Are you sending your kids to school next month?

Well, Monday our Board voted to go back 5 days a week. Yesterday, our Health Department decided that all the schools in our county should go virtual for the 1st 9 weeks.
 
Yes, if the county has jurisdiction over if other places should close.

Private schools should be held to one of two standards:
1) The same as public schools. They are schools, after all.
2) Whatever rules business have to follow, so do private schools. Mask requirements, capacity limits, etc.

I'd be *thrilled* if we could get the latter of those two options. Our school was built for almost 4x our current enrollment, so we're well below the 50% capacity being imposed on local businesses, and we're requiring masks. But since in our state schools are schools, regardless of size or public/private status, our ability to open will largely be decided by how safe it is to open the much larger and often over-capacity public schools.

I did find out from a friend today that since homeschool co-ops aren't state licensed, they don't fall under the private school umbrella. So if our state or region ends up mandating school closures, I'm going to be enrolling my 12yo in one of the middle school enrichment programs that my friend's co-op offers, just to give her a little bit of social contact with peers. And I've already had conversations with two of the three other moms of kids in DD's class about putting together a weekly study-and-play gathering at a local park pavilion, so the kids can do some of their classwork together and have a recess of sorts. So that'll be our plan B to make distance learning just a little bit easier in the fall than it was in the spring, if it comes to that.
 
This is generally not true, although there are some local exceptions.

Since the school is a public place, unless the images are being used for commercial or exploitative purposes, generally the images can be used. Some states make additional limitations if there is attribution of names of those pictured in the photo if the subject of the photo is a minor.

Where confusion sometimes comes in is that the school may not film students without the consent of the parents. So, for instance, when I went to get my National Board recertification, I had to get parental permissions for each of the classes that needed to be videotaped, and to find a way to not videotape any students whose parents wouldn't give that permission.

Also, schools have sometimes cracked down on students when they use such filming to harass other students when it has an effect on the videotaped students' ability to access schools under local harassment, intimidation, and bullying laws.

It is hard to definitively argue that a recording of the conditions in the hallway of a recently opened school rise to harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students. This is a school system trying to cover itself from potential litigation and nothing more.

Edited for clarity, grammar, spelling.

Many schools have rules in place that state that students cannot take photos or record while in school, on school grounds, etc., and many require cell phones to be in lockers and/or turned off. If that’s the case, I’m sure they could use that to try to go after the whistleblowers. Whether that’s successful or not is another matter, but they could likely try.
 
Many schools have rules in place that state that students cannot take photos or record while in school, on school grounds, etc., and many require cell phones to be in lockers and/or turned off. If that’s the case, I’m sure they could use that to try to go after the whistleblowers. Whether that’s successful or not is another matter, but they could likely try.

I'm sure some will try, and it's evident that this Georgia district could be among them. It wouldn't surprise me to see if a parent tries a retaliation argument against a district that does so. Whether that would be successful or not is also another matter, but many districts are just afraid enough of litigation that the issue might be dropped at that point.

But that's a different argument than the original argument that students have a right to privacy just being on campus.
 


This is generally not true, although there are some local exceptions.

Since the school is a public place, unless the images are being used for commercial or exploitative purposes, generally the images can be used. Some states make additional limitations if there is attribution of names of those pictured in the photo if the subject of the photo is a minor.

Where confusion sometimes comes in is that the school may not film students without the consent of the parents. So, for instance, when I went to get my National Board recertification, I had to get parental permissions for each of the classes that needed to be videotaped, and to find a way to not videotape any students whose parents wouldn't give that permission.

Also, schools have sometimes cracked down on students when they use such filming to harass other students when it has an effect on the videotaped students' ability to access schools under local harassment, intimidation, and bullying laws.

It is hard to definitively argue that a recording of the conditions in the hallway of a recently opened school rise to harassment, intimidation, and bullying of students. This is a school system trying to cover itself from potential litigation and nothing more.

Edited for clarity, grammar, spelling.

I’ll add that FERPA considers videos and photos to be protected by privacy if the video/photo is directly related to an individual. For example, taking a picture of a couple students dancing with other students in the background observing is directly related to those couple students dancing and will need their consent. But, no consent is necessary from the observers in the background.
“Directly related” is the key.
There’s never (that I’m aware of) an issue when news stations cover a school-related news in front of the school with kids walking by and no one is interviewed. I doubt the station got consents from every single student walking in the FOV of the camera.

Many schools have rules in place that state that students cannot take photos or record while in school, on school grounds, etc., and many require cell phones to be in lockers and/or turned off. If that’s the case, I’m sure they could use that to try to go after the whistleblowers. Whether that’s successful or not is another matter, but they could likely try.
Wow. I have never heard of any school that prohibits students from taking cell phone pictures while on campus. That’s totally a new one for me.
 
