"Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, says it is ‘‘a bit of a reach’’ to say that schools should stay closed this fall during the COVID-19 pandemic and that there are a ‘‘whole bunch of things’’ that can be done to allow them to reopen. Fauci spoke to CNN in a phone interview on Wednesday, a day after Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said he intends to see school buildings in his state open for the 2020-21 school year barring a huge spike in infections. In mid-March, DeWine was the first governor to shut down schools statewide in response to the spreading coronavirus outbreak. ‘‘The goal is to have kids back in the classroom,’’ DeWine said. In his interview, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: ‘‘Children can get infected, so, yes, so you’ve got to be careful. You got to be careful for them and you got to be careful that they may not spread it. Now, to make an extrapolation that you shouldn’t open schools, I think, is a bit of a reach. In some situations, there will be no problem for children to go back to school,’’ he said. ‘‘In others, you may need to do some modifications. You know, modifications could be breaking up the class so you don’t have a crowded classroom, maybe half in the morning, half in the afternoon, having children doing alternate schedules. There’s a whole bunch of things that one can do.’’
It's been the same with the masks. First he says the masks won't do much, then a month later he says you better wear one, and last week he said it is a symbolic (meaning submissive) gesture that he gets his jollies off.
Oh, yeah, SORRY AMERICA – Those Catastrophic Mortality Rates Sold to Us by the WHO, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx Were a Huge Scam
He was just playing ball, and it is looking like no baseball at all this year with hoop set to resume its season on July 31 (two months? I played pick-up ball for years. WTF?), and the more I think about it the more I think all the hoop poop and $ports talk is nothing but distraction until the second wave is set to go, a more lethal bioweapon this time requiring a real one-two gut punch to the public. No school openings and no sports. Within months, they will have their toxic potion and believe you will beg for a jab.
Time for a reality check:
The nation’s top infectious disease expert on Tuesday offered a blunt reality check to college presidents who have been bullish about reopening their campuses to a flood of students this fall.
During a Senate hearing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, told Congress that there are unlikely to be vaccines or treatments widely available by this fall to help assure students worried about returning to campus life. Asked, for instance, by a Tennessee senator what he would tell the chancellor of the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Fauci offered a stark answer.
“I would be very realistic with the chancellor and tell her that in this case, that the idea of having treatments available, or a vaccine, to facilitate the reentry of students into the fall term would be something of a bit of a bridge too far,” Fauci said.
That's a good movie to watch in class.
Fauci’s comments come as universities scramble to develop plans for the fall semester, shore up their enrollments, and stabilize their budgets, which have taken significant hits in the past few months, possibly putting some institutions at risk of closure.
The future of higher education is at stake, but for now school is out for the summer!
Many college presidents have sent carefully worded e-mails to students in recent weeks assuring them that they are eager to bring students back to campus this fall and are developing plans to do so. Most don’t expect to make a final decision about the fall until June or early July.
Last week, Northeastern University president Joseph E. Aoun told students in an e-mail, “It is our intention to reopen our campuses this fall and offer on-site instruction and a residential experience for our students.”
Northeastern officials on Tuesday said the university had taken the health concerns that Fauci mentioned into consideration when developing reopening plans.
“Yes, everything that was said today has already been accounted for in our scenario planning,” said Michael Armini, Northeastern’s senior vice president for external affairs.
Northeastern’s plan to reopen includes rethinking how classroom space and dorms are used to keep students healthy. The university is also looking for additional student housing in apartment buildings, hotels, and other institutions in and around Boston to accommodate social distancing requirements.
I guess the rape crisis on campus will soon be disappearing, and the sexual regulation coming out of social distancing is even worse than the Nazis! Can't even reach out and touch someone!
Northeastern has also said that new safety protocols would be put in place on campus, including the use of masks, staggered business hours, and the large-scale deployment of testing and contact tracing, but for some institutions the costs of implementing those health measures isn’t feasible.
Pull the kid out of school now!
On Tuesday, the chancellor of the California State University system announced that a majority of classes would be online this fall. The system enrolls about 500,000 students across 23 campuses, and chancellor Timothy White said with more waves of infection expected in the fall, schools could bring students back only to send them home again, adding further disruption to their education.
I would COUNT ON IT!
The California university system also estimated that it would cost $25 million a week to regularly conduct coronavirus testing, and it’s uncertain if there are enough test kits or human tracers available to do the work, White said.
Hope not. Then you kids can enjoy life again.
