How will schools be able to go back in September?

junebabies

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

So you haven't been given a school calendar for the school year 20/21? I highly doubt that.

Ours has been available since before we were kicked out of school.

No Calendar here yet either. Got txt about return to school dates but thats it. Other local schools similar.

MickeyLeari

Absence of preparation for opening schools is terrifying
Fintan O'Toole
One of the advantages Ireland has in dealing with the pandemic is the ability to see into the future. What is happening in Asia now will happen to us in August or September. And one of the things that is happening there has huge implications for what we will be doing in those months: reopening schools.
Public health policy here has assumed that children don’t spread the virus much. But in South Korea, one of the countries that has dealt best with the crisis, evidence has emerged that, while children under 10 were half as likely as adults were to spread Covid-19, children over 10 are “even more likely to infect others than adults were”.
Opening schools that have been closed since March 12th is the single most important thing the Government has to do. Children are suffering and the most vulnerable are suffering most. A survey of more than 700 second-level teachers by researchers at Trinity College Dublin found that students in disadvantaged secondary schools are three times more likely to have disengaged from their teachers during the lockdown. The picture is unlikely to be any brighter for primary school kids.
The Government is faced with an excruciating dilemma. There are two absolute imperatives: to control the pandemic and to get children and young people back into the classroom. But it is extremely difficult to do both and the news from South Korea makes it even harder. If kids over 10 are more infective than adults, putting them together indoors in the same rooms for hours on end is no less dangerous than doing the same with grown-ups. If the Dáil can’t sit in Leinster House, how can kids sit in a classroom?
Child welfare, social justice and economic recovery on the one side and public health on the other exert equal and opposite pressures. Balancing the different risks demands a massive national effort to reconfigure schoolrooms, to build temporary classrooms and install new toilets, to recruit extra staff for teaching and cleaning and to provide huge amounts of protective and sanitary equipment. This effort has to be on the same scale as the radical and urgent reorganisation of hospitals at the start of the pandemic.
But there is no sign of any such plan. Schools are due to reopen in just five weeks. In the last week of May, we were told that “a roadmap for the reopening schools from late August will be ready within a fortnight”. We still don’t have it.
Exceptional
Last Thursday, the new Minister for Education Norma Foley was in the Dáil, presenting her department’s annual estimates. Here are her own words. Read them and weep: “I should explain that the revised estimate presented today does not include any provision in relation to Covid-19 at this stage . . . it is my intention that the exceptional funding requirements of the education and skills sector for this year . . . will need to be addressed as part of the supplementary estimates process. This will allow a clear picture as to the scale of the investment needed in the sector to ensure that it is adequately funded to respond to the unprecedented challenges that currently exist in our schools . . . ”
So, as of last Thursday evening, the department not only had no budget for the radical changes that need to be made in schools, it had, by its own account, no “clear picture” of the scale of investment and action required. If there are no estimates of cost, it can only be because the department has not done the detailed work that would identify what each school needs. In its misnamed Planning for Re-Opening Schools document of June 12th, the department pretty much says this: “It is not feasible, from a cost, sustainability or delivery perspective, to identify and implement the additional classroom capacity (through pre-fabricated units, construction work) across each school.”
What does “not feasible” mean in the context of a national emergency? This is too hard so we’re not doing it. Is that it?
As of now, Foley and her department can’t tell the parents of a million children how the school day will work, how many hours or days children will attend, where the extra space will be, what will happen with PPE and sanitation, what immunocompromised children, parents or teachers are supposed to do, how transport will operate, or what happens after a pupil or teacher tests positive.
This is, frankly, terrifying. The underlying condition of Irish education is the history of church control that makes schools private entities. We saw what happened in March and April in an analogous situation – privately-owned nursing homes were left to their own devices with lethal results. Are we about to do this again with schools?
Vanished
Scariest of all is this simple sentence from Foley last week: “I am absolutely committed to the goal of reopening our primary and post-primary schools as normal at the end of the summer.” As normal – can there be two more dangerously deluded words? It is, literally, old-school thinking. We can’t send our children back into a world that has vanished. The Government seems to be leading us into a great national test without having done its homework. The results cannot be good.

History Queen

froog wrote: »

the guidance is there. it's not rocket science.

It isn't

morebabies

"Of the 545 respondents who said they had recovered from the virus, 497 stated they continued to experience symptoms, which also included mental health difficulties, headaches and breathing problems."

