiot for discerning anything other than close the fucking schools.
Do you propose keeping kids in hermetically sealed pods when they come home? Because that's the only way your argument about low mortality rates makes any sense.
FUCK OFF, WINDYCITYBLUE.
REEEEEEEE
It’s absolutely bad from an educational standpoint and there are real equity issues regarding students with 504 plans and/or lack of online access. Any sort of “distancing learning” is going to be a mess.
But realistically, there was no way we could come back. This state is a hotspot for the virus now. This was inevitable. The last two months of the school year are a sunk cost.
Agreed. There’s no way they could institute a remote program that addresses equal access issues in just 2 months.
There’s no other way. It’s bad out there right now and it’s going to get worse. It’s a no brainer
Maybe I'm just not trusting any government, but I don't see any Michigan governor extending the school year through July or August, when that's prime tourism time. I could see any and all tourism related industries pitching a fit if all of our social distancing regulations are relaxed by June and kids are in school all summer.
The travel/tourism industry complained last year when there was talk of starting the school year in August.
Not going into the summer has nothing to do with Whitmer, the teacher's unions nixed that before it even got mentioned. Because they're all about the kids...
And how many years of your life have you dedicated your life to teaching? If I may ask.
April 17th, 2020 at 12:39 PM ^
Tell your union you want them to go to the state and demand to be allowed to teach. See how it ends up.
I support teachers who want to teach. I just know that the idea of schools being open later than originally planned was a non-starter item for the MI state teacher's union.
GoBlueTal-I am a teacher, and a union member. 99% of us are absolutely destroyed that we can't go back. We worry about our kids, their learning, and sometimes their very survival. In short, go fuck yourself.
I support teachers 100% Go tell your union you demand to be able to teach, regardless whether it goes into summer. They'll tell you no.
I believe you that you worry about your kids, etc. I don't believe that the union does.
Ah yes, being an ass to teachers is frowned upon so instead we're going to be an ass to teacher unions and hope no one notices that they're the same thing
Sadly, in today’s world, a lot of people have been brainwashed to think “THE UNION” is some big bad boogeyman who hates students, instead of it being a group made up of, you know, teachers who dedicate their life to working with students.
Instead they believe that it’s billionaires like Betsy DeVos and corporate run, for profit, charter school companies that really care about the kids well being and want what’s best.
It’s a sad testimony to the state of our country where public education is what a lot of people feel is what’s wrong in America today.
Sadly, in any world, a lot of people have been brainwashed to think the union is pro-student. It's not. There's zero corroborating evidence to suggest it is. Teachers are pro student, teacher's unions? no. The whole purpose of a teacher's union is to be pro-teacher. It's not the same thing.
It's funny when people tell me that a for profit entity, which, by definition closes if it fails its students, which only makes profit if it is clearly and definitively better than the free option - is somehow inferior to a school district *cough* Detroit *cough* Washington DC *Cough* Baltimore that has by any objective standard FAILED in its mandate, failed its students, failed its communities.
It's a sad testimony to the state of our country where people graduate public high schools without being able to think logically, and think that self-interest is what's wrong in America today.
my wife is a teacher. Don't hate her. But I hate teachers unions. Try to wrap your mind around that
March 31st, 2020 at 11:20 AM ^
Then you’re a moron because, if she’s a public school teacher, one of the reasons she’s not making minimum wage in a classroom with 53 students is because of the union.
Yeah, please return your degree to whatever school you got it from, they failed you. Badly. Maybe sue them for cost of your classes. The reason class sizes are edging up towards 40 is because of the unions.
First, they're not the same thing, unless you think Democrats support Trump 100% always, or Republicans Obama. That's not how representation works.
I will be an ass to unions - until the head of the MI Teacher's union comes out and says, "We want to teach, but Whitmer won't let us" but I know that won't happen, this was a non-starter argument before Whitmer even thought of calling to suggest the idea.
Because you're clearly confused, let's try this simply - the union isn't for the kids, it's for the teachers. The teachers can be for the kids, but the union does and will sell out the kids for the benefit of the teachers - that's it's JOB. And lest you think otherwise, the US spends more than anybody else for public schools and gets less return on its investment than most of the civilized world - when did this change? When teacher's unions became prevalent. There is a correlation.
Yeah but there’s going to be no travel/tourism industry this summer.
I think you'll find leaders of state governments are being told by the CDC to expect a long shelter in place. Italy's numbers are not coming down very fast.
CDC officials are now floating around the idea the virus will return in the Fall. Most likely we'll have a period where things ease a bit, some of us return to work. But we'll probably be right back to social distancing and shutdowns unless we can get our testing up to speed and be able to check for anti-bodies.
March 31st, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^
I feel for those kids but it's the absolute right call. There's very little chance the pandemic will be "over" by next month. It's way too risky to mix kids together until it's as close to all-clear as possible. Additionally, the risk of potential lawsuits would be staggering.
This is a tough decision. In NYS, I know the Governor has been worried about shutting schools in NYC and everywhere else due to food, shelter and learing gap concerns for about 10-25% of children in NYS.
However, this thing is clearly going long (4/15 for official state wide essential persons only, but likely 4/30 till we are thru and on the down slope of the peak).
If you are worried about the food, shelter and ed gap, maybe solve the main cause of these things: economic inequity and poverty.