The media releases and FERPA would only pertain to if the school was taking the pictures and releasing them to the public. Same thing with HIPPA - HIPPA only applies to medical personal and has nothing to do with the general public.

If the school had rules and the students violated those rules then they can be punished. However, the school needs to be very careful here. If in the past they have had students violate the posting pictures taken in school and then posting to social media while on campus but they didn't get the same punishment then can will be an issue.

The girl said this is the first time she's ever gotten in trouble if that is true and she has no history then jumping from nothing to an automatic suspension could be troublesome for the school if they have only given detentions for the same offense to a student with the same discipline history.
 
I'm in NW Ohio. Our district planned the hybrid - 2 days in, 3 at home. I was happy with the plan they had in place. However, the County Health Department voted and highly recommended (which all districts seem to be following) that we start completely remote until at least October 1. Our district moved to state no in class instruction until at least October 15. The County Health Dept. also stated no school sports until at least then as well.
So we went from planning on 5 days a week a couple weeks ago, to the hybrid last week and now will start fully remote a week later then our original planned start date
 
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So what say you DIS? Should counties be able to keep private schools closed as well as public schools?

No - why? Presumably the private schools have more resources to make things work as well as more favorable student to teacher ratio's. You wont have classes of 30 - you'll have cohorts of 8.

Is it because it's not fair to everyone?
 
They responsibly don't want students to start trying to shame one another on social media. I agree that masks should be required, but students publishing pics of their unmasked classmates online isn't the way to do it. Students have the right not to be photographed at school & have their photos published at online without their parents' consent. They're minors & have that right of privacy when at school.
Every high school football game covered by my home town paper publishes pics of the student section during games. I doubt they had every parents permission to do that. Kids post pics of themselves in school all the time, this is different only because the school is doing a very poor job of opening.
 
Our governor (Cuomo) gave authorization for every school in New York to open in September. Now, it's up to the individual districts and teacher's unions.
 
After a five hour school board meeting the board approved the plan put forth by the superintendent. Four models that can be moved between at the discretion of the super in consultation with county health. Barring a drastic change between now and the start of school Sep. 1, PK-5 will begin in person and 6-12 will be hybrid, with the group changing every other day. The district made sure to group all kids in the same household in the same group. One of the YMCA's has announced that it will offer childcare for those districts going full remote, with time during the day set aside for schoolwork.
 
seems like any of the schools around us that are doing a mix of styles are focusing on getting the elementary aged kids in person instruction. THAT SAID-our state department of health just published the current numbers for multi system inflammatory syndrome (the kawasaki like illnesses related to covid). we've now got 11 kids diagnosed/hospitalized, 6 of them kids 9 and under. i really hope we don't see an uptick when the kiddos get back together in school :(
 
My town already had too many kids and not enough space in the schools prior to covid. One middle school had just been renovated and expanded. We were voting on building another new middle school. So they have not been able to make a plan to get everyone back with social distancing due to space constraints. Town plan is grades K-3 will be hybrid 2 half days a week in school and 3 days remote. They will attend school at the new middle school bc it has all new hvac and central ac. Grades 4+ are 100% remote until at least November - then they will evaluate if they can phase some more grades into the hybrid model based on covid numbers, how it went with younger grades, renovations to older schools, etc.
So bottom line, my kids are going into 5tg and 7th grade so they will be remote learning to start the year. I'm just glad to have an answer at this point.
 
One of the schools in my metro (but on the other side of the state line from me) said this: "won’t send most students back to class until the coronavirus pandemic is declared over."

Now that might sound like a good idea but it's way vague (what organization are they going off of) and makes me think they don't understand what a pandemic is.

A pandemic isn't something that is merely affected in just a small area. A pandemic is often global or at the very least an entire country when it's declared.

So question becomes are they prepared for the long haul as in years because you can't make that sort of statement without considering that. It's not merely Fall semester, it's not merely Spring semester. It's whenever whatever organization they are going with deems it over. Just something I hope they consider while making that declaration.

Also for teachers in that district: "Educators who opt to teach online won't be able to telecommute when buildings are open." Only if the district must switch to virtual (as in community spread is dictating that method of teaching as opposed to a parent choosing online learning) learning for all students will teachers be allowed to “telecommute from home four days a week with daily teacher expectations.” They’ll need to be onsite on Wednesdays for “in-building collaboration days.”"

~Throughout our metro the bulk of parents wish for in-person instruction presently~
 

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