To shame those who do not toe the COVID line and give them a good scolding:
"And the children shall lead us. Yikes!; It’s infuriating that high schoolers who partied in Sherborn, Sudbury, Dedham, and Reading delayed the start of in-person school for everybody, but the real blame lies elsewhere" by Yvonne Abraham Globe Columnist, September 19, 2020
This column was going to come down pretty hard on the high school kids whose mid-pandemic partying forced several suburban school districts to delay the start of in-person classes last week.
After police broke up a house party in Sherborn, where up to 150 kids gathered — minus masks but very much plus alcohol — the clearly infuriated Dover-Sherborn Superintendent Andrew Keough sent a letter to families announcing the delayed opening. He did not mince words.
“I am incredibly disappointed that we as a community cannot control ourselves or our kids enough to keep our communities safe,” he wrote. “I refuse to accept the argument that ‘no one knew.’”
I was going to write that I also refuse to accept this argument. That the kids, and the parents who enabled them, acted recklessly and selfishly, that they and the parents who knew what they were doing seem like pinheads, that they could, if they were starved for social contact, have gathered safely, given the fact that their bucolic part of the world provides ample opportunities for outdoor events. I was also going to say that sacrificing for the common good appears to be an increasingly alien concept these days, even though that would have made me sound hopelessly ancient, and I was going to lament the fact that this short-sightedness isn’t exclusive to Dover-Sherborn. In Dedham, where coronavirus infections have been on an alarming upswing, the start of in-person school has been delayed indefinitely because of multiple parties attended by young people. Blockhead students flouting public health guidelines to gather forced a private school in Reading to go all-remote to start the school year, and in Sudbury, in-person learning was delayed by the Board of Health after 50 or 60 Lincoln-Sudbury High students attended a large party.
You kids should have hit the streets and burned the city down instead.
Had you done that she would be applauding you.
There, Superintendent Bella Wong, who appears to be some kind of saint, appealed for kindness toward those whose lousy judgment ruined the start of school for everybody, and asked that public shaming on social media cease.
The school superintendent is a saint?
“Many of you are understandably very angry,” Wong wrote, “however, try to be empathetic to the impact of the postings and understand what it might be doing to your peers,” and yet ... public shaming seems to be the only thing we have left at this point, given that nothing else seems to have dissuaded kids from making decisions that put their communities at greater risk. Shame away, I was going to say, but being realistic, what’s the use going full get-off-my-lawn on these kids when the real problem here is so much bigger than them? Why, seven months after the full threat of the coronavirus became clear, are we still in a place where the lousy judgment of humans whose brains aren’t yet fully formed endangers entire communities?
Shaming, btw, is very, very effective.
We’re here because, after a giant chunk of the country made sacrifices to buy time so that we could get this pandemic under control, the federal government utterly failed to use its massive powers to do so.
We’re here because the president and his lackeys, who knew how serious this virus was way back in February, downplayed its dangers, endangering American lives in the hopes of improving Donald Trump’s chances of reelection.
We’re here because Trump and his dilettante of a son-in-law felt no duty of care to those who hadn’t voted for him, and precious little even for those who did.
We’re here because, after it became clear how important masks are in protecting us against COVID-19, the president refused to wear one, and continues to undermine their use.
With the fervor of cultists, millions in this country believe whatever Trump says. Perhaps some of them are among the parents of the suburban kids who upended the school calendar here. Imagine how differently this would have gone if, instead of downplaying the pandemic, Trump had stood up and said, “Friends, believe me, this is really bad, and if you don’t take precautions a lot of people are going to die, and maybe I’ll lose reelection.”
What a rewrite of history. The models said 2 million would be dead by now.
That would have spared lives. Having the whole country on the same page would also have saved us the trouble of trying to beg some teens and their parents to consider the implications of their decisions, but none of that happened, so here we are, our schools’ fortunes hanging on whether or not 15-year-olds finally see the light.
Heaven help us.
