Athens Clarke County Parents

Go Ahead. Vaccinate the Kids. The risk of vaccinating children will never be zero, but the alternative is so much worse.

This is a wonderful piece that reminds what our families, teachers and schools went through last year and why we are grateful not to have to go through it again.

We hope you all are well.

Opinion | I Taught Online School This Year. It Was a Disgrace. Remote learning needs to end with the pandemic.

For those of you who missed it, Georgia governor (belatedly, we'd argue) Brian Kemp moved up teachers and educators in the vaccine order on Thursday. Here's an excellent story from the Athens Banner-Herald about how the process of vaccinating teachers will work. CCSD's director of nursing Amy Roark notes that, for the first few weeks anyway, the Wednesday virtual day will be used to vaccinate teachers. We're eager to get kids back to school on Wednesdays, but while we're waiting, we can't think of a better use of the off-day than that.

Enjoy the last day of virtual schooling for K-2 today: They'll be back in class on Monday! And be safe, everyone, have a nice weekend!

Georgia teacher eligibility for COVID vaccine announced. Here's the plan for Clarke County Georgia educators will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on March 8. Here is the plan for Clarke County teachers.

Greetings, everyone, on this picture-perfect day in Athens. When you close your eyes and think of Athens at its best, weather-wise, you think of a day like this.

CCSD remains on track for children K-2 to return THIS MONDAY, with Grades 3-5 on March 15. The current plan continues to involve not having in-person schooling on Wednesdays, for "contact tracing and cleaning," but we do hope, if the return of students remains successful, that this notion is open for being revisited. This has not been a need for any of the other schools open in the area--that is to say, all of them--and may be even less of one as cases continue to drop. We urge the CCSD board to closely monitor this as re-opening commences. Four days of in-person schooling are obviously better than zero, but they remain worse than, you know, five.

We mention this in part because: This is our weekly post on the COVID numbers in Clarke County, and the news is so undeniably good it's almost difficult to wrap your mind around. Once AGAIN, cases have dropped every single day. Every day!

February 18 364
February 19 348
February 20 329
February 21 312
February 22 299
February 23 281
February 24 272

(To remind: The numbers here are positive cases per 100,000 residents over a rolling two-week period, the metric that Georgia DPH uses and the one that CCSD has said all along it is tracking most closely.)

That 272 number is stunningly low. It's the lowest the number has been, in fact, since November 12. You can see from the attached chart just how low it is. We are starting to approach the numbers from the middle of last summer. And, again: Every trend continues to point to lower numbers. It's good news. It's very good news.

As is the news that children are starting to return to school this Monday. We encourage you again to go to the CCSD re-opening update site for further information https://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/Domain/2572 . And stay safe out there. We're so close. You, your families and our schools have almost made it. As always, please email us your concerns at [email protected] if you have any questions or anything you'd like us to follow up on. Have a great day, everyone. Go outside! It's incredible out there!

Greetings, all. We hope you are enjoying this nice day, which is basically the last nice day since we updated you LAST Wednesday. We feel bad for all the adapted learning students and their parents, who have been waiting months to get back to school and then ... had a snow day on Tuesday. Such are the times.

All appears to be well on track for the return of K-2 students on March 1, with other age groups following afterward. We've attached the re-opening plan, and we encourage you to go to the CCSD re-opening update site for further information https://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/Domain/2572 . We've also found talking to teachers and administrators at our own children's schools instructive, to see what they need, what they're short on, how we can be of help. We know this is an old adage from early on in the pandemic, but it's still true: We are all in this together.

All right, it's time for our weekly post on the COVID numbers in Clarke County. You will be pleased to note that the news here is unequivocally good.

February 11 478
February 12 440
February 13 418
February 14 408
February 15 414
February 16 410
February 17 385

(To remind: The numbers here are positive cases per 100,000 residents over a rolling two-week period, the metric that Georgia DPH uses and the one that CCSD has said all along it is tracking most closely.)

This is a remarkable drop in cases. That 385 number is the lowest we have been at since December 3. The number has essentially been cut in half over the last two weeks. And the trends show even more room for improvement. It's good news. We continue to move in the right direction. We thank the CCSD board for recognizing this trend, and acting accordingly. We're almost there, everyone.

We hope everyone stays safe and well, and, as always, please email us your concerns at [email protected] if you have any questions or anything you'd like us to follow up on. Have a great day, everyone.

Last night, at their Work Session, the CCSD Board announced their phase-in reopening plan for the district. Below is a screen shot from their meeting. We apologize to Brannon Gaskins for cutting off part of his head in the top right of the window.

In case it isn't clear from the screenshot, here are what seem to be the particulars of the phase-in schedule:

February 15: SPED: Adaptive, 2-4 days a week in-person, with remote learning on Wednesdays. "Gradual increase in in-person days as appropriate."