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1154513/

This too will have major implications for schoolteachers who are currently not receiving any adequate response from the Department re: PPE equipment. Disruption to education will be massive and inevitable if a series of subteachers are required to cover the original teacher's work.

is_that_so

morebabies wrote: »

"Of the 545 respondents who said they had recovered from the virus, 497 stated they continued to experience symptoms, which also included mental health difficulties, headaches and breathing problems."

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1154513/

This too will have major implications for schoolteachers who are currently not receiving any adequate response from the Department re: PPE equipment. Disruption to education will be massive and inevitable if a series of subteachers are required to cover the original teacher's work.

There's nothing unusual in post-viral fatigue, it happens all the time. That's not to say that this is not a challenge for people but we just don't reflect on it quite so much.

morebabies

is_that_so wrote: »

There's nothing unusual in post-viral fatigue, it happens all the time. That's not to say that this is not a challenge for people but we just don't reflect on it quite so much.

Except I know someone in their thirties who had post Covid-19 syndrome resulting in about 3 hospital re-admissions following a confirmed case of coronavirus, due to breathing difficulties - all the while testing negative.

Boggles

is_that_so wrote: »

There's nothing unusual in post-viral fatigue, it happens all the time. That's not to say that this is not a challenge for people but we just don't reflect on it quite so much.

At those rates there certainly is.

It needs to be studied more, but if true you are talking about a pretty widespread secondary illness.

is_that_so

morebabies wrote: »

Except I know someone in their thirties who had post Covid-19 syndrome resulting in about 3 hospital re-admissions following a confirmed case of coronavirus, due to breathing difficulties - all the while testing negative.

I recall getting a virus of some kind, which took me a month to get back on my feet from. Even "bugs" can take us time to get over. It's not always an age thing either and there are suggestions that genetics can affect our responses to this and other viruses, but nothing clear so far AFAIK.

is_that_so

Boggles wrote: »

At those rates there certainly is.

It needs to be studied more, but if true you are talking about a pretty widespread secondary illness.

For sure. There is work into this, including genetics side, going on.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-decoding-covid-genetics-reveal-coronavirus.html

khalessi

is_that_so wrote: »

I recall getting a virus of some kind, which took me a month to get back on my feet from. Even "bugs" can take us time to get over. It's not always an age thing either and there are suggestions that genetics can affect our responses to this and other viruses, but nothing clear so far AFAIK.

Yes bugs can, but when you have medical professionals commenting world wide about the side effects of Covid19 to lungs, heart, brain, and kidneys, you know they are something slightly more than recovering from a bug.

downthemiddle

froog wrote: »

the guidance is there. it's not rocket science.

You are correct. What has been issued to schools is far removed from rocket science.

Sammy2012

khalessi wrote: »

Yes bugs can, but when you have medical professionals commenting world wide about the side effects of Covid19 to lungs, heart, brain, and kidneys, you know they are something slightly more than recovering from a bug.

This is now my worry! I'm not worried about dying from the virus but I am worried about the long term damage it seems to do to people. I am active and fit and healthy and I wouldnt like that to change. I also dont want my kids to get it as they too are active and fit and healthy and I'd like them to grow up that way.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

Sammy2012 wrote: »

This is now my worry! I'm not worried about dying from the virus but I am worried about the long term damage it seems to do to people. I am active and fit and healthy and I wouldnt like that to change. I also dont want my kids to get it as they too are active and fit and healthy and I'd like them to grow up that way.

Long term health effects are concerning, thankfully vaccine trials are showing great promise right now.

At the beginning I really didn't think a vaccine would be possible, but it goes to show where there is the money and the will remarkable things can be achieved (kind of like the schools reopening).

khalessi

Zahir Bitter Cellist wrote: »

Long term health effects are concerning, thankfully vaccine trials are showing great promise right now.

At the beginning I really didn't think a vaccine would be possible, but it goes to show where there is the money and the will remarkable things can be achieved (kind of like the schools reopening).