That's blasphemy considering the source.
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Gee, she was so happy a week ago, and at least Northeastern made it through its first two weeks.
Time to clean up after the party:
"At Mass. schools, officials face challenges brought on by COVID-19 early in year" by John Hilliard Globe Staff, September 20, 2020
Two Massachusetts regional high schools struggled with challenges brought on by the pandemic Sunday, as more than 80 students and staff were quarantined following a COVID-19 case on Cape Cod, while police in Sudbury considered charges in connection with a large party that delayed in-person education there, and in Arlington, officials at the Peirce Elementary School announced late Sunday afternoon that classes would begin remotely Monday after a staff member tested positive for the disease. That person is isolating for 10 days, while six other workers who had close contact with that employee will also quarantine.
The coronavirus issues affecting Monomoy Regional High School and Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School illustrate the difficulty that school leaders face in trying to bring students into classrooms, as the state Sunday reported 15 new deaths and 340 additional cases of the disease.
In Sudbury, police Chief Scott Nix said Sunday that police are “strongly considering” charges against a teenager and the teen’s parents in connection with a large party on Sept. 11 that forced Lincoln-Sudbury school officials to delay in-person classes over COVID-19 exposure concerns.
Although no case of the disease has been connected with the party, Nix called on people to be considerate of others, in a phone interview Sunday: Not only have the teen and the teen’s parents faced threats over social media and e-mail because of the gathering, but some police who responded to the scene that night were also threatened, he said.
“People need to be accountable for their actions, but one thing that is lacking in society is just mutual respect,” Nix said.
Well, you have to earn respect and I have none for these local tyrants with there fear campaigns based on zero evidence.
What they are doing is child abuse based on this big f**king lie called COVID.
At Monomoy, which serves Chatham and Harwich, 77 students and seven staff members were asked to quarantine after officials reported the school’s first case of COVID-19, which was diagnosed just days after the term began, said Scott Carpenter, superintendent of the Monomoy Regional Schools, in an e-mail Sunday.
The person who tested positive for the disease had “only mild allergy-like symptoms,” and had contracted the disease from an out-of-state guest, not from school, he said. Officials haven’t disclosed whether the person is a student or staff member, he said.
With all due respect, this is starting to smell like a lot of BS!
In a letter to families Saturday, school officials said they were notified Friday night that an individual in the high school had tested positive for the disease. The case was reported Saturday by the Cape Cod Times.
“We will be responding to this scenario and any future ones with a conservative stance and will be quarantining all students and staff in identified classrooms out of an abundance of caution, even if students weren’t seated in the vicinity of the positive student,” the letter said.
As schools across Massachusetts reopen this month, metrics being watched by health officials are far below the highs reported last spring, but the coronavirus threat continues.
Never mind what the Globe reported last week.
Nix said Sunday that about 50 to 60 people were at the party when police arrived on the scene, while 20 to 30 others fled. Officers didn’t see anyone wearing masks or practicing distancing, he said, but found underage people consuming alcohol and using marijuana.
Nix said that, with the focus on the coronavirus, people have lost sight about the widespread use of alcohol and drugs at the party.
“Had anybody been allowed to drive off while intoxicated, that could have resulted in an immediate tragic circumstance,” Nix said.
During the police response that night, some attendees told two of the four officers at the scene that they “should kill” the officers, Nix said.
“There were other partygoers that quelled these statements, which we commend,” Nix said.
That's where I am going to nix this. I don't believe a goddamn word.
If the kids were out in the streets protesting for $ocial ju$tu$ then threatening to kill cops would have been okay, and no one is in favor of drunk driving (why are liquor stores even open, btw?) but the city $cum assumes the worst.
Officials have said that some of those who attended did not give their real names to officers, which has complicated efforts to assess the risk to the Lincoln-Sudbury school community.
Nix said police are still investigating the party, and police are collaborating with Sudbury’s Health Department.