The University of Massachusetts system has not determined its fall semester plans, but UMass president Marty Meehan, who serves on Governor Charlie Baker’s higher education reopening advisory panel, said the decision will be “guided by science.”
“I take what Dr. Fauci says very seriously and have great respect for the role that he and his colleagues have played throughout this pandemic," Meehan said. "We will continue to listen closely to guidance put forward by state and federal officials as we formulate our plan for the fall.”
Haven't you learned anything?
A handful of Massachusetts colleges and universities are already leaning toward a virtual fall semester. Some two-year public colleges, including Cape Cod Community College, have announced that the fall courses will primarily be delivered online.
Simmons University said that while it hasn’t made a decision about the fall semester, most of its undergraduate classes will also be available online. Simmons has inked a tuition-sharing partnership with 2U Inc., a private education technology company that already handles the university’s online graduate nursing program, for the undergraduate classes.
Helen Drinan, president of Simmons, said the university wanted to have an online option ready and available in case students can’t come to campus or the health situation remains uncertain.
Simmons wanted “an assured way to offer undergraduate education,” Drinan said. “I am sleeping at night much better than I was the last six weeks.”
I'm glad she is sleeping better.
Higher education leaders have been hoping for a coronavirus test that was as easy to use and as accessible as a pregnancy test, but the reality is much more complicated, Drinan said. The current test kits cost about $100 each.
“We can’t test every single student every single day,” she said, but “education can’t come to a halt.”
Simmons hasn’t determined how much the online classes will cost students, but tuition is likely to be lower than the traditional classroom instruction, Drinan said.
Lasell University in Newton is also developing multiple options for students, such as an opportunity to live on campus while taking online classes, or the option to take online classes from home.
“According to current reports, it seems we have a long way to go before sufficient testing is available,” said Michael Alexander, Lasell’s president. “That is why we developed a flexible approach that allows us to adjust quickly to whatever the circumstances are at that time."
Will there be football on Saturday?
See: "Being the girl on the football team — she played wide receiver and defensive back — was not easy, even for a talented athlete. She proved that she belonged, that she was part of the team....."
It is a league of their own, and it won't be the same without all the drunk college kids going berserk.
With the fall semester still so uncertain, most colleges expect their revenue will decline, and some are already taking steps to cut costs.
Merrimack College in North Andover laid off 30 employees earlier this month. The UMass Medical School has furloughed 100 employees for six months. At UMass Boston, nearly 350 non-tenure-track lecturers, nearly half of those the campus employs in a semester, have been notified that they are unlikely to be needed in the fall.
“As the summer progresses and the university is better able to gauge its academic needs in the face of evolving, COVID-driven health and budgetary conditions, we hope to be able to reappoint some of them,” said DeWayne Lehman, a spokesman for the UMass Boston.
The financial situation could be even more distressing to small, private universities without large endowments to cushion their losses. Higher education experts suggest that COVID-19 could speed up the closures of some struggling colleges.
Which is what they wanted to do anyway, and COVID-19 was the PERFECT COVER!
With the kids not coming back, the campuses can still be repurposed a COVID concentration camps, too! It's a win-win for our murderous "leaders."
Eastern Nazarene, an 850-student Christian college in Quincy, is hoping to open the campus safely in the fall and student enrollment is looking healthy so far, said Jack Connell, the college’s president.
“It’s a highly uncertain time,” Connell said. “Like virtually every other college that does not have a large endowment, we are dependent upon reliable tuition revenue to operate. And so if we are not able to open campus in the fall, or if enrollment is down substantially, we will be under a significant level of financial pressure.”
May God be with you.
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Or the federal government, at lea$t:
"The paychecks of about 54,000 people are still being shorted to repay past-due student loans, despite a federal moratorium that has been in place for six weeks, according to court documents filed late Monday by the Trump administration, but while consumer advocates view the revelation as an indictment of the administration’s failings, the Education Department says it shows the federal agency is doing everything within its power to help borrowers. The Trump administration in March imposed a 60-day moratorium on the collection of defaulted student loans by the federal government during the pandemic, which Congress codified in the stimulus package and extended through Sept. 30. Despite the order, people have complained of their wages still being garnished. A group of borrowers filed a class-action lawsuit in April against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Education Department for allegedly mismanaging the moratorium. A federal judge in the case requested the department produce a report on its progress in suspending garnishments......"
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and the Education Department face a class-action lawsuit for allegedly mismanaging the moratorium on student loan repayments (Alex Brandon/Associated Press/File 2020/Associated Press).
That's the $kanky $choolmarm responsible, and those schools will be the only ones left.