Unfortunatley the will and the money are with the Department

Absence of preparation for opening schools is terrifying
Fintan O'Toole
One of the advantages Ireland has in dealing with the pandemic is the ability to see into the future. What is happening in Asia now will happen to us in August or September. And one of the things that is happening there has huge implications for what we will be doing in those months: reopening schools.
Public health policy here has assumed that children don’t spread the virus much. But in South Korea, one of the countries that has dealt best with the crisis, evidence has emerged that, while children under 10 were half as likely as adults were to spread Covid-19, children over 10 are “even more likely to infect others than adults were”.
Opening schools that have been closed since March 12th is the single most important thing the Government has to do. Children are suffering and the most vulnerable are suffering most. A survey of more than 700 second-level teachers by researchers at Trinity College Dublin found that students in disadvantaged secondary schools are three times more likely to have disengaged from their teachers during the lockdown. The picture is unlikely to be any brighter for primary school kids.
The Government is faced with an excruciating dilemma. There are two absolute imperatives: to control the pandemic and to get children and young people back into the classroom. But it is extremely difficult to do both and the news from South Korea makes it even harder. If kids over 10 are more infective than adults, putting them together indoors in the same rooms for hours on end is no less dangerous than doing the same with grown-ups. If the Dáil can’t sit in Leinster House, how can kids sit in a classroom?
Child welfare, social justice and economic recovery on the one side and public health on the other exert equal and opposite pressures. Balancing the different risks demands a massive national effort to reconfigure schoolrooms, to build temporary classrooms and install new toilets, to recruit extra staff for teaching and cleaning and to provide huge amounts of protective and sanitary equipment. This effort has to be on the same scale as the radical and urgent reorganisation of hospitals at the start of the pandemic.
But there is no sign of any such plan. Schools are due to reopen in just five weeks. In the last week of May, we were told that “a roadmap for the reopening schools from late August will be ready within a fortnight”. We still don’t have it.
Exceptional
Last Thursday, the new Minister for Education Norma Foley was in the Dáil, presenting her department’s annual estimates. Here are her own words. Read them and weep: “I should explain that the revised estimate presented today does not include any provision in relation to Covid-19 at this stage . . . it is my intention that the exceptional funding requirements of the education and skills sector for this year . . . will need to be addressed as part of the supplementary estimates process. This will allow a clear picture as to the scale of the investment needed in the sector to ensure that it is adequately funded to respond to the unprecedented challenges that currently exist in our schools . . . ”
So, as of last Thursday evening, the department not only had no budget for the radical changes that need to be made in schools, it had, by its own account, no “clear picture” of the scale of investment and action required. If there are no estimates of cost, it can only be because the department has not done the detailed work that would identify what each school needs. In its misnamed Planning for Re-Opening Schools document of June 12th, the department pretty much says this: “It is not feasible, from a cost, sustainability or delivery perspective, to identify and implement the additional classroom capacity (through pre-fabricated units, construction work) across each school.”
What does “not feasible” mean in the context of a national emergency? This is too hard so we’re not doing it. Is that it?

As of now, Foley and her department can’t tell the parents of a million children how the school day will work, how many hours or days children will attend, where the extra space will be, what will happen with PPE and sanitation, what immunocompromised children, parents or teachers are supposed to do, how transport will operate, or what happens after a pupil or teacher tests positive.
This is, frankly, terrifying. The underlying condition of Irish education is the history of church control that makes schools private entities. We saw what happened in March and April in an analogous situation – privately-owned nursing homes were left to their own devices with lethal results. Are we about to do this again with schools?
Vanished

Scariest of all is this simple sentence from Foley last week: “I am absolutely committed to the goal of reopening our primary and post-primary schools as normal at the end of the summer.” As normal – can there be two more dangerously deluded words? It is, literally, old-school thinking. We can’t send our children back into a world that has vanished. The Government seems to be leading us into a great national test without having done its homework. The results cannot be good.

am_zarathustra

I'm in a school in the inner city and twice this year we were at close to dangerous levels of staffing just due to normal winter illness. Management in many Dublin schools are regularly taking classes due to staff illness already. If teachers test positive and then have to isolate for 2 weeks after the positive test who covers the classes? You will not stumble across a qualified mfl, maths or Irish teacher just waiting for 10 days work even in the greater Dublin region. Based on the outbreaks in Israel, the most similar country to us in class size and school size variance you could be looking at mass outbreaks without adequate PPE and planning. 1/3 of their cases that led to their second shut down were in schools. Barbers and hairdressers accounted for less than 1%.

Every teacher I know is mad to get back into the classroom, I miss my students. I miss teaching in a class environment. But a large number of our students live with grandparents, either officially or unofficially. They are in high density housing. In tiny apartments. Without a plan, an actual plan not local arrangements, proper sub panels (if we even can have these in Dublin given shortages), PPE, training and careful timetabling allowences I can't see schools staying open long. Much of this could already be done, a simple substitute panel should already exist and we don't need to wait for "more information" to do that. The department are doing very little as far as I can gather and seem to be hoping that following what other, better resourced countries with much smaller classes are doing. Most teacher I talk to could tell you what's required and could have told you this 2/3 months ago

FishOnABike

antgal23 wrote: »

Ach come on now

"Funding and planning from Dept"

What exactly do you want from them?

