Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Tres Leches]

So they just unveiled the back to school plan in my school board.

K-6 - Really no change... masks not mandatory for students, full classes, full time, which is insane. If I had any Elementary aged kids they'd be getting home schooled, or as many parents are trying to do here, setting up their own "teaching pods" where some parents get together and split the cost of a tutor and they have half a dozen kids taught in one of their homes.

7-12 - Masks are mandatory and they're going from a semester system to a quadmester system only 2 classes from september to mid-november then 2 new classes from november to january etc, so the same teacher teaches them all day. They go straight to their designated classroom and don't leave until it's time to go home. They'll split kids into 2 Cohorts of 12-17 students per class one cohort goes monday,tuesday & every other wednesday, the other cohort goes every other wednesday & thursday & friday. In class teaching is only from 9am to 11am then the kids go home and do online teaching of the same course in the afternoon. No locker access, no cafeteria. Kids take all their stuff to school & take it all home with them.

Siblings in the same school will be scheduled to go to the school on the same days even if they're not in the same classroom.

Those not comfortable with going back to school in person have until the end of this week to sign up for a 100% at home learning option, and if you want you can switch from online only to at school learning or vice versa once every quadmester.

My son will be going into school. My city is back into single digit cases per day again.

Only thing I don't like is that because it's a catholic school one of his classes will be religion, I just hope that at least they do what they did last year where they taught about other religions in the class as well as Catholicism.

I was actually considering sending my daughter to Catholic high school to avoid the mess that is the public school system here with the pandemic. But I don't think it will happen. There is an all-girls Catholic high school but tuition is $20,000 per year. It's where wealthy families send their daughters. (Fun fact: The director of Ladybird graduated from that school.) They have scholarships but are coy on their website on who qualifies.
Another Catholic high school farther away from our home is cheaper but their website says they're not accepting any new enrollees for the new school year.

I could accept some training in Catholicism as a trade-off for a quality education. I'm already monitoring what's influencing my kid and keeping a wary eye on religion would be no different.

-Teresa