Both the teen and the teen’s parents, who owned the property, were at the party, Nix said. Police have not released their identities, he said. If police moved forward on filing charges related to the party, Nix said they would do so under the state’s social host law.
On Cape Cod, Carpenter and Jennifer Police, the school’s principal, told Monomoy families in a letter that the coronavirus can present with very mild cold or allergy-like symptoms. They asked anyone whose child shows symptoms to contact the school nurse.
Over the past week, the student body and staff have been closely adhering to the safety protocols of mask wearing, hand washing, and physical distancing, they said.
The high school has a comprehensive plan that involves sanitizing the building, informing families whose students were at risk of exposure or in close contact, and supporting the affected family as they “navigate this stressful experience,” according to the letter.
Contact tracers for the district’s towns will be following up and will work with local health departments and school nurses, the letter said.
Students who quarantine at home will attend school remotely, according to the letter.
For now.
In Arlington, Superintendent Kathleen Bodie said in a statement that the Peirce Elementary School will begin a fully remote learning model Monday and continue until Sept. 30.
The town’s Board of Health provided free, voluntary COVID-19 tests on Wednesday and Thursday to school staff, and one staff member tested positive.
For now.
“We’re relieved and grateful we identified this case prior to the start of school, although we know this change poses challenges for our Peirce Elementary families and staff,” Bodie said. “Ultimately this is what our district needs to do and we appreciate everyone’s cooperation and understanding.”
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Related:
"Gunfire at a backyard party killed two people and wounded 14 others early Saturday in Rochester, New York, a city that has been roiled in recent weeks by outrage over the suffocation death of Daniel Prude. As many as 100 people were at the gathering when the shooting started just before 12:30 a.m., acting police Chief Mark Simmons told reporters. Police were still trying to piece together who opened fire and why. Simmons said it was too early to say whether more than one person was shooting or whom the intended targets may have been. “It sounded like somebody was trying to go to war,” neighborhood resident Asa Adams told Spectrum News. “This is truly a tragedy of epic proportions,” Simmons said in a news conference. The shooting comes as the city’s police department has been rocked by days of protests over Prude’s death, caused when officers put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then pushed his face into the pavement until they noticed he had stopped breathing. “Our community has been hurting enough already,” Rochester City Council Vice President Willie Lightfoot said. “This is just another thing on top of all the things that we’ve been going through.” Pastor Marlowe Washington told WROC-TV: “Whoever was the host of this party needs to be held accountable for this.”
It's a good thing Mayor Walsh doesn't have to deal with such problems, and what is it Benjamin Franklin said,"those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," even though we are now told he didn't say it.
He was a racist anyway, right?
"Educational inequality likely to widen this fall as white students return to school and students of color learn from home" by Jenna Russell Globe Staff, September 19, 2020
CHELSEA—As a strange new school year booted up online last week in living rooms and kitchens across this compact, densely populated city north of Boston, moms like Nery Martinez and Graciela Galdamez tried to believe that it was for the best, but it did not take long for doubt and worry to creep in.
At Martinez’s home on Wednesday, her 14-year-old son’s school-issued computer did not work, so he attended classes on his cellphone. Her 15-year-old daughter had a functioning computer—a gift from her grandmother, after her school computer failed—but she had to be coaxed to stay connected after she declared she wasn’t learning anything.
Do I even need to say it?
“I felt like I was about to cry,” said Martinez, who lost her full-time job of more than 20 years, at a food distribution company, during the pandemic.
Galdamez, meanwhile, still had no computer for her 5-year-old son to use for kindergarten, which begins on Wednesday—and no idea how she will help him learn while also working at her full-time job from home.
Hooking kindergartners up to computers, how evil, and you will will never gue$$ who is behind the agenda regarding on-line education.
“Everyone’s working, most places are open, so I don’t know why the schools are still closed,” she said. “I think there is more control now over [COVID-19], and the best thing for the children is to go to school,” but in Chelsea, where 88 percent of students are Hispanic and 6 percent are white, students are not going back into their schools this month, and while parents here know better than most the pandemic’s deadly toll and ongoing threat—no place in Massachusetts was harder hit than this one—they also fear the lasting consequences for their children’s education.