Maybe you could be a teacher's pet and win her over with some ice cream:
"When ‘scream for ice cream’ became social distance anger" by Lucas Phillips Globe Correspondent, May 10, 2020
It’s no surprise that opening day leading into Mother’s Day weekend at the popular Polar Cave Ice Cream Parlour in Mashpee was busy, but with testy customers who just did not want to wait for their cones f-bombing the shop’s teenage staff and a flood of orders overwhelming the small team Friday, owner Mark Lawrence posted “STOP ORDERING” on Facebook and unplugged the phone.
I really do feel sorry for city folk.
The shop opened at 2 p.m. and “by 4:30 on it was just insane,” Lawrence, 60, said on Sunday.
When he finally turned the lock to the Polar Cave that night at 9:30, more than an hour after the planned closing time, Lawrence said on Facebook it was “the lowest feeling I have ever felt.”
The Polar Cave, which usually reopens by April 1, asked customers Friday to order at least an hour in advance as the shop adjusted to the new challenges of social distancing in a business where the product melts, he said in a phone interview.
He had his “A-team” of employees aged 15 to 20, all of whom had worked there at least two years, ready to go for the opening. Instead of six scoopers inside the shop, a team of seven was split with three out in the parking lot, one manning online orders, and just three to scoop.
With drivers peeling off Route 28 to join the crowded parking lot and word spreading, the impatience — and the vitriol — began.
"The wheels were slowly falling off the bus,” Lawrence, who is from London, said in his British accent.
One employee, an 18-year-old who was running orders to cars, was trembling by the end of the night, he said. After hours of f-bombs and slurs, Lawrence said, the woman didn’t even want her pay or her tips; she just wanted to quit.
One customer got out of her car and came up to the window to scream at him, Lawrence recalled.
“Hold on, hold on: It’s ice cream," Lawrence remembered thinking. “Ma’am, you do not have to be here; I don’t have to be here; these kids don’t have to be here,” and Lawrence, who has run the shop for nearly 20 years, knows a thing or two about what he called a real "ice cream emergency.”
Some customers, like addicts who have replaced their drug of choice with ice cream, know they can call him in the middle of the night to meet at the shop to stave off cravings, he said. He’s ridden in the family car to funerals of customers and taken ice cream to the hospital.
“We just have a personal connection that is the Polar Cave," he said of those 50 or so customers who have his cellphone number, and for the rest of the community, too, and with the virus upending life, he said, “I want to be open every day to give customers that sense of that normalcy for a few moments.” The experience of going to get ice cream "brings happiness and it’s corny as hell but that’s what it is.”
Most of the 300 or 400 customers Friday were just glad to see the shop, closed since Christmas, reopen, he said. Some patiently waited for as long as three hours, but about one in five were nasty from the start, he remembered.
“They’re just impatient. They’re used to how it was. In the past they didn’t have a problem waiting an hour [in line], but they aren’t going to sit in their car for an hour.”
MA$$HOLES!
Lawrence said he has dealt with his share of difficult customers and situations in his 40 years in the hospitality industry, but, he said, “this is way worse because of the lack of humanity, the lack of respect.”
For now, the shop is trying to prevent the rush it experienced Friday and would be “open on a daily trial basis,” he said, but the nastiness is still on his mind as he thinks about his former employee who may never work in such a job again.
“Right now she’s very fragile. It devastates me," he said.
--more--"
She was just trying to earn money for college, and $he got a new job down in Providence where, for just a moment, things were normal again:
"As states grapple with how and when to lift restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump is voicing disagreement with one of his top public health experts on the issue of reopening schools in an interview Wednesday with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo....."
That would be -- you guessed it -- the fraud Fauci.
Also see:
Colleges anticipate big drop in international student enrollment
Close to 90 percent of US colleges and universities are preparing for a drop in international enrollment for this upcoming academic year, along with decreased sales at the Book Shop.
Boston College will take over Pine Manor
The con$olidation has begun!
Harvard Medical School says incoming students will learn online
It's not the same as examining or operating on a real live person, and maybe AI could hasten their exit as well.
Suffolk pushing to reopen former Ames Hotel as a dorm this fall
You still have to pass an entrance exam that gives a better chance to disadvantaged students, and what happens to all the stuff left in college dorm rooms after the coronavirus surge?
Some of the stuff is being reclaimed, but most of it is being confiscated by the college, and for two senior athletes, this was the year — until the pandemic derailed their dreams.
We are in the Era of Stupid, with Trump's moronic behavior the defining feature of American life, even as those in ivory towers celebrate the 2020 graduates.