Get management to get a Covid response plan
Buy hand rub
Stagger breaks
Move on

GAA is back now three weeks
20 odd kids running around in groups outside

Well if we were to apply the same standards as out TDs do to themselves : facemasks on everyone, 2m social distancing, 2 hours contact time per day and a budget to rent a few conference centres per school to make it all happen.

That's not going to happen so what is? Just hand rub and staggered breaks is not adequate.

Pubs have spent five figure sums to comply with public health guidelines. Schools cannot put proper plans in place without any additional resources.

Where else do you have up to 1000+ people in a building crammed elbow to elbow 30 to each poorly ventilated room for seven hours a day? That is a recipe for transmission and causing significant clusters.

20 outdoors on a GAA pitch are easy to physically distance and would be a very low risk. Even at that look at how many clubs have stood down all activity in response to a suspected or positive case while waiting for others to be tested. How many matches have been cancelled? Even the logistics of temperature checking and hand sanitising for 20 vs 1000+ cannot be compared.

It's not as simple as move on. Schools can speculatively make all the great plans they want to comply with the best in public health guidelines but it's completely pointless if they are not provided with the resources to implement their great plan.

You wouldn't expect an architect to design a bespoke house for a client without knowing what they wanted or what their budget was. And wouldn't expect it to be built for nothing.

Yet this is what is being asked of our schools. No clear requirements. No resources. But 'just get on with it', 'make it happen'. Whatever it is.

khalessi

khalessi wrote: »

Fintan O'Toole

Public health policy here has assumed that children don’t spread the virus much. But in South Korea, one of the countries that has dealt best with the crisis, evidence has emerged that, while children under 10 were half as likely as adults were to spread Covid-19, children over 10 are “even more likely to infect others than adults were”.

I would love to know where "assumed that children don’t spread the virus much" came from, in reality it was hopeful thinking. I have seen two first hand accounts where the a child infected both their parents. In both cases the children had no more than a cough. In one family the 'high risk' parent had very mid symptoms for a few days, but the healthy parent was ill for a several weeks.

iamwhoiam

In the words of Simon Harris the DoE would seriously want to " cop on to themselves " now .There is huge anger out there about the lack of any guidance or plan to open schools .We get soundbites like " Children will be back in school by end of August " we see no substance behind it .We have no leadership , no plan , no budget and no visable effort being made to reassure parents or students or children or teachers .Its absolutely scandalous

arctictree

I'm thinking that its the worst time of year for the DOE to come up with a plan/guidelines. Most of them are probably on holiday.

am_zarathustra

Sean O Fouglu has turned up for one committee meeting and has otherwise been very quiet.My favourite part was when he said "Mr O Foghlu said that the department recognises there will be a need for additional staff, adding that students coming out of teaching college this year will be "a main source".

"We really have to look at new and different ways of doing substitution for teachers and potentially for SNAs (special needs assistants)," he added"

I teach leaving cert higher level maths.....his plan is to have random people and SNAs in to cover if I get sick. SNAs are brilliant but they also have a responsibility to the students they are already engaged with. All out dips for the last 3 years have been flat out with hours of cover already....there is no capacity in Dublin. Switching to the two year PME was a nightmare, it stymied supply at a time we knew record numbers were coming into secondary school and meant students teachers had much hight debt so needed to go abroad to pay this off. The cost of living in Dublin is insane. We've lost full time teachers to country schools where they are fully accepting of the fact they will be part time for years because financially it makes sense.

Staffing was already at chronic levels and the department had done precisely nothing about it so I'll wait with bated breath for their interventions and plans

ldy4mxonucwsq6

arctictree wrote: »

I'm thinking that its the worst time of year for the DOE to come up with a plan/guidelines. Most of them are probably on holiday.

Hence we'll see excessive head scratching and more excuses when schools are due to open.

The impression I get from teachers here is that DOE are inempt at best, unable to plan or budget or resource/enable staff.

I really don't know how teachers would work for a department that has these deeply ingrained issues, it's not something I could do myself in good conscience. It must be very frustrating for newly appointed teachers to realise they are working for a sector that's, let's face it, a poorly organised dinosaur.

Schools cannot proceed with even the most basic of planning measures unless they are told word for word what to do. An endemic culture that won't be easily or quickly changed.

I think this might be the time to start rethinking the entire system, just because we've always done things a certain way doesn't mean there aren't better ways.

the corpo

That Fintan O'Toole article is terrifying, and highlights again how shamefully Education is neglected in this country.