Everyone is working, huh?
That's where the turn-in was, and I was greeted with this telling photo:
Laura Gamba, 14, waited with brother Nicolas, 10, while mom Luz Gamba received notes from teacher Sherry Spaulding (Erin Clark/Globe Staff)
The look of the girl in a tie-dyed shirt saws it all. You can see the skepticism through the mask!
That danger is real across the state, where roughly two-thirds of Black and Hispanic students live in districts where schools are starting the year remotely, according to a preliminary analysis of state data by The Education Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for educational equity. By contrast, most white students—about 70 percent—live in school districts with “hybrid” back-to-school plans that include some learning time inside school classrooms, the analysis found.
Can you believe that the The Education Trust is connected to none other than Bill Gates, and now that the Globe has turned it into a race issue I am getting up and leaving this class.
The disparity is not surprising, given the pandemic’s tighter grip on many cities and its disproportionate impact on people of color, as well as the heightened complexity of reopening school buildings safely in large urban systems with aging infrastructure; nonetheless, the demographic split between students learning in and out of school ratchets the stakes for remote learning even higher, turning its quality into a matter of educational equity.
“Even before the pandemic, Massachusetts had vast divides in learning opportunities between privileged and underserved populations—divides that fall along the lines of race and class,” said Natasha Ushomirsky, Massachusetts state director for The Education Trust. “There’s a very real possibility that these divides will grow significantly this year, especially if we don’t ensure high-quality remote learning."
In March, when schools abruptly closed to limit the spread of the virus, a million students statewide plunged into online learning. Their experience was marked by jarring inconsistencies, depending on where they lived and which school they attended. Students at some charter and private schools spent hours each day in live online classes, while many public school families across the state complained of near-total disengagement, with students deprived of meaningful work and daily contact with teachers.
School leaders vowed to overhaul remote learning over the summer, but much of their time was instead spent devising three detailed back-to-school plans mandated by the state, one for fully in-person learning, another for all-remote school, and a “hybrid” blend. Most districts initially embraced a hybrid model, with reduced numbers of students attending school on staggered part-time schedules, but as teachers raised health concerns and facilities managers scrambled, some cities pulled back plans to reopen buildings.
In Chelsea, high rates of illness made the necessary course of action clearer. With a positive test rate for the virus near 5 percent, the city of 35,000 was among the first school districts to announce a fully remote start, in mid-August, setting aside plans to offer a full-time, in-school option for kindergarten and students with disabilities.
Ultimately, all five of the state’s largest school districts opted to start school online and bring students back to buildings later. Those districts—Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lynn, and Brockton—educate more than 130,000 students; in four of the five, more than 70 percent of students are Black and Hispanic.
There, as in smaller, whiter places, public opinion on the right way to reopen was sharply divided— sometimes along racial lines. In a survey last month of 38,000 students in Boston, 73 percent of white respondents said they favored a hybrid model, while just 46 percent of Black and 45 percent of Hispanic students said they preferred to spend time inside school buildings.
The numbers reflect the burden borne by neighborhoods of color since the public health crisis began: in a state where the overall population is 71 percent white, only 46 percent of COVID-19 cases have involved white patients, a Harvard study found.
That leaves parents like Nery Martinez feeling painfully conflicted.
“There are no options,” said the Chelsea mother, who lost her job because she had to stay home with her children in the spring; she spoke through a Spanish interpreter. “You can’t send them to school, but being home all the time is also very stressful. Teenagers are not like little kids—you can tell them to sit down, stay here, but it’s very hard to keep them there.”
Several mothers interviewed in Chelsea said their children are frustrated and angry, or suffering from depression, because they are cut off from school and friends.
The mothers acknowledged they are not doing much better themselves.
Some have made enormous sacrifices to try and preserve their children’s education.