Are you ready for the test?
"For the AP exam, Nevaeh Calliste is developing her own app: a Spongebob-themed version of the arcade video game “Crossy Road.” (The at-home version of the Computer Science Principles exam, unlike most other quarantine-era APs being taken last week and this, asks students to complete two projects independently over multiple days.) Calliste is all-too-rare in a city where Black and Latino students’ access to advanced computer science offerings is limited....."
Better fix the glitches because one girl already ran into the living room, sobbing and parents have filed a class-action lawsuit regarding the botched tests as the standard SAT falls out of favor and the state returns to the MCAS next year.
Waiting for her out front:
"The leaders of major Boston-area colleges and universities say they are hoping to hold some or all of their courses on campus this fall, even as epidemiologists warn that colleges by their very nature might put students and faculty at risk for COVID-19. “We are going to have to be more flexible than we’ve ever been in the way that we offer education,” Boston University president Robert Brown said Wednesday, speaking on a panel hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce where he and other campus leaders outlined how they plan to create safe campus environments this fall, but experts in infectious disease said that will be a nearly impossible task....."
Never mind the high schools:
"As high schools nationwide have canceled or postponed traditional graduation ceremonies to avoid worsening the spread of the new coronavirus, thousands of graduates, parents, siblings, and grandparents were to gather Wednesday night and again Thursday night in a nearly 11,000-seat stadium in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. That’s where two high schools will hold traditional commencement exercises despite COVID-19. Two schools in nearby cities held ceremonies Tuesday, with chairs for more than 540 graduates spread apart across a football field at Thompson High and a keynote address by Alabama’s state school superintendent, Eric Mackey. Few of the attendees wore protective face masks, and seniors hugged and gathered in tight groups of friends for pictures. Dr. Michael Saag, who treats infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said the threat of spreading the coronavirus poses too great a risk to hold such ceremonies. Virus carriers without symptoms could unknowingly infect others, he said. Saag has a special perspective: He survived COVID-19 after being infected in March. School officials in Hoover announced the ceremonies in the city’s open-air baseball stadium, after Governor Kay Ivey eliminated state restrictions on the size of group gatherings, as long as people from different households stay 6 feet apart."
Your high school senior year and graduation is meant to commemorate our achievements in high school and carry each of my classmates and me from childhood to adulthood, and it is OK to grieve the loss of graduation with the emotional complexity to mourn for other people’s losses without diminishing our own, but this year, graduations have a chance to be actually meaningful because the weird, online, non-graduation graduations have a kind of emotional power and directness that no ordinary generic caps-and-gowns ceremony could match (as she implies that past graduations were not meaningful even as the recent crop was just given an okay, pass 'em because of Corona).
That is the generation that has entered a world in crisis and has taken command:
Looking west toward the White House, people fill Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington during the "March for Our Lives" rally in support of gun control on March 24, 2018. The rally was organized following the mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14 (Alex Brandon).
Patti Hartigan, a former member of the Globe staff, says your parents were initially afraid to bring you into the world(!!??!!), but now we know you are going to change it because you are the 9/11 babies and have already made your mark, so the world is yours to change and you should take it. The "OK boomers” are by your side.
If only she was on your $ide:
Fewer students are applying for financial aid for college — a worrying sign about who will show up this fall
I'm told “however you slice and dice it, it’s a terrible early indicator, and really pretty disturbing.”
Not to worry, a new leader has joined the regional accrediting group as New England colleges struggle with their finances (it's all $miles).
Now off to college you go:
Lori Loughlin and husband agree to plead guilty in college admissions scandal case
Where is the outrage at the obvious sexism, and if celebrity can't stand against tyranny, none of us can.
Lori Loughlin case won’t change much about college admissions, expert says
According to that article, COVID-19 either no longer exists or has been totally eradicated.
So how is that remote learning going anyway?
"The Great Divide: One in five Boston public school children may be virtual dropouts; Technical, language challenges keep students from continuing school online" by Bianca Vázquez Toness Globe Staff, May 23, 2020
At least 10,000 Boston public school students do not register as having logged in to class this month, suggesting they could be virtual dropouts whose formal education stopped two months ago when schools shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
That's okay; they got passing grades anyway.
City figures show that more than 20 percent of the district’s students have not logged on to any of the main academic platforms since at least May 4, meaning thousands have likely not attended online classes or picked up any homework assignments.
The data is consistent with earlier figures showing around 22 percent of students had never logged in to Google Classroom. That includes fully one quarter of the school system’s Black and Latino students as well as 21 percent of white students.
