Edhat StaffBy edhat staff
The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department (PHD) reports 98 new COVID-19 cases from Saturday through Monday. This includes 30 new cases reported on Monday
The grand total is now 9,133 cases with 170 currently active. There have been 113 deaths.
There are currently 21 people hospitalized including 4 in the intensive care unit (ICU).
The County Board of Supervisors will hear an update on Tuesday morning from PHD officials to see if the county made the cut to enter into the next red tier to reopen more businesses.
More data can be found at https://publichealthsbc.org.
Zoom school is not working. The kids need to be back in school with real classroom instruction. Teachers, wear masks. Students, wear masks. No excuses. The current arrangement is a total abdication of responsibility to educate our children effectively and in person.
I don’t know…of those 30 cases 1 was in Goleta and 2 were in Isla Vista and Zero were in Santa Barbara…I don’t think we can open the schools. We can open bars, restaurants, movie theaters (to go along with everything else that is already open) but no…it would be too dangerous to put our kids in a safe spot to learn. Let’s keep them running around doing random camps, church groups, rec centers, clubs, sports, parks, beaches, etc…that hodgepodge is definitely safer than trained professionals.
You forgot to turn on the sarcasm switch for the unwary, Duke.
Spot on Duke. And let me just add that the teaching profession is not a trade or a profession or a job. No, it is a mission. Teachers are not drawn to this mission to enjoy long school vacations, or benefits, or tenure. No, it is a mission, blah blah blah and other lies and claptrap….
Let’s follow Science. Masks works in stopping the spread. Enough already of the ineffective Zoom school. It’s rubbish. Our kids are falling behind. This system is failing us. Goleta School District, stop sending me your daily propaganda. I’m not one of your Square Parents.
Get back in the classroom, and do your jobs!
Haha right I know so many parents putting there kids in camps or a basically schools that aren’t schools. I also know so many ppl leaving public to go to private and find out they love it way more. YMCA camps went great over the summer. Kids need to get back in school. Put the child’s needs first u ask any young child, they will say they want to go to school and they’re devastated that they can’t. Let’s find a way and be creative even if that means the community comes together to support the school in anyway.
Zoom school is failing so many children!
And also failing WORKING PARENTS
So, all those states that unwisely opened up in-person schools and colleges are just imagining the surges in cases, and shutting down for funsies?
DUKE – just to clarify…. the only sport allowed is apparently soccer. Girsh park is CROWDED on a daily basis with soccer players in organized camps doing their thing in the outfield of the juniors division baseball field, but at the same time, they’re kicking baseball players off for trying to get some hits in! It is infuriating that these kids are not only prevented from school in person, but they can’t even go to their fields to practice unless they’re soccer players. OPEN UP GIRSH PARK!
Grade school is a different beast from college. There are no keg parties or dorms that I’m aware of at the local middle and high schools. There’s absolutely no reason why the schools couldn’t open safely, with ventilated classrooms (or outdoor classrooms), kids and teachers wearing masks. I have witnessed my daughter in Zoom school and it’s woefully deficient. I am a Democrat and I would not put teachers or students or their guardians in danger if I didn’t think this could be done safely and smartly. I think there’s a small minority of teachers who are preventing this from happening. They need to either retire, apply for disability insurance, or get another job.
The good thing about GeneralTree, is that he very consistently brings nothing to the table. He constantly brings that nothing, and that nothing does nothing, accomplisheS nothing, and just is nothing. But message boards needs people to fill some space and GT does that like a champ! Thanks GT… Edhat comment section would be better off but much less full without you.
Has there ever been a “time” when america was not embroiled in some kind of tragedy or turmoil?..
When there was no conflict, beit political, religious, military or medical?..
Why??..
Here’s the only acceptable answer..all others are merely “inner dialouge”..
It’s You.
Your concept
Your creation
Fed & nurtured by..you.
I don’t understand how a peoples, can create a Nation, and then do nothing but suffer by it.
Over 300 official years & counting..& only going to get worse..harder..until it breaks.
Imagine if there were no C-19!..we would not be suffering, as a Nation, any less.
And to correct you (once again!!!)… I have been known to post much more often than hourly! Breaks in my unemployed days often give me ample time to attack the hypocrisy of the teachers union..
I couldn’t agree with you more Duke @6:29. Also, I’m not really a fan of the hybrid model but if that’s what’s next I’ll take it. The kids are not happy on zoom, mine cannot wait to go back. The only part they like is lunch when they can shut the computer off for a bit. SBUSD make a move! We await your updates tomorrow should we move to the red tier & I hope many other businesses get to open further tomorrow.
Just received a text message from Superintendent Maldonado…
Now we (parents) at a “Go for Gold” approach with an optimistic opening date of January 19, 2021.