To be sure, plenty of suburbs with few students of color—and low rates of COVID-19—also reopened with all or most students learning remotely. In some, including Newton and Brookline, frustrated parents have advocated forcefully for sending all students to school.....
I was for sending them back to school for socialization purposes; however, I now feel the kids are in mortal danger if they attend schools and should be kept home at all costs.
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At least UMass-Lowell is getting a $300,000 grant, to chronicle the Portuguese-American experience over centuries, and speaking of mothers:
"I’ve been interviewing women lately who are feeling an unbearable burden but are bearing it. They are, after all, mothers, but they are mothers in an unprecedented time, holding the weight of everything that is being thrown at them during a global pandemic. “There is no way that I can have my two older kids do school from home and keep my toddler alive and work,” one said. She quit, but she mourned. “It was so great to have an existence outside of my home, and my purpose wasn’t wound up entirely with my children. It was important to me.” So when the news came that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the iconic working mother, had died, I thought of this woman I’d spoken with just hours earlier. Of the ways in which Ginsburg found parenting not to be a blockade to her success, but a relief, an inspiration....."
With all due respect, the Globe resembles a site hosting sex-traffickers and considering the brazen, in-your-face way they are throwing perverted pedophilia and all the rest at us it makes sense. Literally out in the open.
Related:
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the need for massive upgrades of school technology around the country. Merkel said Saturday during her weekly video podcast that teachers were left scrambling to teach courses virtually when schools closed at the start of the country’s outbreak. She says that underscored how important digital media and other tools are but also exposed widespread infrastructure failings. The German leader said: “That is why we have to push ahead with the digitization of schools at full speed. We need this as an indispensable addition to face-to-face teaching.” Merkel says the government is committing 6 billion euros ($7.1 billion) to support the development of digital learning and infrastructure in schools. She says all schools need high-speed internet access as soon as possible and teachers need computers suitable for providing digital lessons. Germany’s schools have reopened and students have returned to in-class learning, but officials have cautioned that the country needs to be better prepared in case virus case numbers spike again."
Remember back in March when they said 15 days to flatten the curve and keep the hospitals from being overrun?
That was seven months ago, and now we have a "casedemic" based on faulty and flawed tests that don't specifically test for COVID-19 -- if it even exists -- being used as a basis to transform education into an at-home endeavor per the plans of the World Economic Forum and Great Re$et.
Who knew the East German Merkel was a Nazi, and she what drugs do they have her on since the shakes have apparently gone away after her trip to the hospital.
With all the computerized decision-making systems being married to the world of social science, it's a bad time for students to stay silent, but that’s happening in the tedious remote lessons that the kids must attend.
At least there is still show and tell.
Now about that new computer:
"Buying a back-to-school Chromebook or printer? Here are five tips; The home electronics shortage is real — and just about as bad as you’ve heard" by Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff, September 17, 2020
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, millions of American children are beginning the school year in their living rooms, and parents are desperate for the tech devices their children will need for their online coursework, but if you’re in the market for a Chromebook computer or an inkjet printer, good luck. The retail departments that normally carry such things look like the toilet paper aisle did in April — all cleaned out.
My recent visits to stores in Boston, Braintree, Brockton, Cambridge, and Stoughton left no doubt the home electronics shortage for back-to-school is real — and just about as bad as you’ve heard.
Why isn't he buying on line, and what are those stores even doing open?
Why? The same pandemic lockdown that had us buying work-from-home devices in the spring also shuttered the Chinese factories that made these gadgets. The result, said Ryan Reith, vice president of consumer devices research at IDC Corp., is a hardware shortage that has afflicted consumers worldwide.
“All these lockdowns have led to an insane surge of spending,” he said. “The supply chains essentially can’t keep up.”
Reith said that Chinese factories are up and running again, and gradually refilling the pipeline, but “we have a few tricky months ahead of us.”
