The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Should local school districts cancel school until further notice due to the coronavirus?
Talk about it.
case by case; not a blanket closure.
I completely agree .
Just have an extended SPRING BREAK with a project for them to work on.
apparently you don’t understand the purpose of a “Break”.
If it’s an extended break (as I posted), they will be fine doing a little project. Parents don’t need to grumble, as it’s quality time together helping.
Get real “S”. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
If they get an extended break, alls that will happen, will be that their Summer gets cut short. They’ll have to deal with it.
auntie b… i know ur intent, but please look up the meaning of the word Break.
dear P, very real…. with state of emergency declared chances are very good time won’t have to be made up.
word has it the school board is having an emergency meeting tomorrow. my bet is they will close Monday thru spring break..
Ever heard of the summer slide? I’m not saying it can happen in this case. But providing students with “practice” work to take home during their “breaks” isn’t a bad thing. I’m sure you’d prefer a child sit in front of the computer or television screen rather than stimulate brain development.
dear S
look up the word extended.. You must be an unhappy teacher or parent to get your feathers so ruffled about needing time off from school
nah, neither, just stirring the pot….
😉
K through 12 schools should stay open. If they want to shut down higher education, that’s an other question. Kids today need all the education they can get and nobody knows how long the duration will be. What if we don’t see any relief for a year? Will they want to close the schools for a year?
By the way, I was at a Dollar Tree store today and they have plenty of toilet paper and hand sanitizer, so there is no way I will believe all the hype and scare tactics the media is presenting to the public.
Don’t touch your face folks, and wash your hands.
That’s because people all head for Costco rather than checking the nearby supermarket or even dollar store. Nob Hill had plenty of tp 12 roll packages on $5 Monday.
Which dollar store did you go to
Target (PH, WC) were out, 3 Trader Joes, Bath &body works, Amazon (and most other online sites), Walgren, 99c store on Clayton Rd. All same story.
the store I go to had plenty of tp.. ill tell where it is after I go buy 200 more rolls
Toilet Paper can be found, Safeway and Lucky generally has some. Disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer , alcohol , aloe vera gel and liquid soap are pretty much out everywhere. This is concerning because everyone needs access to those items and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a cluster of people that get up at the crack of dawn and buy everything out every shipment day. Distribution warehouses have plenty but can’t get their trucks out fast enough to meet demand and stay DOT compliant.
If you’ve got extras of the above mentioned items please consider donating them to food banks or donating to your local public school.
Still waiting for a response, Dawg, as to the availability of hand sanitizer at which dollar store? Seems highly unlikely.
Why the hell are you buying all this TP? Have you read one website that has mentioned an outbreak of diarrhea?
Pat, sorry to keep you waiting but I usually don’t come back to read my comment and see if there is a reply. The store is the new Dollar Tree on Monument Blvd. near Big Lots.
The more obvious question is ‘have politicians kept public schools open while ruling other mass gatherings closed to keep collecting federal funds for students at their desks’ ???
Ding, ding ding
Well, don’t know. If a child is living at home, with an elder or someone with health problems at the home, and worried about that person getting the coronavirus, then maybe. With kids catching all kinds of colds & flus at pre-schools and school, who knows,…?
This.
Only elderly and immunocompromised individuals are seriously affected by the virus. If the child lives with an elder, that could be a cause for concern, but, not sure if the solution is pulling the kid from school, either. OFC, the kids themselves are for any excuse at all to not go to school!
Its the inconsistency in making decisions that is driving me crazy. Soccer games are canceled yet my kid can go into a tiny locker room and change with 120 other kids? All after school activities are canceled yet all kids sit in a lunch room that hold 400 kids at a time?
Y’all are buggin
Districts such as MDUSD must have a better plan than to make that decision after students/faculty before ill:
”If one student, teacher or staff member tests positive for COVID-19 and exposed others at the school, CDPH recommends that school administrators implement the following steps:
• In consultation with the local public health department, the appropriate school official may consider if school closure is warranted and length of time based on the risk level within the specific community as determined by the local public health officer.”
They don’t
I say they should be. Just give them some packs of homework and text books to take home. Prepare a 3 weeks packet of homework and pages to read from their text books. (I say 3 weeks because we don’t know how long they should be shut down for) or another alternative would be going to school once a week with weekly homework packets and which chapters to read for the week.
and where are you going to make that time up from? Back end? or tack it on the front of the school year? You do know that ED code (law) states you have to meet a certain number of minutes in the state of Ca. So you have to make it up and working at home isnt making it up.
Spot on! School year is planned down to minutes. 2 weeks here means an extra 2 weeks in June.
It seems like the wrong groups are being quarantined. The virus is most dangerous to older folks, esp. we 70+ codgers. We should allow life to go on as normal, but just not allow contact between the immunologically fit (and who can beat down the infection) and those who are challenged (unless one of us decides, screw it – i’m going to get it and see what happens).
Children could spread to Parents then grandparents, WHO ARE AT MORE RISK.
Yes. Please keep your children safe from other kids. Also teachers can always assign homework through email to parents and keep them informed as to what their child needs to be studying. That is why it is called “homework”.
The schools WILL be closed down fairly soon. The virus is spreading and the best way to avoid infection is to stay away from sick people. We are already seeing requests by the govt. for people to stay away from large groups. Private entities like sports leagues, cruise lines, churches, etc. have begun to “self-quarantine” by cancelling events and gatherings.
Schools are the the very logical next step in this progression. There will potentially be more draconian steps taken should the containment fail.