It's the same across all Races, huh?
Imagine that.
School district leaders say the login data doesn’t capture the full picture since a small handful of schools are using separate Internet domains not tracked by the district and an unknown number of students are learning offline, but officials concede that the data is troubling and that many of the missing students come from families that have borne the brunt of the pandemic — both economically and health-wise — and have found it especially hard to find time for school.
How do you learn from liars, kids?
Brighton High School sophomore Jose Escobar, who has not attended any online classes yet, and speaking in Spanish, said, “I need those classes to improve my English. They’ll probably make me repeat 10th grade.”
Many, but not all, of the virtual dropouts are English learners, who make up nearly a third of the district’s enrollment. Others might be homeless, unable to get Internet access, or overwhelmed by their families’ dire health or financial needs, or may have just lost motivation without the normal structure of school.
The alarming absenteeism numbers have led Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell to request detailed information about student attendance and assignment completion broken down by school; she also wants all available data on the unmet technological needs of the city’s school children.
“I want more data from the district so we know which students and families are getting services and which are not,” she said. “It’s so we can focus on helping those students who are off the grid."
By getting them a food card!
The pandemic has exposed just how much Boston’s 50,000 public school students depend on in-person supports to keep them on track. Half of students are logging into online class or submitting assignments online on a typical day. Teachers are also taking “attendance” based on their — sometimes offline — interactions with students, and report higher engagement: around 84 percent each day. (Pre-pandemic annual attendance rates were around 92 percent, including for English learners.)
Scores of families have needed basic help with everything from using school-issued computers to tracking down the Electronic Benefit Transfer Cards that were mailed to students to cover the cost of lunch. It hasn’t always been easy to get that help.
“There’s a lot of bureaucracy,” said Judenie Dabel, the youth coordinator at the Center to Support Immigrant Organizing in Boston. “This crisis has shown that the system isn’t built for immigrants and other students who have to advocate for themselves and their parents.”
It has also presented an opportunity, some say, for school districts and other governmental institutions to better serve students and families.
That kind of talk with ones mouth full sickens me as much as the school lunch, and notice how the immigrant's interest always comes first in my agenda-pushing pos?
“One of my hopes is that this whole crisis brings about a paradigm shift,” said Paul Reville, founder of the Education Redesign Lab at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.....
Time to quit school.
--more--"
Ready to reopen?
"Reopening of public schools this fall would come with daunting issues; Schools need a plan for everything from bus rides to hand-washing to assessing the damage from a spring of online learning" by Malcolm Gay Globe Staff, May 26, 2020
State and city school officials haven’t made a firm commitment yet as to when Massachusetts public schools might reopen for a number of good reasons. Before they can welcome a million students back to their classrooms, administrators must resolve a seemingly endless series of hard questions, and that’s before you even get to the money problem: Running a school is about to get a lot more expensive, just as the crashing economy may force state and local governments to cut school budgets.
Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, is part of a new working group convened by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to help draft guidelines for school-reopening — initial portions of which he hoped would be released next month. The 44-member working group, which includes public health officials, school superintendents, teachers, and other education leaders, has begun examining issues and is reviewing reentry plans from other countries and states, but those expecting a complete road map in the short term may be disappointed. Department officials declined even to provide a timeline for when they’d release the recommendations. Many reopening details will depend on how the pandemic unfolds this summer.
It's the Rockefeller/Gates suggestions.
See: What Will Schools Look Like After COVID? Prison Camps. They’ll Look Like Prison Camps
If that doesn't break your heart and call you to action to protect your children, nothing will.
Nevertheless, in recent testimony before a legislative committee, state Education Commissioner Jeffrey C. Riley described potential recommendations that could make school look markedly different than before the pandemic, including the extensive reliance on social distancing, expanded mental health services, and the possible need for students and staff to wear masks.
The masks are never coming off (for biometric reasons via a retinal scan).
In addition, Riley said schools may need to develop plans for “potential extended school closings.” He held out the possibility that schedules will need to be modified, and that at least some classes may continue to be taught remotely.
Again?
“The plan will include guidance on physical and virtual learning environments and many other topics," Riley said in a statement.
Riley declined to provide an outline for when schools might resume in-person classes, saying only that officials were beginning to map out a plan to reopen schools “when conditions are right.”
The kids are NOT GOING BACK to CLASS!
A department spokeswoman declined to say when that might be. “It’s just too soon to talk about school reopening,” she said.