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His tips are "be prepared to pay more — maybe a lot more; don’t just visit retail giants like Best Buy, Walmart, and Staples; consumers in a hurry can still find some deals online; if you can’t wait, consider buying something used and refurbished; and, one more option: Fix up a computer you already own."
Stay off the school bus at all costs:
"As start of classes draws near, coronavirus cases reported in Boston school bus yard" by James Vaznis Globe Staff, September 19, 2020,
As the Boston school system prepares its bus fleet for the fall term, two cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in employees who work on the buses has heightened alarm about safety.
Within a two-week span, two maintenance workers at the Readville bus yard were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to Transdev, the private contractor that oversees the city’s three school bus yards.
Transdev learned of the first case on Aug. 28 and “the second case was confirmed on September 11,” the company said in a statement Friday night in response to Globe questions.
A party on September 11 and now this?
What a mind-fuck this has become.
“We immediately notified all employees who had come in contact with the two employees, which is a mandatory part of our procedures,” Transdev said. “These isolated cases of COVID-19 will have no impact on our buses being available, properly cleaned and ready for a safe start of school and bus operations.”
(Blog author just shakes head)
The disclosure comes amid growing concern among transportation workers, teachers, and other school staffers about whether the Boston Public Schools has put the appropriate measures in place to prevent COVID-19 transmissions.....
They are still not ready, and that was my stop.
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Can grab a fresh breath of air after breathing in those diesel fumes:
"Air quality and ventilation issues trip up school reopenings across Massachusetts" by James Vaznis Globe Staff, September 20, 2020
Neglect has become a major hurdle in reopening schools amid a pandemic in which airborne spread of the novel coronavirus is a major concern, but with new research emerging that coronavirus particles can linger in poorly ventilated areas and an MGH study indicating that young children carry high virus loads in their upper respiratory tracts, school air quality has suddenly emerged as a statewide crisis, and a politically volatile one.
Yeah, sure.
It's amazing how much changes in a week, and oh, yeah, keep your kids OUT OF THE SCHOOLS at ALL COSTS!
Many urban districts have a disproportionate share of extremely old buildings. Two-thirds of Boston’s 125 schools were built before Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and about half of the school buildings in Worcester and Lynn went up before that global event, according to state data.
Why have the buildings been neglected that long?
Where did all the loot go?
This all flies in the face of the Globe also telling us Ma$$achu$etts has the best school system in the country!
”These old buildings are breeding grounds for germs,” said Barbara MacDonald, a teacher at Lynn’s Tracy Elementary School, built in 1898. “Students are sneezing all the time in the first grade and constantly getting Kleenex. ... It’s nerve-racking.”
Her colleague, Jeanne McMenimen, said she sometimes has to stand on the window sill and get a couple of students to help her open a window. "Our building is not healthy on a good day; never mind when a virus is around,” McMenimen said.
I wonder what they did all the other years during the cold and flu seasons the past years, because that is what we are looking at with COVID (with the qualification that a more fatal pathogen may well be deliberately released this fall for so many reasons, the least of which is discrediting truth bloggers as well as advancing the wider goals of the Great Re$et.).
They are really cranking the heat on the insanity, aren't they?
Boston is pushing ahead with a more modest plan: ensuring at least one window in each classroom can open. The $7.6 million endeavor largely began this month and involves repairing or replacing more than 7,000 windows. The school system is also purchasing 6,000 fans.
Relying on windows could test the patience of students and teachers. As the weather gets colder, school officials plan to keep windows open and crank the heat, as recommended by state guidelines.
“We are stress-testing our heating system to make sure they can keep up with the demand,” said Pat Brophy, the city’s chief of operations. “We fully expect energy costs to rise dramatically.”
Are you flipping kidding me?
I don't even know where to start.
Because of COVID, they are going to LEAVE A WONDOW OPEN in COLD WEATHER so the kids can GET SICK and it will be called COVID!
In addition, NO WORRY about GLOBAL WARMING or GREENHOUSE GASES
HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?