March 1: OEL and Grades Kindergarten through 2nd: Four days a week in-person, with remote learning on Wednesdays.

March 15: Grades 3rd through 5th: Four days a week in-person, with remote learning on Wednesdays. This also is the beginning of the "phased-in cohort model" for Grades 9-12. Grades 6th through 8th remain in remote learniing.

March 22: Grades 6th through 8th: Four days a week in-person, with remote learning on Wednesdays. The "phased-in cohort model" continues for Grades 9-12, with "gradual increase in in-person days as appropriate."

There remains a virtually learning option for families who desire that, "for the rest of the year." (We presume this means the school year, not the calendar year.)

You can watch more details of the plan yourself at the YouTube link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiDaVuBp20

We'll have more information next week, but we wanted to make sure to get this out for anyone who might not yet know. Be safe, everyone, and have a great weekend.

As we continue to await word from the CCSD Board about the details of hybrid in-person learning that were promised to us this week (it is now Thursday evening), we wanted to share a note sent by a local doctor who has a child in the CCSD system.

Her name is Dr. Jodi Turner. She has sent this letter to the CCSD Board, and we share it here, with her permission.

The CCSD Board meeting this week is not one that features public comment, but we encourage everyone to let the CCSD Board how much the lack of in-person options is affecting your family's life at [email protected], just like Dr. Turner has.

We hope you all are safe and well, and we will be back if we ever get those updates that were promised to us this week. Here is Dr. Turner's letter. We could not possibly agree with it more.

******

February 4, 2021

To the Board of Education representing the Clarke County School District:

As both a parent of a child within CCSD (Timothy Road Elem) and Family Physician serving the children and families of Athens and the surrounding area, I write to you pleading for consideration of immediate return to in-person instruction for the children within our school district.

I and many other providers within the community are seeing in our practices the mental health devastation for the children in Clarke County schools, as well as the loss of productivity of their parents, who need to (or must) work and strain to balance this with appropriate childcare. I and many parents can make alternate arrangements to have others assist with online instruction, but many, especially the minority populations and high-risk children throughout our community cannot, and are falling behind academically, suffering neglect, being placed in less safe conditions during school hours. I am personally witnessing the mental health distress of these students, as well as the utter strain on the mental health providers in our community to attempt support the few who can get appropriately connected.

I understand there are concerns for both staff and student safety regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, but it no longer appears data-driven to remain away from in-person instruction. There is myriad data now from around the nation that returning to in-person instruction with the standard safety recommendations from the CDC (without the need for modified attendance schedules) does NOT increase the risk of viral spread throughout the community. In fact, both in education AND healthcare settings, it has now been shown that working WITHIN these environments does NOT increase the risk of COVID-19 infection. Rather, the highest risk for individuals working in these environments is BY FAR their other social and community interactions. Thus, returning to schools does not place teachers and staff at higher risk as long as they follow appropriate CDC safety guidelines. My fear, therefore, which is being supported by numerous mental health providers I have interacted with throughout the community (as well as the limited data thus far available nationally), is that innumerably more students will suffer devastating mental health consequences than we will see individuals die from the virus itself. The reporting of mental health-related data naturally has a much longer delay than COVID-19 data reporting, so we will not know the full effects to our children for likely several years, but I have never before seen so many children and adolescents with suicidal ideation, su***de attempts, severe depression, debilitating anxiety, and my psychoactive medication prescribing for children has dramatically increased to try and support them, especially as the delay for appropriate psychiatric therapy is reaching weeks and months due to the over-stressed nature of our local mental health providers.

Please hear and consider my desperate plea. As a physician, my first responsibility according to my Hippocratic Oath is to do no harm. The hard data will be long in coming, but I truly believe we have shifted past the COVID-19 virus being our greatest threat. If staff will follow guidelines for safety and social distancing, they are NOT at increased risk for harm in returning to schools. However, remaining in isolation, often inappropriately supervised, is harming many, many of our beloved, especially minority and underserved, children.

Thank you for your consideration and service to our community.

Sincerely,
Jodi D. Turner, M.D.

Greetings, everyone. It's time for our weekly post on the COVID numbers in Clarke County. We hope you are holding up the best that you can.

As we all learned on Friday, CCSD announced that they are "anticipating a return to in-person instruction using a phased-in approach beginning mid-February." We've received no further information since then, though there is a principals' meeting scheduled for tonight, so we should expect further details then. (At least we would hope.) CCSD promised "more details will be provided next week," so even if no news comes out of that meeting, we presume some is coming soon. Obviously, the urgency of parents and children for information as soon as they can get it cannot be overstated.

To remind, though, the CCSD announcement said, "students will return in a hybrid model (1-2 days a week) by group (e.g., SPED adaptive, elementary, middle school, and high school)." We certainly hope that this is the FIRST step to full in-person schooling, rather than the ONLY step; 1-2 days a week is a good start, but we hope that it is just a stepping stone to five days a week as soon as the district is able to do so.