Boston school Superintendent Brenda Cassellius struck a similarly cautious tone on providing a timeline for reopening the city’s 125 schools. There are just too many unknowns — including the possibility of a fall surge in COVID-19 cases — to provide even a tentative reopening date.
The goddamn liars weaponized cold-and-flu season, and now they are telegraphing the release of an awful bug in the fall -- or they will just lie like they have been lying the whole time.
Ultimately, the number of restrictions and safety measures is likely to vary from district to district, depending on the prevalence of the virus, but schools in Massachusetts, which has the fourth most cases in the country, are likely to be among the most disrupted.
Then BAKER FAILED MISERABLY!
His strategy was a COMPLETE FAILURE and we are STILL NOT OPEN!
“You could have school in Montana where school is functioning pretty normally, but there may be rolling closures in New York and Boston,” said John Bailey, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Look at the Globe calling on the AEI for expert analysis, and if it is rolling closures that is going to psychologically scar the kids even more. They will never recover.
The problems start the moment a student climbs aboard the bus....
That is when I had to get off, and the teachers say they “will need a New Deal level of funding from the federal government,” with a former state education secretary warning against regarding a return to the status quo as a victory because it would be a “gigantic wasted opportunity.”
They WANT COVID to LIVE!
--more--"
If you survive to make it to college:
"Colleges prepare to reopen but aren’t entirely confident about having extensive testing in place" by Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, May 27, 2020
Officials from Massachusetts colleges and universities, who are working doggedly to figure out a safe return to campus in the fall, say they are not entirely confident that they will have the needed testing, tracing, and protective equipment in place to do so.
State higher education leaders are also urging the governor and Legislature to change the law so that institutions are held legally harmless if they reopen and people get sick, highlighting the risks many colleges and universities are facing as they weigh how and whether to bring half a million students back to campuses across Massachusetts this fall.
It's over, kids. No more college. Enslavement awaits, en$lavement even worse than the student debt (the “lawsuit reminds DeVos that she is not above the law,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, said in a statement).
A committee of a dozen Massachusetts college presidents, brought together to help Governor Charlie Baker and his reopening advisory board, released an outline on Wednesday for a four-phased reboot of higher education institutions, a crucial segment of the state’s economy that directly employ more than 136,000 people.
Many institutions, for instance, will require those who return to wear masks. Some are considering canceling fall breaks to prevent students from traveling and spreading the virus, and others may also offer only bagged and take-out meals in the cafeteria, according to the group of colleges.
F**king stupid and counterproductive!
Some universities have slowly started to bring researchers back to campus to resume laboratory operations, but it remains unclear whether they will be ready to welcome back a sizable portion of students by this fall, the group said.
They mean MIT, and the mixed messages are devious and evil.
“You’re going to see a lot of creativity and variation,” said Laurie Leshin, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who is a member of Baker’s reopening advisory board and headed up discussions among higher education leaders. “It is likely to be a mix of in-person and remote as we repopulate.”
The genocidal terminology is offensive.
While college leaders are highly confident about their ability to reduce classroom sizes and appropriately clean common spaces to prevent the spread of the virus, they are less certain about being able to test students, faculty, and staff particularly when they come back to campus, according to a survey the advisory group conducted of nearly 90 campus leaders. The survey did not ask leaders about their capacity to do continuous testing throughout the semester, which many health and university officials anticipate will be required to be safe.
You will need to stay closed then.
The survey found that slightly fewer than 60 percent of state institutions were very or somewhat confident that they could do robust testing of everybody returning to campus. Contact tracing is meant to identify anyone who came in contact with an infected individual.
A separate group of state college officials is working on developing testing protocols to help the some 106 public and private campuses in Massachusetts. Large schools are planning to do their own testing and use their own laboratories to analyze results. Boston University recently announced it would open its own testing lab and is buying robots to conduct large-scale testing, but smaller institutions, which don’t have the money and capacity to do their own virus testing, are working together to buy masks, protective gear, and test kits and find laboratories that will analyze results for them, Leshin said.
They will be offering undergrads a choice in the fall: online or in-person classes.
Baker has announced plans to expand the state’s testing and virus surveillance capacity throughout this summer. He is aiming to have 45,000 daily tests done by the end of July and 75,000 daily tests by the end of December, with a goal to bring down the share of positive results to less than 5 percent. The Baker administration has also announced plans to expand lab processing capabilities in the state in anticipation of a testing surge this fall.
Evil fucker!
All that tyranny will go on under the cover of the RACE and $PORTS distractions and other garbage that will be delivered this summer.
