EPftF: Putting It All Together
Jun. 7th, 2020 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutStatus Quo Ante — Pre Pandemic Normal — is not a plausible choice in the United States other than in a few exceptional locations (if there). Most strategies for reopening school in the fall by using a combination of the techniques listed in the previous post cost money and will encounter resistance from one or more groups. Status Quo post-middle-of-March is the comparator that is likely to win, unless resistance to ongoing remote / distance learning is substantially greater than an alternative strategy cobbled together from what I listed.
One of the best reasons for planning for the first few months — 100 days, until the winter break, however you want to think about it — is that we should know by then whether the first several vaccine candidates are safe, and what kind of efficacy, if any, they have at establishing any immune response and we may have some indication about how lasting that immune response can be expected to be. The impossible to navigate landscape of Right Now should — especially if we continue broadly with distance learning and work from home — offer some better options. One possible better option is if the country as a whole has reduced total cases and new daily cases to a level that is compatible with opening schools generally. This will especially become possible if screening strategies based on wastewater testing go from academic idea to engineering reality. That option does not require any successful vaccine to cautiously proceed to open schools more broadly, with the understanding that as soon as something shows up in the wastewater, it is back to remote learning again. Districts that could never afford to do “enough” of the list in the previous post may find this to be much more affordable. Districts that did not have transmission within the school, but kept having to quarantine sections due to cases that were acquired outside the school, would have a bit more warning at least some of the time, if wastewater monitoring were done not just in the schools, but in the region.
A vaccine that creates an effective immune response that lasts at least one year in one of the early candidates would then present school districts with a specific question to answer: can we get enough of the school population immunized to attain herd immunity? When? There will be a lot of vaccine available for those candidates by the end of the year, but it is less clear who will be prioritized, and how long it will take for individual districts to use vaccines to make school reopening in person a reality. Some districts might also struggle with paying for the vaccine, and with convincing enough of the school population to get the vaccine.
School systems should plan to make remote / distance learning more effective for all participants, but I want to draw specific attention to where I started: the Behavior Kids Conundrum. We have a pretty complex system for trying to help kids who struggle. There are carrots. There are sticks. But most of all, we have a really detailed truancy system to make sure kids actually attend school. And basically all of that is entirely undeveloped in remote / distance learning, at least as it was initially practiced in the spring of 2020. School systems need to figure out how to make sure that attendance is tracked, parents are notified, and interventions are designed to make it difficult and uncomfortable and a few other things, too, to skip school. Kids who actually “show up”, even if that is virtual, are kids that teachers have a shot at connecting to and educating. Kids who do not show up, are kids that teachers cannot help. Obviously, basic needs (food, shelter, safety) come first, and early steps need to be focused on addressing problems that are preventing kids from accessing remote / distance learning (supplying devices, hot spots, helping troubleshoot technical problems, providing support to English language learners, etc.). Obviously, kids who are caring for sick family members, taking care of younger family members, etc., should NOT be subjected to punitive aspects of truancy systems. Kids who are helping financially support their family should be worked with very sensitively. Kids who are depressed or anxious or suffering from other emotional health issues should be connected where possible to additional support. We have all been completely overwhelmed, far too overwhelmed to figure out how to replace so many things that we once did in person, in meetings, by visiting a home, with some socially distanced equivalent. We have also, however, been too skeptical of the possibility of replacing many of these things with a socially distanced equivalent.
We spent decades telling each other so many things had to be done face to face or in person. It would not be as good, if done remotely. We spent decades using this as a reason to avoid figuring out how to do things remotely, for people who were immuno-compromised, for people who had significant mental health challenges, for people who were distant from the services and opportunities they wanted to make use. We blew our decades of practice with a safety net. So now, we gotta do it the hard way.
We can keep focusing all our attention on how to Get Back to Normal, In Person Education. A very, very possible outcome of that is persistently high numbers of cases, high numbers of daily cases, community transmission that is expensive to track, and no vaccine ever that produces lasting immunity. I hope that does not happen. But if we iteratively improve remote / distance learning, if we diligently find ways to do what needs to be done remotely, or in a socially distanced way, we can educate our children effectively, whether we get a vaccine or not.
