In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended “having students physically back in school.”
Yet, as the school season begins, the debate rages on whether to reopen schools or have students learn online at home.
A handful of states such as Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee recently allowed students to attend classes, but after a number of students and teachers tested positive, some of those districts ordered doors closed and the resumption of remote learning.
In Georgia, an elementary school principal sent a letter, which read in part, “Dear Parents, I am writing this letter in order to communicate that a student in 2nd grade has tested positive for COVID-19.”
Yes, you read that correctly: one child tested positive.
Yet, research shows young children are highly unlikely to be affected by the virus or spread it… and the letter of Fear was sent to all parents of children attending the school.
According to the New York Times, over a dozen other Georgia elementary school principals sent out similar letters to parents shortly thereafter. Over 1,000 students and staff in the district, north of Atlanta, have been forced into quarantine. Last Tuesday, a high school shut down until the end of the month, with another following the same strategy the next day.
A foreign language teacher in Georgia said, “This is exactly what we expected to happen.” She quit her job fearing for safety issues when classes do start up and put her high school daughter back into the district’s remote learning program.
In Arizona, a Phoenix-area school district canceled its plan to reopen classrooms next week as a large group of teachers staged what they called a “sick out” to protest having to teach in person given the continued spread of the virus.
The district’s superintendent, Gregory A. Wyman, wrote to parents, “We have received a high volume of staff absences citing health and safety concerns.” He added the district “cannot yet confirm when in-person instruction may resume.”
Pressure from teachers’ unions that don’t want to return to classrooms this fall is building around the country. Many state and local officials are bowing under the pressure.
Lily Eskelsen García, President of the National Education Association, threw gas on the fire last Thursday by claiming schools could become “the germ factory,” “super spreader,” and “the source of the new surge in your community.”
TRENDPOST: Yes, the President of the National Education Association, ignorant of the facts, taking charge and spreading fear of the COVID War.
The same “Education” Association that had us little children hiding under our desks in air-raid drills during the Cold War to prevent us from dying if an atom bomb landed in town… as if it would make one bit of difference.
The same “Education” Association that had us, when we were too big to get under the desks, go out in the hallways during air-raid drills and stand against the wall with our hands clamped behind our heads.
“If you see a flash, don’t look at it,” the “Education” Association ignorantly warned, since, if we saw a flash, we’d be dust before we could blink our eyes.
The same “Education” Association that is too uneducated to read and understand the clear, hard data confirming children are not “super spreaders.”
A study from Germany’s University Hospital Dresden and the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus showed that after taking 2,045 blood samples collected from students and teachers across 13 secondary schools, there were low virus infection rates, and there was no evidence of them spreading the virus.
Dr. Reinhard Berner, the leader of the study and Head of Pediatric Medicine at the University Hospital Dresden, commented directly on the “spreader” issue: “It’s exactly the opposite. Children act more as a brake on infection. Not every infection that reaches them is passed on.”
The Debate Rages On
In Florida, the state’s teachers’ union sued to prevent schools from opening at the scheduled reopening time of the end of this month.
In California, the United Teachers Los Angeles issued a long list of demands regarding the reopening of schools.
New York City’s school district, the largest in the nation with over one million public school students, was set to reopen in less than a month. But last Wednesday, both the principals’ and teachers’ unions demanded Mayor Bill de Blasio delay the reopening by several weeks and impose a slow, phased-in return.
The mayor already has recommended what he termed “blended learning” of part-time classroom, part-time remote learning. For most students, the in-person classes would occur only one to three days a week.
In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy reversed his decision to open classrooms. Now he has mandated schools only can offer remote instruction. Pressure came from the state’s two largest school systems in the cities of Jersey City and Elizabeth, letting the state know they wanted to see plans that would keep students home and studying online.
They were joined by the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, and the New Jersey Education Association who all called on the governor to order a statewide ban on in-person classroom learning.
The governor, after succumbing to the pressure and reversing his original decision, said last Wednesday, “In every twist and turn in the road we’ve been willing to listen and to accommodate.”
The furious debate over whether or not to reopen classrooms has generated another trend: according to a Harris poll taken in July, about two-thirds of parents nationwide are now more inclined to homeschool their children.
And, according to a just-released poll for the Financial Times, “Nearly two-thirds of Americans fear it will be unsafe to send children back to school this year.”
TREND FORECAST: As forecast in the Trends Journal at beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak when schools across the globe were shut down, it signaled the onset of a 21st century online learning system, which, back in 1996, Gerald Celente had forecast as “Interactive U” in his book “Trends 2000.”
“Interactive U” has just been born. The new education system that will replace the current one, which was invented by the Prussians at the onset of the Industrial Revolution, will offer great investment rewards for OnTrendpreneurs® who create the new learning systems and continue to update them.