Putting a 1st time TD in charge of arguably the most critical Ministery we have after health is a disgrace.

HerrKuehn

am_zarathustra wrote: »

Sean O Fouglu has turned up for one committee meeting and has otherwise been very quiet.My favourite part was when he said "Mr O Foghlu said that the department recognises there will be a need for additional staff, adding that students coming out of teaching college this year will be "a main source".

"We really have to look at new and different ways of doing substitution for teachers and potentially for SNAs (special needs assistants)," he added"

I teach leaving cert higher level maths.....his plan is to have random people and SNAs in to cover if I get sick. SNAs are brilliant but they also have a responsibility to the students they are already engaged with. All out dips for the last 3 years have been flat out with hours of cover already....there is no capacity in Dublin. Switching to the two year PME was a nightmare, it stymied supply at a time we knew record numbers were coming into secondary school and meant students teachers had much hight debt so needed to go abroad to pay this off. The cost of living in Dublin is insane. We've lost full time teachers to country schools where they are fully accepting of the fact they will be part time for years because financially it makes sense.

Staffing was already at chronic levels and the department had done precisely nothing about it so I'll wait with bated breath for their interventions and plans

There are loads of potential problems. No one expects it to work perfectly. Anything is better than March-June this year, literally anything.

FishOnABike

antgal23 wrote: »

Know all about it, my 4 kids play GAA

Too many people here putting up too many excuses not to return to schools in September

Take a look at yourself

And I am a teacher btw.

Instead of seeing it as excuses look at it as an exercise in Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and propose practical solutions or mitigating actions for all the problems identified. Something more than 'move on'.

The biggest problem appears to be the DoES adopting a head in the sand approach in hoping schools will just run as normal in an unprecedented situation without any planning, action or resourcing on their part.

combat14

no return to school till 160 TDs exit 50,000 euro a day 2000 seater convention centre and return to work in the Dail without falling asleep on the job - I think that is a fair request from teachers, students and parents alike??

is_that_so

the corpo wrote: »

That Fintan O'Toole article is terrifying, and highlights again how shamefully Education is neglected in this country.

Putting a 1st time TD in charge of arguably the most critical Ministery we have after health is a disgrace.

It's always a good idea to mentally filter out the outrage in his articles first. It makes it shorter and you get to the nub of the idea faster!
Sadly, it's not at all surprising given the recent LC debacle.

_Brian

Anecdotal I know but the handful of people I know who were tested positive are all suffering lingering effects. All healthy people before.
One child is going for MRI due to neurological issues which would appear to be from Covid19.

Lots of headaches, lingering tiredness, chest issues.

People not taking Covid seriously are deluding themselves.

Two kids here, eldest going into leaving cert is very stressed about time lost and the uncertainty ahead. Youngest is going into sixth class.

Without vaccines I can’t see how classes can cope with distancing.

Eldest was saying significant number of this years LC are still thinking of repeating which I can’t see capacity there for them to be accommodated.

Education was desperately mismanaged during Covid and appears to be little better under current minister.

Hubertj

only in Ireland do the teachers and unions looks for excuses not to return to work. Shameful behaviour from unions and has been from the very start - confrontational instead of collaborative. It all started when the leaving cert was cancelled and the 1 of the unions immediately said they would not cooperate. Really says it all about their attitude.

I would add to that the total failure of the Dept of Education but can you really expect anything else from overpaid and underworked civil servants. Showed a lack of competence and ability. It doesnt really matter who is in government or who the Minister is.

Murple

Hubertj wrote: »

only in Ireland do the teachers and unions looks for excuses not to return to work. Shameful behaviour from unions and has been from the very start - confrontational instead of collaborative. It all started when the leaving cert was cancelled and the 1 of the unions immediately said they would not cooperate. Really says it all about their attitude.

And your information source? The Irish Times? The Irish Independent? Newstalk? Maybe look beyond the headlines and sound bites.

Higgins5473

Hubertj wrote: »

only in Ireland do the teachers and unions looks for excuses not to return to work. Shameful behaviour from unions and has been from the very start - confrontational instead of collaborative. It all started when the leaving cert was cancelled and the 1 of the unions immediately said they would not cooperate. Really says it all about their attitude.

I would add to that the total failure of the Dept of Education but can you really expect anything else from overpaid and underworked civil servants. Showed a lack of competence and ability. It doesnt really matter who is in government or who the Minister is.

You left out the bit about summer holidays. Edit that in and you get 100% for repetitive unoriginal bile.