Even if a completely new pandemic comes along a few months or years after we finally get this one figured out.
One of the best reasons for planning for the first few months — 100 days, until the winter break, however you want to think about it — is that we should know by then whether the first several vaccine candidates are safe, and what kind of efficacy, if any, they have at establishing any immune response and we may have some indication about how lasting that immune response can be expected to be. The impossible to navigate landscape of Right Now should — especially if we continue broadly with distance learning and work from home — offer some better options. One possible better option is if the country as a whole has reduced total cases and new daily cases to a level that is compatible with opening schools generally. This will especially become possible if screening strategies based on wastewater testing go from academic idea to engineering reality. That option does not require any successful vaccine to cautiously proceed to open schools more broadly, with the understanding that as soon as something shows up in the wastewater, it is back to remote learning again. Districts that could never afford to do “enough” of the list in the previous post may find this to be much more affordable. Districts that did not have transmission within the school, but kept having to quarantine sections due to cases that were acquired outside the school, would have a bit more warning at least some of the time, if wastewater monitoring were done not just in the schools, but in the region.
A vaccine that creates an effective immune response that lasts at least one year in one of the early candidates would then present school districts with a specific question to answer: can we get enough of the school population immunized to attain herd immunity? When? There will be a lot of vaccine available for those candidates by the end of the year, but it is less clear who will be prioritized, and how long it will take for individual districts to use vaccines to make school reopening in person a reality. Some districts might also struggle with paying for the vaccine, and with convincing enough of the school population to get the vaccine.
School systems should plan to make remote / distance learning more effective for all participants, but I want to draw specific attention to where I started: the Behavior Kids Conundrum. We have a pretty complex system for trying to help kids who struggle. There are carrots. There are sticks. But most of all, we have a really detailed truancy system to make sure kids actually attend school. And basically all of that is entirely undeveloped in remote / distance learning, at least as it was initially practiced in the spring of 2020. School systems need to figure out how to make sure that attendance is tracked, parents are notified, and interventions are designed to make it difficult and uncomfortable and a few other things, too, to skip school. Kids who actually “show up”, even if that is virtual, are kids that teachers have a shot at connecting to and educating. Kids who do not show up, are kids that teachers cannot help. Obviously, basic needs (food, shelter, safety) come first, and early steps need to be focused on addressing problems that are preventing kids from accessing remote / distance learning (supplying devices, hot spots, helping troubleshoot technical problems, providing support to English language learners, etc.). Obviously, kids who are caring for sick family members, taking care of younger family members, etc., should NOT be subjected to punitive aspects of truancy systems. Kids who are helping financially support their family should be worked with very sensitively. Kids who are depressed or anxious or suffering from other emotional health issues should be connected where possible to additional support. We have all been completely overwhelmed, far too overwhelmed to figure out how to replace so many things that we once did in person, in meetings, by visiting a home, with some socially distanced equivalent. We have also, however, been too skeptical of the possibility of replacing many of these things with a socially distanced equivalent.
We spent decades telling each other so many things had to be done face to face or in person. It would not be as good, if done remotely. We spent decades using this as a reason to avoid figuring out how to do things remotely, for people who were immuno-compromised, for people who had significant mental health challenges, for people who were distant from the services and opportunities they wanted to make use. We blew our decades of practice with a safety net. So now, we gotta do it the hard way.
We can keep focusing all our attention on how to Get Back to Normal, In Person Education. A very, very possible outcome of that is persistently high numbers of cases, high numbers of daily cases, community transmission that is expensive to track, and no vaccine ever that produces lasting immunity. I hope that does not happen. But if we iteratively improve remote / distance learning, if we diligently find ways to do what needs to be done remotely, or in a socially distanced way, we can educate our children effectively, whether we get a vaccine or not.
Even if a completely new pandemic comes along a few months or years after we finally get this one figured out.