This is COMPLETE BULLSH!T. And unacceptable. I hope that parents here on Edhat will protest this idiocy.
More like “go for lime, calcium and rust”. Her plan is lazy, there is no reason the kids can’t go back October 13th should we get to the red tier tomorrow. It’s like education is the least of her worries when it should be at the top. Zoom is not teaching the kids squat and isn’t helping their social behavior but that doesn’t seem to bother her either. Oh how I wish Amy Alzina was our superintendent.
This is now a “Casedemic” not an epidemic. Had the Spanish Flu occurred today, the equivalent deaths would have been ~2 million. We just hit ~0.2 million. I think truckers and grocery store workers should be in charge of Sacramento and the schools because they know how to keep essential services running.
You have a significant, game-chaning County Schools Board Race on the ballot – they hire the County Superintendent. Don’t vote for the incumbent in your county school district if they have not earned it. Simple as that. You have a significant, game changing Santa Barbara Unified School District race on the ballot – they hire the SBUDD Superintendent. Don’t vote for the incumbents. Simple as that. Other school board races – pay attention too. Did your incumbents earn re-election? You change direction by changing the membership of the elected school boards.
Note that the projected date for back to school is one day before Inauguration Day on January 20.
This is completely politicized and has nothing to do with Science.
People who are criticizing your view point seem to have no clue what it’s like in a classroom. I’m not a teacher, but we’ve all been in classrooms so should be easy to know that unlike many other essential workers, teachers have no ability to separate themselves from those they serve. I had to laugh when I read a commenter here saying how simple it would be to just “draw a line” to keep the kids back and wear an N95. Well, you can’t get N-95’s unless you are in health care, and you can’t keep kids behind a line, especially those who need comfort or those who have behavior problems. What happens when kids get sick, fall down, all the stuff kids do. It’s the teacher who has to go “hands on.” Keeping masks on them all properly would be enough of a stretch. I don’t blame teachers for not wanting to catch COVID and die. Although commenters here have stated there is no problem, because kids don’t have bad symptoms from COVID, that view point sounds self centered, and is not sensitive to the fact that their kids could end the life of a teacher. In emergencies, like this pandemic, a very few people have remained caring of others, and realizing that wars, famines, pandemics, fires, earthquakes etc. don’t respect entitlement. Throughout history, people have had to go through periods of sacrifice and emerged stronger, but in 2020 so many feel they are owed whatever they want at all times. The kids will not be irreparably damaged just because they had to put off in-school learning for a couple semesters to get this virus under control. But the loss of good teachers’ lives is irreparable.
More than a dozen new cases in Isla Vista over the weekend. They have not yet been reported by the County but will either today or tomorrow. Many of them are asymptomatic spreaders. They are walking around at Costco, grocery stores, etc. etc. They were not wearing masks because they didn’t know they were positive. You will come in contact with them and not know it. You want to open more businesses? You want your kids and their teachers back in crowded classrooms? Go ahead. We will be back to strict shutdowns in a few weeks.
BENE – that’s just not true. Are you a parent? Do you want what’s best for your kids? What’s better – watching 2-3 hours of zoom session from your bedroom or being in front of your teacher for a full school day? Which is better?
Not wearing masks in Costco and groceries? How is that possible? Or are you just talking out your ass?
Where did you get this information on an outbreak in IV?
Do any of you ever stop to re-read what you write? @LooseCannon, teachers are working harder than ever now and it is incredibly difficult to bring people to the profession because of the low pay, low respect, and extreme challenges of teaching rigorous standards to students who either have helicopter parents who pressure their students for grades or parents who are working multiple jobs just to pay their bills. Zoom school is not ideal, but it is not safe to bring students in large numbers back to campuses. Teachers, a large percentage of whom are over 40, are not easily replaced. Have you seen how many teachers have died in districts when schools re-opened(https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/teacher-deaths-from-covid-19-raise-alarms-as-new-school-year-begins)(https://www.schools.nyc.gov/about-us/news/covid-19-losses)? Remember, few school districts have re-opened in large metropolitan areas. If more than 90% of schools are not open now, and we re-open, teachers will die. How do you plan to replace highly skilled workers who earn much less than peers with similar education? I for one, am not ready to die, just because you think Zoom school is woefully deficient. Videoconferencing has turned out to work well for many businesses and schools are finding new ways to be better remotely too. With Nearpod, Zoom, Google Classroom, and a host of other learning management systems and online simulations, we have the ability to engage students remotely like never before. Are all teachers great at it now? Of course not. However, my data says that the majority of my students are doing well, working hard, and learning a lot. There is variability within classrooms of course, but most of the teachers I know are being creative, flexible, understanding, yet still providing a rigorous, academically and emotionally supportive education. Next time you decide to go off on a rant against teachers, consider the reality for public schools in California; We can’t find enough skilled people to enter the profession already. If we open now, and lose hundreds of teachers around the state, it will be another tragedy, and one that would mean many students lose their teacher. Hybrid teaching is probably worse than totally remote learning as students would be in class in reduced numbers, unable to congregate and work together, and instructional hours reduced with alternate cohorts being taught different days of the week. We are improving daily and our students will be fine. Let’s re-open when we are truly safe to do so. We don’t need to accept 200,000 deaths as inevitable and if we re-open schools now, we will have to shut down again as numbers rise and students interact even more so. Transitioning back and forth from remote to hybrid then back to remote means a lot of additional planning, all of which rests solely on the back of teachers. I already spend over four hours a day preparing for teaching and making meaningful learning experiences, then working with students individually and in small groups that need additional support. Please everyone, calm down and realize this isn’t ideal for anyone, but going off on a rant and calling people names exposes everyone’s true colors and does nothing to support students and teachers who are making the best of a challenging situation. Until there is a vaccine and a large majority of people have increased immunity, we will be leading different lives. Let’s do so with compassion and empathy.