Still, college presidents remain concerned about whether college students will strictly follow new rules about wearing face masks, social distancing, and washing their hands when they are off campus and attending parties and events, Leshin said.
Based on the recent race riots, nope.
College leaders are urging Baker and state lawmakers to allow institutions to be held harmless from legal liability if they develop plans to reopen following state guidelines. Other businesses and colleges across the country are also asking for similar protections, Leshin said.
“As long as the campuses are creating those plans and modeling those plans — that does provide a good degree of assurance to students and parents that they should be safe coming back to campus and also protection for the campuses themselves,” Leshin said.
We will soon no longer have a legal system, and thus no need for lawyers or the schools that would train them.
The fear of lawsuits is playing into decisions by college leaders about how and whether to bring students back in the fall, said Peter McDonough, vice president and general counsel at the American Council on Education, a trade organization.
“It’s an enormous fear,” McDonough said. “There will be schools that are concerned enough about being able to weather a litigation storm.”
This past spring, many schools were sued for tuition refunds because parents and students felt that the education was not up to par with in-person classes. For colleges and universities, those lawsuits proved to be a shot across the bow, McDonough said.
It signaled, "we’re watching you. ... You are fertile opportunity for lawsuits, ” he said.
That is one reason why our country is such a piece of $hit.
There are legislative efforts in states such as North Carolina and Utah to provide certain industries, including higher education, some protection from lawsuits when they reopen. Congress is also considering litigation protection as part of any new stimulus plan, McDonough said.
Congre$$ is going to give it to ALL bu$ine$$es -- or else state budgets will implode.
Higher education legal experts were split about whether colleges should be given this level of protection.
Winning lawsuits against colleges is already challenging. Juries, who are made up of local taxpayers, are often reluctant to give plaintiffs big financial awards when state colleges and universities are sued because the payout comes from public money, said Norman Zalkind, a Boston criminal defense attorney.
The threat of a lawsuit can ensure that institutions take the appropriate safety measures, buy the right equipment, and have the right tests in place, Zalkind said.
Providing colleges with a safe harbor from litigation “would make parents even more nervous,” Zalkind said. “It makes me nervous as a citizen, taking away some basic protections,” but Kevin Peters, a Boston civil attorney, said that while he generally doesn’t think colleges should be shielded from liability, these are unusual circumstances.
“No one really knows the parameters of what is truly negligent. Liability is open to interpretation by creative plaintiffs attorneys,” Peters said. As long as institutions follow acceptable COVID-19 plans, their liability should be limited, he said.
“To figure out the parameters of the duty through litigation against institutions charged with educating the next generation of great thinkers would, I think, be imprudent,” Peters said.
Colleges will likely adopt new disciplinary rules and conduct codes to make sure that students follow safety measures to curb the spread of the virus, including requiring students to wear masks and obey social distancing procedures, McDonough said.
College is going to SUCK NOW!
“There’s no playbook of reopening America in the COVID-19 era,” McDonough said. “It’s leaving a school out there exposed, left out in the open.”
Aww, the poor indoctrinators, inculcators, and brainwa$hers!
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It's going to be a brand new COVID-era in college, but at least you cleared that hurdle with a smile, even as layoffs loom for Brookline school employees and the Boston Public Schools eliminates 10 positions in a major shake-up in the MasterClass (it's an American online education platform formed by David Rogier and Aaron Rasmussen in 2014 under the name Yanka Industries on which students can access tutorials and lectures pre-recorded by experts in various fields, and it $tinks of eliti$m).
Maybe you could send them a letter:
"BU president apologizes for initial letter on racism, sends a second" by Laura Krantz and Deirdre Fernandes Globe Staff, June 3, 2020
After Boston University president Robert Brown suffered sharp criticism for a mild e-mail he sent on Monday in response to the recent police killings of Black people and subsequent protests, Brown issued a second, strongly worded letter that apologized for the first and condemned racism and police brutality.
“In my [first] letter, I spoke like the engineer I was trained to be, trying to look ahead to a time when our community can work together to push out racism and bigotry," he wrote in the second note, sent Wednesday at 1 a.m. "Today, this letter is from my heart, and my heart is with all of you who feel the dehumanizing sting of racism, and who lose a part of your own life every time a Black man or woman is murdered because they are Black."
Wow, certain parties do not want us to heal and move on.
Brown said it was a mistake to talk about the campus reopening in the letter about police brutality and said the criticism pushed him to reflect on what is most important to say at this moment. “The entire Boston University community condemns what has transpired in Minneapolis and every other city where African-Americans have been killed and racism has been tolerated,” he wrote in the second letter.
