Public Health Aims to Reopen Elementary Schools

SBDUDE - Yes, it's a vast conspiracy...all the private schools, pre-schools and rich kid public schools (plus just schools all over the country and world). But to answer your question, yes...there is data from all over the world showing less community spread in places with school in place. Will a class here or there have to pause for 2 weeks...YES! But that's life...and is a perfectly acceptable situation considering the alternative is full time forever ZOOM. Follow the science and open up March 1st!!!

Avoiding all people while in the Wasatch mountains and at SB central coast beaches.
No different than any other year.
The two places are as different as night and day.
Here, these days I am considered a conservative.
In Utah, I am considered a progressive lib.
That's one of the reasons I can see ALL sides and make wise decisions.

DUKE, I'm confused. There were only 2 open seats for the Goleta School board. Only one incumbent running (who won). Only one person was reelected.

VOR - I will forever be completely floored that the Goleta School Board was re-elected in November... at the time it made no sense and in hindsight somehow makes even less sense! They did everything wrong...and somehow they all got re-elected! We should have started in September and added a week or two to Christmas break.

Good news but still pisses me off, what has changed since September that now makes opening "safe" on March 1st ? They played politics with our children's lives and as voters we must hold them accountable for not placing the students well-being above all else.

Chico -- where have you been the last year? LOL

HOLY HELL...THEY FINALLY DID SOMETHING!!!!! Spring classes are happening... crack the Champaign...we're (almost) back!!!

All right Goleta,get it on.
I'm going snowboarding.
I leave you to your fates.

Pretty funny applying for a teacher job with sentences with multiple errors. Go for it and see if they would hire you.

8:51 -

It's true, you don't seem to make use of any reputable news sources. Here is some help for you:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com

https://www.sourcewatch.org

Sac, I wish I could point you to a reliable, fact based, spin and narrative free news source but I don’t know of any. It’s unfortunate today that we need to read and hear from multiple sources to piece together the real truth. If I’m really struggling I’ll go back and listen/read what was actually said or done, verbatim, in its entirety, not the selectively and deceptively edited version that make it to the “news”. (Try watching the entire “fine people” press conference, unedited, in its entirety, or the “drink bleach” one. You’ll see reality isn’t what you may have originally thought). What’s most concerning is many out there share a similar mono-view (on the left and right) devoid of any objectivity or critical thinking, and these people will be voting in the next election and raising our next generation.

VOR - you're wrong, again. He. Did. Nothing. Not a damn thing until the fall. He spent months laughing at it and encouraging right wing terrorists to "resist" their state leaders who were trying to do something. Name ONE thing he did to prevent spread of the virus once it got here before he finally got it himself. No, he did nothing. Not only did he not condemn, but he actually ignored the death threats and violence and planned terrorist attacks on state governors. Stop sucking up to traitors.

Sac, it is impossible to take you seriously when you say Trump didn't lift a finger to stop covid or the initial spread. You can certainly argue he didn't do enough, but to say he did nothing is so completely far from the truth I question if you're even serious or just messing with me. If you truly believe that, you are too far down the media created TDS rabbit and hole and there is no saving you. Knowing what we know now, we should have returned to school and work because all the restrictions and mandates in CA did nothing to stop the spread or even reduced mortality. Using your house on fire analogy, it would more accurately be if a new fire crew pulled up to a house on fire already being fought by a different fire crew, the new crew promising the homeowner they could do a better job and defeat the fire, then once the first crew is gone the new crew tells the homeowner, "there is nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the fire". Question the media and their motives (it's profit) questions our leaders and their motives (profit and power) and hold them accountable for their actions or lack thereof.

VOR - further... your quote from Biden about future efforts being futile does NOTHING to excuse Trump from his failure to act in the past. That's like a firefighter telling a homeowner they can't save his burning home, after the neighbor poured the gasoline and lit it on fire. Yeah, it IS Trump's fault he didn't lift a finger to stop the initial spread. How you don't understand this is baffling.... that, or you DO understand but refuse to admit it.

VOR - Biden made an effort, Trump didn't. Biden never encouraged people to ignore mask mandates, demanded people return to work and school no matter as if nothing was wrong, teased and belittled people for wearing masks, ignored violence against government officials for trying to protect their constituents, etc etc ad nasuem. Trump did, all of those things. So, to say Trump couldn't have done anything to prevent the spread, especially among his followers, is wrong. Plain wrong. You know it, we all know it.... you're wrong.