While we want to protect our children, we can’t prevent them fro being exposed to all sorts of diseases both before and after this Covid virus. Taking proper precautions should minimize their exposure. In fact, from the statistics that PHD has shared with us, it seems that none of the children that have contracted the virus have gotten very sick or died. Most of the deaths have been from people over 70 with underlying health issues. We really need to start applying common sense and not losing our perspective about this.
Yes, most of the deaths are old people. But those old people may have gotten the virus from young people. And what if your kid is the rare one to die or have long term damage from the virus? It is not always predictable (some people without pre-existing conditions have suffered). Parents do all kinds of shenanigans to keep their kids from being kidnapped, which is extremely unlikely to occur. This virus is for sure circulating amongst us, but you want to just wait and see if it gets your kid?
Educator. I respect your opinion as a teacher. But I can’t respect your opinion on the facts of disease or public health. Yes, teachers will be put at risk. Just like grocery store workers, daycare providers, health care providers, and just about every other person that leaves their home. The risk averse attitude that the teachers like you have taken is not in line with the rest of the essential workforce. Every industry and business in the community has stepped up, put protections in place, and found ways to keep working while reducing risk. The public school teachers are literally the ONLY profession that has chosen to ignore the direction of the public health agencies and not do their jobs. There will always be some anecdotal example of a teacher getting sick or student bringing home the virus. That is life. The pandemic is not about individual cases, it’s about the totality and there is yet no evidence that schools are directly responsible for widespread outbreak. The school system is vital to our society. Teachers are vital to our society. This is the time for you to step up. It’s disappointing to see this kind of opinion by someone that is supposedly on a mission for our students. If you were truly on a mission, you would be doing the best for students. That is being in school and NOT virtual learning. I have plenty of teacher friends that disagree with you but are afraid to speak up because the group think that has infiltrated the teachers. I see the frustration that students, parents, and teachers are going through. I have a child in kindergarten and it’s a joke. The health and developmental damage being caused is immeasurable. The public health department is about to give the schools the green light (elementary schools have gotten it already) but now the damage is self inflicted. Our school system is failing our society directly because of this type of attitude, paranoia, and failure to accept any risk. You, as a teacher, could put on a N95 mask and draw a line in your classroom keeping distance from children. There would be zero risk to you. Take some personal responsibility. Our children need you in the classroom.
Low teacher pay is a myth, but part of the standard teacher union complaint: underpaid; overworkd; under appreciated. Same things we have been hearing for decades every election and every demand for more taxes and more parcel taxes and bond issues. Exactly the same words for exactly the same three complaints, no matter how much money we keep throwing at K-12 -it is always never enough and there has been zero improvement in student outcomes. Yet without apology, we get exactly the same teacher union demand yet again with the covid twist now thrown in: underpaid, overworked and under-appreciated. Transparent California website lists the full compensation packages taxpayers are funding for every employee of all our local school districts – keeping mind for teachers this is a 9 month work year, and for administrators and some staff, it is for a 12 month work year. Prop 98 has long guaranteed 50% of all state general revenues automatically go to public education in this state. We expect a lot higher than our chronic #45 student ranking outcomes for that heavy investment in public education. Fix it and stop asking for even more money or open up the profession for those who demonstrate they are up to the task. Which today means charter and private school instructors – learn what they are doing right and bring those lessons back into the badly failing public school system.