BTW, I want to remind Claycordians about my comments on 2/27/20 in the Water Cooler (Are You Happy With Your Retirement Investments). I really hope that my advice was followed by our readers. So far, it’s been spot on, except for severity and speed of the pullback. This weeks stock action is not all due to the virus. The Saudi surprise announcement over the weekend (increased oil production=lower price) threw gasoline on the already burning corona virus dumpster fire.
This too shall pass, but I am afraid that it won’t be soon because the virus news will continue to show new US cases and deaths. Hopefully, Saudi Arabia comes to it’s senses and announces production cuts. This would help soothe the overall market by putting a floor in the world oil price.
Stay smart, stay safe, stay sane, and wash your hands.
If they close the schools, are they going to keep the cafeteria open for the free lunch program like they do in the summertime? A lot of children depend on those meals in order to survive.
Leave it up to the parent/guardians without the risk of attendance penalties.
“SURVIVE”?? Oh brother. You seriously think the VAST, OVERWHELMING number of parents with kids getting free lunch can’t afford to go to Grocery Outlet or a dollar store to get a box of Cheerios, bread, milk, bologna, and peanut butter? Please. I’ll green American dollars they have enough money for smartphones with data plans and cable. The NSLP started out many decades ago as something for the TRULY poor and those with special needs but has morphed into a monstrosity of an ugly entitlement program rife with fraud, waste, and abuse, classified as a “high error program” by the OMB. And it was made even worse by Obama’s ridiculous “Community Eligibility Provision. The required “audits” are not just a joke, for the most part they aren’t even performed.
I personally had to deal with this rotten fraud system for ALL FOUR YEARS while my son went to Northgate…as a freshman his name was erroneously put on the “free lunch” (and breakfast and snacks!) list, and we were constantly sent reminders for all the other FREE STUFF he was now “entitled” to, like waived fee for college apps. I dealt with the school, the district, the county, and the state to explain there’s no way we’d qualify for free lunch, not mention we never applied, so TAKE HIM OFF THIS LIST…did that for 4 years, and EVERY year his name was still on that list.
@Jim – actually they could put the kids on independent study, which is an option when kids miss a minimum of 5 days. It still gets counted like the students are there as they are sent home with packets of work and the schools still get the funding.
MDUSD wont be doing independent study for everyone. That’s a pipe dream and will never happen. That is a case by case basis.
Even your precious ones get it all the other kids will have a shorter summer.
state, county, city, soccer teams, etc – all different decision making entities.
lots of thoughts to weigh in on this. there are a lot of dual income households in this area – if they cancel school where will these kids go? and will their parents lose wages by having to stay home with them? yet, we want to protect the public from further exposure.
all in all, everyone is doing their best and trying to brainstorm this.
I guess we should all just stay inside and cancel everything including life…
Disneyland was just shut down
Micky is pissed…..
Schools should have been closed a couple of days ago (but doing so now would be great). The only way to slow this down is through social distancing and/or huge amounts of testing. Our government’s ineptitude with testing means we have to immediately keep any/all large groups from gathering. The message from the experts in clear – the longer we wait to do this, the worse it will be and that ‘worse’ means exponentially more cases.
Schools and districts should work out solutions for students who need care during the day and/or school meals (like acceptable/sanitary common areas where they can be kept at distance from each other). These shouldn’t be barriers to closing schools and preventing the spread of this virus – only problems to solve.
I honestly empathize with people on both sides of this equation. This is not an easy situation. These are not normal times, therefore normal decision making does not apply. The economic ramifications of what we are seeing on the news are starting to ripple and surface…
At the very least waivers should be available for any parents that would like to keep their kids home from school. This is already available for families in Santa Clara schools–thereby nullifying the meal/daycare concern for everyone except the teachers and staff.
Mt Diablo Unified is the school district that kept kids in school with the lights out until the Fire Marshal was called. I have little faith in their decision making ability regarding events that are out of the ordinary. There are already teachers concerned about the lack of cleaning supplies.
If meal/care is such an overriding concern vs public health it should have been included in the State wide pandemic plans that Newsom alluded to in several announcements.
There are studies that show the dampening effect that school closures or breaks have on influenza.
We had time to prepare and the ball was dropped. This was coming so there was nothing that could be done to stop it; we just wasted months, at all levels, and in some respect years, in preparation. Now is the time to dampen the spread to buy first responders and healthcare professionals time to manage the situation and not be overwhelmed. If they get swamped that’s when the mortality rate rises. We need to work together to protect the people we care about that are most vulnerable. Otherwise it could be you that needs to be in the ICU when it is overcapacity.
Countries in Asian dealt with SARS and were prepared a both a community and government level.
No. If you think it’s going to disappear in three weeks you need to think. wash your hands. Avoid large groups . Listen to multiple reports and keep yourself updated.
I don’t know, I’m hearing this thing won’t even peak until May. So the question becomes, should we suspend school and all activities indefinitely?
Ah, so… I is clear by your and many posts that people look at schools as babysitters… tisk tisk tisk
about the making up the time/hours/days missed. Governor N declared a state of emergency… like during the fires…. time will most likely be excused or forgiven.
Nephew’s school district are closing schools next week and starting online classes for the foreseeable future. They will not be missing any school days , I believe.
I’ve seen students and school employees with cold like symptoms that could possibly be the Corona virus but since no one is being tested I guess we will never know.
No.
I think school should stay open for as long as possible. For some of our students school is the most stable part of their day
People need to stop living in fear and stop watching the news. Common sense that has been going on for a very long time, always wash your hands and if you’re sick stay home. I hat it when coworkers come to work sick and then turn around and go home.
There is no need to stop living your life. Read Psalms 91.