Officials also said they are upgrading filters and repairing ventilation systems, noting the city has spent $19.4 million in recent years on ventilation systems.
Those repairs were done as part of Walsh’s 10-year effort to overhaul aging schools, which has experienced repeated delays. A big milestone in that $1 billion effort was releasing a city-commissioned report in 2017 that found more than half of the schools were plagued by poor and deficient air, but city officials distanced themselves from the findings after public controvery ensued, arguing it reflected observational testing of classroom air based on whether it “felt too warm, too cold, or stagnant.” Officials added that the city’s annual air sampling hadn’t uncovered major concerns. The pronouncement did little to alleviate concerns.
Where is the accountability, huh?
“It’s unfortunate it took a pandemic to fix things that should have been fixed decades ago,” said Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers Union, who says the city’s efforts this summer didn’t go nearly far enough.....
Unfortunate, or part of the Great Re$et?
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Looks like Boston schools still have many bugs to work through.
Related:
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated 1,600 cases of people who flew while at risk of spreading the coronavirus, identifying nearly 11,000 people who potentially were exposed to the virus on flights, but though the agency says some of those travelers subsequently fell ill, in the face of incomplete contact tracing information and a virus that incubates over several days, it has not been able to confirm a case of transmission on a plane. That does not mean it hasn’t happened, and recent scientific studies have documented likely cases of transmission on flights abroad. “An absence of cases identified or reported is not evidence that there were no cases,” said Caitlin Shockey, a spokeswoman for the CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. She said that though the agency has received information about people who may have been exposed on flights subsequently becoming ill with the novel coronavirus, pinpointing when someone was exposed is difficult. The CDC acknowledges that viruses do not spread easily on planes because of the way the air is filtered, but it also emphasizes that air travel means being in proximity to people for long periods and encountering frequently touched surfaces on planes and in airports. The CDC’s guidance for all kinds of travel is still that staying home is the best way to protect yourself and other people....."
The CDC's guidance for travel is don't travel, and how RUMSFELDIAN of HER!
Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence, WOW!
I think you are ready to go to the next level now:
"In higher education, the pandemic has been especially cruel to adjunct professors" by Laura Krantz Globe Staff, September 20, 2020
The coronavirus has thrown the entire higher education industry into uncertainty, but it’s been especially cruel to the thousands of part-time professors undergirding New England’s colleges and universities. The effect has been to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots in higher education: While many tenure-track professors received pandemic-related extensions for their research, many adjuncts simply watched their jobs evaporate. While some professors may teach from home, adjuncts lucky enough to have courses often feel pressure to come to campus — even though their jobs rarely come with health insurance.
I'm sure Bill Gates will fix it!
“They’re kind of like the Uber drivers,” said Gary Rhoades, who studies higher education at the University of Arizona. “COVID just heightens and surfaces the already existing inequities.”
Despite the stereotypical image of a college professor as a lofty intellectual with a large office and a lifetime appointment, part-time, non-tenure-track professors — adjuncts — have steadily become the majority of faculty across all of higher education since 1985. They often share offices, lack the generous perks of tenured professors, and have few opportunities for advancement, despite performing the majority of undergraduate teaching. They are also more likely to be women and people of color.
Even in a good economy, these academics cobble together a living teaching courses that pay around $5,000 each, working on short-term contracts that they hope will renew each year — often without benefits.
One Emerson adjunct, who has taught writing for four years, still has not completed enough teaching hours to qualify for university health insurance — 24 credit hours hours are required, not including those taught as a graduate student. She worried about teaching in person this fall but thought that if she asked to teach remotely she could jeopardize her chances of receiving the two course sections she relies upon, which each pay around $5,500.
“You’re rolling your plexiglass shield around, and you’re trying to make the technology work for the students who aren’t there, and you’re speaking into a microphone … and in the back of your mind you’re saying, ’I really hope no one in this class has COVID, because I don’t want to be exposed,” she said.....
Neither do I, which is why I left that class as well.
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