Vermont plans to reopen K-12 classrooms in the fall

[brooklynite]

Source: VT Digger

Vermont’s K-12 schools will open for in-person instruction this fall, state officials announced Wednesday. Students and staff will undergo a health questionnaire and temperature checks every day, and the state will prepare alternatives for remote learning if schools need to close.

“We’re learning more every day” about controlling the spread of the Covid-19 virus, said Vermont Gov. Phil Scott at his regular Covid-19 press conference. “We know more about this virus now and have the tools to help prevent the spread today that we didn’t have three months ago, which helps us prepare for this transition back to school.”

Vermont schools closed abruptly in March when the state shut down most public activities to prevent the spread of the virus. School officials rapidly worked to make the transition to online instruction, with many parents playing the role of teacher as they juggled doing their own jobs remotely. But teachers in Vermont and around the country report that student learning and achievement, as well as social experience, has suffered during the pandemic; many teachers say they have students who haven’t attended online classes in weeks.

Getting students back to the normalcy of the classroom setting is vital, said Scott and Dan French, the state’s secretary of education. A month ago, officials said they hoped to reopen the classrooms in the fall depending on infection rates.

Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2020/06/10/vermont-plans-to-reopen-k-12-classrooms-in-the-fall/

[Grokenstein]

1. "What have you got to lose?"

[erronis]

2. Speaking from VT and closely following world/US epidemiological stats, this looks right.

Our Republican(!) governor Phil Scott and his administration have done a very good job trying to get a handle on the pandemic. They have held press conferences every week, MWF, and have listened to and responded to a wide variety of questions.

We are very rural and don't have a large number of congested/urban areas so the ability to monitor and track has been made a lot easier. Still, at the beginning we thought we had far fewer PPEs and testing capabilities than we would need. An adherence to voluntary stay-at-home, school and non-essential business closings, has probably helped a lot. Even though many of the more stringent restrictions have been lifted over the last 2+ months many Vermonters are still limiting their exposure. Mask adherence, at least in my sphere, is darn good.

We still need to be concerned about active COVID-19 cases traveling into the state but we've mainly relied on messaging and voluntary cooperation.

We just recently had an outbreak that started in Winooski just outside of Burlington (our major city). Contact tracking has been in place and it seems that this is mainly down to one group of people. Containment and control will probably never be perfect with porous borders (NY, NH, MA) but tracking and mitigation are possible.

[handmade34]

3. "Vermont Strong"

I am quite pleased that Vermonters have been really good about masks and distancing (at least here in the NEK) and for a Republican, Scott has done a pretty good job.

[paleotn]

4. Same in my neck of the woods.......

Brandon, Orwell, Castleton, Benson. Nice to see folks take serious stuff seriously. For my peeps down south, it's a whole different ballgame.

[karynnj]

5. Burlington too

The town bought materials and volunteers sewed over 20,000 masks that were distributed free. The first group went to people like bus drivers and clerks at stores etc. Everyone I see in the grocery store where masks.

Last Saturday was the first farmers market and it did a lot of really thoughtful things to make this outdoor market safer. Most of the vendors had websites and people were encouraged to order and pay for what they wanted ahead of time. If you did not do that, you could not touch anything and the vendor gave you what you asked for. You paid with checks or the correct amount of cash. They had one place to enter, where people were appropriately spaced out. They controlled the number in the market at any time. They asked people to go through in one direction. No back tracking. No eating on site. This worked really well.

Many restaurants have well designed takeout. Recently, some restaurants have limited out side eating.

We are lucky to have beautiful Lake Champlain, the lake side greenest bike path and many nature areas to walk in. It makes it easy to social distance.