Archelle Thelemaque, 21, a BU senior from Georgia said Brown’s apology and second statement are important and signal that he is listening to student complaints, but Thelemaque said she also wants BU to take action by investing in programs that are important to the university’s Black students, including a more robust African-American Studies Department and better facilities for the Black student center.
Oh, man!
They are using COVID to extort things from the college (I gue$$ the kids are pretty $mart), and degrees in those studies are worthless -- which is why the degree itself is useful in helping keep racism alive like the viru$.
Related: Noted scholar will move anti-racist research program to BU
Ibram Kendi has been recruited from American University to keep an eye on Brown.
Meanwhile, some at Harvard University criticized the letter sent by president Lawrence Bacow. He mentioned Floyd’s death briefly but focused also on the death and economic destruction caused by the coronavirus and shifted to his experience as a high school junior in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.
“Then, like now, our nation was hugely polarized and we desperately struggled to find common ground that might unite us,” Bacow wrote.
Chinelo K. Okonkwo, president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, said Bacow’s letter “falls short.”
“It is Harvard’s obligation to not only unequivocally condemn state-sanctioned violence and police brutality, but it’s even more critical for Harvard to substantiate those statements by using its position of power and privilege to create true systemic change,” Okonkwo wrote in a statement to the Globe.....
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Related:
"Epidemiologists from Harvard’s public health school have been heavily involved in COVID-19 research and discussions nationwide, and university officials expect plans to evolve as they learn more about the pandemic, said Michelle A. Williams, dean of the Chan school, but for now, Williams said it was important to give students some certainty about the fall semester....."
Sure looks like a SECOND WAVE and a Planned-emic II will cut it short, delivering a one-two gut punch to the kids and $port$ fans.
"Zoom Video Communications Inc. demonstrated that paying customers have flocked to its virtual-meeting software, transforming the once-niche appmaker into a popular communications service and positioning it to benefit as the nature of work, school, and life is upended. Zoom reported that sales soared in the three months ending April 30, when the coronavirus pandemic spurred a wave of stay-at-home orders for millions of people worldwide. The company expects the trend to continue the rest of the year, and projected that revenue and profit will leapfrog investors’ earlier expectations. While security and privacy issues plagued the system early in the quarantine, Zoom has become an essential service, attracting more than 300 million participants some days, up from 10 million in December. The software maker allows gatherings of as long as 40 minutes for no charge. While Zoom has attracted more buzz than corporate rivals, the results Tuesday suggested it can attract the paying clients needed to compete against services from Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and Google."
Their stock is Zooming right now, and do you like what you see in the mirror?
"Coty Inc. can’t seem to get enough of the Kardashians. The cosmetics company is in talks with Kim Kardashian West for a possible collaboration “with respect to certain beauty products,” according to a regulatory filing. The possible partnership comes just months after Coty closed a $600 million deal with the reality TV star’s sister, Kylie Jenner. Coty agreed last month to sell Clairol and other brands for $4.3 billion in part to prioritize investment in Kylie Cosmetics."
Finally, you are ready to graduate:
"They couldn’t do it in person Sunday, but more than 700 Smith College graduates carried on anyway, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leading the charge in a commencement speech that urged more of the leadership, resilience, courage, and perseverance she said they had already demonstrated. Rerouted by the global pandemic, the storied college’s 142nd commencement went virtual. Pelosi applauded noted feminist writers Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, graduates from 1956 and 1942, respectively, and their indelible contributions toward womens’ liberation. Pelosi wound down her message with an open invitation for the graduates to join her in not only smashing glass ceilings, but busting through the marble one that separates women from the highest halls of power. “For our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling,” Pelosi said. “We have made history, now let us make progress for our new America.” Pelosi’s final call to order: “Know your purpose. Know your power.”
You gotta fight the power, and can you hear me running?
Steinem is also the keynote speaker at the Women's Speakers Series the Globe is promoting, with the CIA agent saying the "problem is not to learn, but unlearn," and that is how a BRAINWASHER TALKS because we don't "unlearn" -- what a reprehensible term -- we LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES and CORRECT the WRONGS!
I'm sure there is a place in hell for her somewhere.
Maybe they should have asked a man to speak:
"Martin Baron, who was Globe editor from 2001 to 2012 before taking the Post’s top newsroom job, said the coronavirus pandemic that forced Harvard to cancel its traditional commencement ceremonies has helped demonstrate that providing accurate information to the public is absolutely vital....."
Maybe not.