Educator is right! We can replace grocery clerks and restaurant staff. We can replace Uber drivers and bus drivers. We can replace coffee shop baristas and warehouse staff. We can replace delivery drivers and assembly workers. We can replace coaches and private school teachers and camp counselors and police office and fire fighters and Census bureau’ers (?) and cable installers and carpenters and plumbers and lifeguards and…well…anyone and everyone. They are all expendable!!!!!!!! And imagine how difficult and frustrating it would be for a teacher to open up and then have to close back down. That would be a nightmare. Going to work, and then having to transition at some point to going home. No!!!! I can’t imagine why you feel like teachers are getting low respect…what could possibly be the reason that people are down on the only essential profession that refuses to go back…bizarre…
Educator, Duke has kids and is having a hard time with them doing virtual learning. Going to be hard to convince him that teachers shouldn’t risk their lives to make his easier.
@PITMIX – people who want their kids to go back to school aren’t wanting that for themselves, it’s for the kids! No parent wants their kids to be losing out on the normalcy they should be having. Sick of all you saying anyone who wants school or sports to open is selfish. I LOVE my kids and love being with them at home while I work and they go to school. I absolutely love this! But….. I know it’s no good for them right now. They need to be with others, learning in front of a live human being. Playing sports (even with modifications) and doing what kids are supposed to be doing! It’s been over 1/2 a year now. We can no longer say “oh, kids are resilient, they’ll bounce back after this short period of inconvenience.” NO. The schools have already decided to allow this to go on another 1/2 year or so. That will permanently damage some kids. Not all the kids have what mine have at home now. Those kids will be left behind in the dust.
Wanting the best life your children is not selfish. Demanding that parents “suck it up” and keep their kids home for another 5-6 months IS selfish.
Another point of frustration is that the school district feels like they are qualified to make decisions for so many of us. According to their own survey, 50% of parents want their children to go back to school and at least 1/3 of staff wants to go back to school. That’s roughly 7,000 students and at least a few hundred staff. There are outdoor options, hybrid small cohort options, and many other alternative options to provide children with some form in person learning. No one needs to force students and teachers to put themselves into situations where they are uncomfortable. But, why not give the rest of us an option? The answer from Maldonodo, Laura Capps and the rest of the board continues to be “it’s just too hard”. They’re not willing to think out of the box during the greatest crisis to hit the education system. Can you imagine if you did that at your job?
Nice try educator- there is a little website called transparent California (obviously you know if it) and we can see how much all of you make with a simple search. If you can’t afford the bills on that kind of pay perhaps it’s time reevaluate spending habits. And yes I re-read this comment and I still approve. Sacjon- you’re on fire today, I agree again 🙂
From what I can tell the candidates haven’t even spoken on the subject (please direct me to something if I am wrong). They seem focused on arguing about bi-lingual education and sex ed. We need to hear each and every candidates views on opening. Anyone that refuses to open schools at the moment that they are allowed to do so should not get our vote. They are educators NOT public health officials!
420722 – haha thanks! After 7 months of constantly being told what we “can’t do,” I’m tired of it.
Soon to be both sick and tired.
Goleta school district was 75% of kids wanting to go back…and that was back in May! I’d say it’s probably over 90% in GUSD now…but even if it was “only” (!) still 75%…it’s time to open. It’s going to be slightly weird and not ideal (masks, plexiglass, etc)…but it wouldn’t be that hard. The lack of effort and accountability is staggering.
12:08 – How do you figure I’ll get”sick” from safely living life with a virus that is going nowhere? I wear a mask everywhere I go outside of the house and car. My kids play only with a small group of friends, outside and never indoors, from families who respect the virus as we do. They also practice modified sports, wearing masks near others and only practicing in 2-4 person groups, outside and distanced.
Believe it or not, life IS possible with this virus. You just have to be a little creative and willing to do a lot more work for a lot less activity.
BOSCO – I do have to say, from all the teachers I know, they all want to go back. This is really driven by the union and older teachers who are scared to go back. It’s the minority of teachers and their union keeping our kids at home. Other than that you are right on. The virus will be here for YEARS, we can’t continue the zoom crap that long.
You are completely right! From listening to the school board meetings, this truly is their position. They seem determined to wait this thing completely out no matter how long it takes or what tier we’re in or what the numbers say, with the thought to then one day say “we’re restarting just as it was before”. It’s just idiotic. Life has changed. This is obvious and true. There is a chance a vaccine is 100% and everything is great some day. There is also a very good chance that this thing is here to stay. After 9/11 we adjusted how we go through security to get on airplanes. We need to make some adjustments…it’s going to take work and planning. That work and planning should be happening now. It should have been happening for months. But they aren’t…and they won’t. Goleta School District hired 21 teachers, all patted themselves on the back and then went back to doing nothing. DO SOMETHING SCHOOL BOARD! Come out and say you need “X” amount of money and you will do “this, this and this”. Have a session of school that’s 8 to 11:30 and a second group that’s 12 to 3:330. Start with 2 or 3 days per week. Just stop sitting around waiting for something that may never come. Life goes on. Everyone seems to realize that…except teachers….