Covid Surges and Education Tries to Find Ways to Keep Functioning

 As an educator I wonder every day what will happen next as I watch the numbers. Right now, for the time of this writing, the Colorado Community College System have spring set up to have both students and staff either be fully vaccinated or go through weekly testing if they are not and have to be on campus. You can find more on Chancellor Joe Garcia's plan at: https://www.cccs.edu/office-of-the-system-president/chancellors-statement-cccs-covid-protocols-for-spring-semester-2022/ . Right now the key word is 'flexible', and everyone needs to be flexible because no one knows what is going to happen next with this virus. CU Boulder is requiring vaccines and more information can be found at: https://www.colorado.edu/covid-19-updates/covid-19-vaccination . MSU is doing similar requirements: https://www.msudenver.edu/safe-return-to-campus/ . CSU is the same and their covid page is: https://covid.colostate.edu/ . Adams State University is using the same approach: https://www.adams.edu/safe-return/ . This shows that schools are talking to each other and watching what everyone is doing. Higher Ed is focusing on the big 3 (masks, vaccines, and testing) to try and keep everyone safe.

When it comes to K-12 the local districts seem to be taking less precautions. Most will be doing masking, but few if any are requiring vaccines even though more kids qualify to get the vaccine. Cherry Creek's site: https://www.cherrycreekschools.org/domain/5440 . I actually like DPS's site because it actually shows how many cases they have and where: https://www.dpsk12.org/coronavirus/covid-19-dashboard/ . At the same time DPS's site is lacking in giving any formal policy around covid procedures and requirements. Then Adams County is still requiring masks, but only encouraging vaccines for students 12 and over: https://www.adams12.org/health-services/2021-2022-health-and-safety-protocols . Then you have Douglas County School District that needs to be investigated for endangerment of kids through no safety measures so that they can "honor" peoples choice to endanger themselves and others: https://www.dcsdk12.org/about/leadership/superintendent/looking_forward_2021-2022 . Criminal charges needs to be brought against every administrator in this district for child endangerment, not to mention the larger endangerment to the rest of the county and people passing through that may get covid in this plague den. The whole county should be cut off from state founding until they start taking public safety seriously. I say this because it is very easy to find the numbers related to covid and this county is not paying attention to any of the information.

Graph from: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+have+died+from+covid&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS974US974&oq=how+many+people+have+died+from+covid&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i433i512j0i512l3j0i433i512j0i512l3j0i457i512.10511j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Last time I checked on info of the black death killed around 25 million in Europe, while at present covid is just under 5.5 million (more has actually died, but many countries are not reporting the full numbers). The common flu has also been with mankind for a long time and you can find yearly information from recent history on the CDC's website (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm) and this also has always impacted people trying to get educated.

"Overwhelmed hospitals. Staffing shortages. Businesses closing. Here's how the Omicron wave is ravaging local communities." - The first paragraph talks about how 5 Atlanta school districts are shifting to remote the first week of the new year. This is because of increases of covid and we still haven't hit the spike for the after holiday time frame which we will see in about 2 weeks. Then at the same time many schools are going to pretend that nothing is happening and start back to school like normal. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/03/us/omicron-variant-covid-local-impacts/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3_rc2QDbcItSCJ_5W6bnkb6TW16cuXffpOEKGqxoqpYMG34YHhhFubtfc

"What parents should know about sending kids back to school during Omicron" - Key take aways include the vaccine will help keep kids safe, but it's not full proof and many students who are unvaccinated may still be interacting with these kids, so there are still chances of higher spread due to unvaccinated kids. This is the same with the whole population and testing can help to reduce possible infections. Another point was that even as people try to safeguard their bodies the virus is also trying to survive and evolve (that's the whole point of these variants). Every virus in a person has the chance to evolve into a different form and new forms may not be protected against. This then goes back to masking and if additional physical barriers will help, and simply they will. I personally think that the best way to keep students in school is by making masks mandatory for everyone. It is one of the easiest and least invasive ways we can fight this, yet so many people fight against even this basic protection. At the same time, better masks are needed for students and they need to be worn correctly. This article also talks about activities like choir and basketball being put aside to possible also help reduce the spread (this would be expanded to all sports and additional activities like band and theater which I even did as a student). I think that it could be possible to keep these going, but students who would want to do these activities would then have to go through even stricter rules (like testing every 3 days and quarantining when not at school during what ever season is linked to the activity).  https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/30/health/back-to-school-omicron-covid-19-wellness/index.html 

Most of Colorado is in the high transmission and this includes the Denver Metro Area where a good chunk of schools and students are.

Instead of doing this school districts should set up testing sites. If nothing else it would help keep tests from getting lost or destroyed due to mishandling.

"Advocates fear suspensions could add to pandemic pain for vulnerable students" - One of the key things that this article points out are that students are becoming more violent. Everyone likes to blame this on covid, but it is because the current generation of parents, educators, and society as a whole are not training kids how to act properly. We have taken away the most effective ways parents had to punish kids and now they are running amuck in the schools. We need harsher punishments for students who get violent in schools and not letting them see that their actions can have a negative effect on their lives is the worst form of child abuse because we are enabling them to be violent by letting them get away with it. They need to see real negative effects on their lives to have them change their behavior. Civil rights advocates need to be more concerned about how their actions are directly causing increases in crime and stay out of things if they are only going to make the world a worse place to live due to their ideals. This actually brings me back to Spiderman. It seems like every movie is driven by his mistakes in him taking action in what he thinks is right, but it causes people to die and makes matters worse. It is the same with these people making crime acceptable in our society. We need a no tolerance policy with strict punishments that must be carried out to get today's youth to see the damage they cause to themselves and others by their actions. We need to stop coddling these kids because we are destroying our society. It's about time we start teaching them how to adult. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/school-suspension-covid-mental-health-rcna10329?fbclid=IwAR3l-NvspXANWKSzRecssxwOy7Ls0FlPGXCiPqpMNimwkVaZzipoCEJ34uY