Direct quote from Biden “there’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” So Trump could have done something (what, I don't know because he was following Fauci's recommendations, even he said not to wear masks [side note, now it's two masks SMH]) but Biden can't do anything? probably Trumps fault.

per Pskasi “His [Biden's] goal that he set is to have the majority of schools, so more than 50%, open by day 100 of his presidency. And that means some teaching in classrooms. So, at least one day a week." That qualification is a back peddle from his campaign almost as quick as the $2K out the door immediately, to maybe $1400 in March.

VOR - you're wrong.

Sac, we're a year into this and as the virus is still widespread for you to think anything the federal government could have done to stop this is just regurgitating propaganda. When he did take action he was condemned, when he didn't talk action, he was condemned. Do you still not see he was going to be roasted no matter what he did and that none our NPI's have much of an effect on the spread? Biden said he had a plan! then it turned out to be just what Trump was doing and "nothing we can do can stop the trajectory of the virus over the coming months".... oh well at least he has a goal to get kids in school, but in school means "50% of the schools at least 1 day a week", what a sec, that goal was already accomplished during the prior administration.....

LCP - China may have been the source of it, but once it got to the US, it was absolutely Trump's fault for not taking action sooner, even while knowing how deadly and dangerous it was.

Poor education is how we got people who believe China unleashed the pandemic.

China unleashing a pandemic on the world is "how we got to the miserable situation we are in today".

I believe the district has, in fact, purchased masks and face shields for every teacher. And maybe every student too, though I'm not sure about that.

I’ll admit I was wrong about teachers having access to vaccines... I was wrong! I was basing it on our Goleta preschool (who the wife just let me know had all the teachers go to Ventura to get it) and a teacher friend in Long Beach which, along with a few other counties in Cali, have put teachers at the front of the line. I thought that was Cali wide... my bad!

I stand by the cdc recommendation though that schools being open is the safer option (vaccine or not) and that we have willfully chosen the worse option to appease the insanely powerful teachers union. The online zoom school is a joke... not sure what 6th grade class you were looking at, but it’s terrible.

Wow, Duke, you are really out there this morning. Why are you lying about teachers being eligible to be vaccinated in SB right now? Why are you misinterpreting my comments to say all risks for teachers including covid must be eliminated before schools can reopen? That's why it's so hard to have a discussion the schools must reopen now people.

Yes, when teachers are vaccinated, schools should reopen. The risks they will have after that are the same as the rest of us which seems fair.

And if 100% safe is your criteria than everything must stop/close forever...a teacher will die this year driving to school... another will choke on their lunch apple at school. It’s a ridiculous assertion and thought... and ignores all logic, reality and science (but that’s kind of your jam pitmix so... par for the course!!).

So you agree that once they are vaccinated they can open right up? Because right now teachers have access to the vaccine... those not taking it are doing so by choice and that cannot be allowed to be used to continue to hold our kids hostage.

So everyone and everything will be open and working... except schools because a teacher might get sick???

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” AD

PIT: I came from a middle-income household and shared a bedroom with my sister. Four children and two adults in a 3 bedroom, 1 and 1/2 bath home. Common sense and frugality allowed my parents to send my sister and I to private school.

PITMIX - So, because public school kids come from cramped housing (an absolutely absurd "observation"), then it's ok for only private schools to be open? That's ridiculous.

Pit mix - You are assuming that all private school kids have rich families? And don’t share bedrooms?

And tons of kids we all see and know are our and about and then at home. Are you willfully ignoring the science that says schools being open is the safer scenario for everyone...or what?

Private school kids can likely isolate and quarantine if something happens in their household. Public school kids from families with cramped housing cannot. That might be a difference to consider in evaluating the potential for spread in public schools. One 8th grader I know shares his bedroom with his 2 brothers, one of whom has underlying conditions.

C&G..
I see that you have received 2 dwnvts.
..but everything you state is
100% true.

@Chilling, congrats on completely missing the point.

SBSAND - your position is not only ridiculous, but its the less safe option (plus the one crippling us as a society). Data from around the world shows schools being open is the safer option... and it’s obviously the better option. The teachers union (and you) should be ashamed, they have made SB a tangibly less safe and worse place for everyone. Start school ASAP in conjunction with the CDC recommendations... stop following the unions selfish madness.

Seriously? They have a right to be safe at work and with how germy children and teens are, and how bad with personal hygiene that population is, they won't be safe right now with the rate of spread. Our teacher death numbers aren't high here, and that's good, I think MOST of us would like it to say that way. Know why they aren't higher? Distanced learning! They are working hard to do their best with our kids and they should NOT be ashamed, it is you that should be.