As many of you may have seen, DeKalb County became yet another county in Georgia to return to in-person learning today, February 3. There are very, very few of us left who are not back. We do hope that CCSD is monitoring all the success that these other school districts are having with their return to in-person instruction and continues to recognize how out of step this county remains among the rest of the state. We actually found DeKalb County's reopening plan refreshingly detailed and open. We hope that CCSD can work to be as transparent as well. https://www.dekalbschoolsga.org/school-reopening/

Anyway, to this week's numbers. As predicted, they went down again. They in fact went down every single day this week.

January 28 818
January 29 801
January 30 777
January 31 772
February 1 757
February 2 734
February 3 727

(To remind: The numbers here are positive cases per 100,000 residents over a rolling two-week period, the metric that Georgia DPH uses and the one that CCSD has said all along it is tracking most closely.)

Again: There is *every* reason to believe those numbers will continue to fall in the weeks ahead, particularly in the next week, when a spike day that happened 10 days ago falls off the rolling average. And, because we've continued to track neighboring Oconee County -- which opened to in-person instruction nearly a month ago and has watched their community numbers drop dramatically since then -- their number today is 518, the lowest it has been since we started tracking it in mid-December. Every piece of evidence continues to make going back to in-person learning the increasingly obvious decision.

We will update when CCSD provides more clarity on their hybrid plan, which we appreciate and still hope is just the start of the phasing-in of full-time in-person instruction.

Stay safe, everyone, and we'll back with any news that comes in.

School Re-Opening DeKalb County School District

As expected, the CCSD Board released an update today. It doesn't appear to have been sent out via email yet, but it is on their website. You can find it here: https://www.clarke.k12.ga.us/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=5444&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=9099&PageID=1

The key points, for anyone who has not seen it yet:

*** In-person instruction appears set to begin in "mid-February."
*** For the first time, it seems that in-person instruction will be staggered, starting with 1-2 days a week. To quote: "Students will return in a hybrid model (1-2 days a week) by group (e.g., SPED adaptive, elementary, middle school, and high school)."
*** We should expect "more details next week."

We'll have more on this next week, but since the email hasn't gone out yet, it's possible many parents missed this vital information. So here it is.

Be safe out there this weekend. Best to you and your families.

Very much worth a read.

The Whole Truth About Kids, School, and COVID-19 We’ve known for months that young children are less susceptible to serious infection and less likely to transmit the coronavirus. Let’s act like it.

Greetings. It's time for our weekly post on the COVID numbers in Clarke County. As many of you saw last week, CCSD announced that virtual instruction will continue through at least February 5, 2021. This was not unexpected--it was difficult to imagine, even if they'd decided to go back to in-person instruction last week, how they'd be able to get back before that date anyway--and that sort of specificity from Dr. Thomas and the Board is always appreciated.

One does plead, however, that the February 5 date is when the transition to in-person instruction begins rather than yet another date just to be pushed back again. Because, as a reminder, superintendent Xernona Thomas has said that "a noticeable decline in COVID positive results is the first metric we will consider when beginning the phase-in to in-person instruction." And there is no question that COVID positive results have been declining over the last two weeks, and rather dramatically. Here is a look at the numbers for the last week:

January 21 958
January 22 914
January 23 912
January 24 871
January 25 845
January 26 855
January 27 810

(To remind: The numbers here are positive cases per 100,000 residents over a rolling two-week period, the metric that Georgia DPH uses and the one that CCSD has said all along it is tracking most closely.)

How far have the numbers fallen? They've fallen so low that they are in fact lower than they were on January 7, the day that CCSD announced they were pushing back the January 19 start date because they were expecting a continued rise in cases. And there is every reason to believe that the numbers will continue to drop over the coming weeks as cases fall nationwide and vaccines are more widely distributed. Every trend, in the nation, in the state and in this county, points to continued decline in cases.

(Oh, another reminder: You will note that one of the arguments against in-person instruction was that it would lead to a rise in community spread. This has proven untrue in every single county in Georgia that has opened to in-person instruction since 2021 began, and it's particularly true nearby: Oconee County, which opened up for in-person instruction the week of January 4, had a number of 1227 that week. It is currently sitting at 654, and still going down rapidly.)

CCSD said last week that "we will provide an update on our planning in next week’s communication." That communication should come Friday. We are finding it increasingly difficult to find any sort of justification, using CCSD's own metrics and public advisement, to push the delay for the return to in-person instruction past February 5, and we very much urge CCSD to recognize that simple fact as soon as possible, hopefully as early as Friday.

We remind everyone to email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or anything you'd like us to follow up on.

Please be safe out there, everyone. We know this is overwhelmingly difficult, but there is hope out there! Things are getting better, the dawn is coming, there's reason to be optimistic! We can just hope that CCSD recognizes the urgency of the situation: Every second for our kids counts!