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Boston will decide this weekend whether to further delay in-school learning, but mayor says numbers not looking good

Mayor Walsh said today that he and BPS officials will decide this weekend whether to further postpone the return of additional students to schools, based on latest city Covid-19 numbers.

But at a City Hall press conference, Walsh recounted a conversation with a Boston Latin School student who told him she really wants to get back to school, for at least part of the week, as called for by the city's "hybrid" plan. "Our rates are going in the wrong direction for in-person learning," he said.

Yesterday, state public-health officials announced that Boston's rate of new Covid-19 infections has grown to 11.1 new daily cases per 100,000 for the past two weeks. up from 10.0 the week before. It's the third week in a row Boston has been in the state's high-risk category - above 8 new daily cases per 100,000.

BPS had originally planned to expand in-school learning today from high-risk students to K-3rd grade students whose parents have given their OK. Last week, though, the city delayed that expansion to next Thursday.

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Comments

Not surprising though. We opted to keep our young grade schooler 100% remote because this is exactly what we thought would happen. We didn't want to tell him he would be going back to school 2 days / week, then have to tell him it wasn't happening.

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they should go remote until after the first of the year hoping the numbers are down. The schools are safe the custodians are doing a great job and have been working straight thru this and there not even considered EMERGENCY workers even though they are the first in and last out of the buildings. The schools could use air purifiers.

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The city reneged on what they told the teachers. My friend got a fan to put in her window for ventilation. It doesn't even fit in the window.

As for the custodians - yes, they do a good job and work hard. But they are also allowed to trash the teachers rooms over the summer & not put them back in order. So the teachers come back to everything taken out of their rooms & thrown in a pile (including desks & chairs) for the teachers to deal with.

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Anon -What does summer cleaning rooms have to do with this topic. And If that is the case maybe you should be nice to your custodian.. Just saying The have been the shit on a long . And you cant paint them all with the same brush it not fair. Rain ,Snow ,Covid 19 !! they are there...

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By trashed do you mean pulling the furniture out of every room in the building, scrubbing the walls, cleaning the lights, vents, sinks, restrooms, removing the old wax of the floor, applying three fresh coats of wax and then moving all of the furniture back in?

Half the teachers either leave or change the rooms around when they get back. If they need a hand moving things where they’d like it just ask, sometimes the custodians moving in a room weren’t the ones who moved it out and don’t know that particular persons layout.

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I have no idea what they are supposed to do.
How much longer can it go on?

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This place is for the WOKE! The woke don't have kids. The planet is too full as it is. Mother Earth is bleeding and we are raping her of resources to feed unnecessary mouths. Having kids is selfish and cruel. Go to Texas where breeders belong!

Or so I've heard from locals when I've been out in JP with my kids. True statement.

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Sorry that happened to you. Whoever said it is obnoxious. But, I would hardly characterize JP that way. There are and always have been plenty of families with kids and kid-friendly activities here.

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JP has a huge population of parents and kids, dude. Try actually visiting places instead of making up assumptions from your suburban home.

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This place is for the WOKE! The woke don't have kids. The planet is too full as it is. Mother Earth is bleeding and we are raping her of resources to feed unnecessary mouths. Having kids is selfish and cruel. Go to Texas where breeders belong!

Or so I've heard from locals when I've been out in JP with my kids. True statement.

I'll take Things That Never Happened for $500, Alex.

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I've lived in JP 20 years and am raising my kids here. Yes, most people are great and I love the place. But there are some who make the place less than pleasant.

But it damned well did happen on the SW corridor park between the sprinklers near Green St walking towards Stony Brook. It was a Saturday a week before Wake Up the Earth a few years back. It was the first time I had heard the term "woke". I had to look it up when I got home.

Some are so assured of their own righteousness that they or what they profess can never be wrong. It leads to hate. And it's a shame.

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Well, they are sending their kids to school, at least for now.

Priorities, you know.

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I assume you’re including most of Europe in “rest of the world “. Including the large portions of Europe that are already in the process of shutting down again?

Yeah, how’s that working out for the rest of the world?

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In most of Europe, schools remain open. Silly things like bars are closing, since the effect of people not being able to socialize is less than the effect of disjointed education. It’s like they value education or something.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/16/on-the-brink-of-disaster-e...

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-pandemics-public-health-russia...

"The Czech Republic opted to close schools Wednesday to lower an accumulated rate of 521 virus cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days, the highest national level in Europe."

"Moscow officials have urged the elderly to self-isolate and have extended school holidays by one week. Students in the capital from 6th to 11th grades will now move their studies online for two weeks."

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But somehow England, France, and Spain are keeping the schools open.

As you note, Russia closed schools for 1 week. The average BPS student has yet to set foot in a school since March.

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France is at 1.2%, Spain is at 2% and UK at 1%. Boston is over 4% right now.

If we'd really locked down, maybe it would be better here but there are so many variables. Regardless, our general environment is several times less safe for kids than those places.

Do you think schools were open before August in Europe?

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I’ll track down the Eurostat link later, but doing the conversion from their method of reporting (new cases per 1 million residents over 14 days) and US reporting (new cases per 100,000 population), the US looks a heck of a lot better than most large European countries, save Italy, Germany, and Sweden.

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European Union + UK

The United States (broken down by state)

As of when I am typing this, I can roughly translate the US number to 225 cases per 100,000 population, over 14 days (assuming the US number is static, and not increasing or decreasing; I'm not going to track down the numbers for the entirety of the fortnight.) For the sake of argument, the Massachusetts number done the same way is 133 and, and for the sake of argument, Alabama is 292. In comparison, the rate of the UK is 320.3, France is 346.5, Spain is 304.2, Ireland is 200.5, Czechia is 701.9- the worst number.

Ireland, again, is at 200.5, and they opened schools in late August and are keeping the schools open until the 23rd of October, when October vacation (Mid-term) starts, and most likely will reopen them on the 2nd. Boston's rate is 155.4, and again, the whole of Massachusetts is 133.

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