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AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18


atomheartbevo

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Just now, atomheartbevo said:

Look at the hallway photo.  They didn't even make an attempt to make those kids wear masks.

Yeah, no question there "plan" was we have no plan...  and they deserve all the criticism they get for it. Just thinking for others with a plan.. there might be some good in helping people effectively get tested or quarantined as now others are watching

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

Pfluggerville even has goggles and gowns.

 

you know what's crazy?  pflugerville has told its schools they're getting ONE mask per student.  and no face shields or gowns.  if teachers and students want more than 1 mask it's up to each campus to buy them.

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My kids have had multiple masks each since March. Same goes for every single other family I know in real life, in the entire Austin/Travco area.

It's fine, we have the means.  They should focus on the disadvantaged people that DON'T have the means, and ensure they have PPE.  

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Furk.  Aggy rollercoaster time.

https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/austin-public-health-releases-guidelines-for-schools-as-mayor-extends-mask-order/

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 On Friday, Mayor Steve Adler extended the mandatory mask order for the city through Dec. 15.

The order, set to go into effect Sunday, included new guidelines by Austin Public Health for schools.

This comes as Travis County also renewed its mask order the same day.

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The city’s order also extends other COVID-19 rules already in place. It says social gatherings of any size should be avoided or kept to a minimum. Gatherings of more than 10 people are still prohibited.

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The Austin order also says schools must follow a phased-in approach if they teach more than one grade, unless it jeopardizes their funding from the Texas Education Agency.

Austin Public Health released those guidelines for Austin and Travis County schools Friday.

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Right now, we’re in Stage Four, so APH recommends no more than 25% capacity at schools. 

They also say schools should follow a phased-in reopening strategy and should stay at each stage for a minimum of two weeks before moving up to the next level.

 

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Yeah- 4 days in for real on this and the first day was a 6 hour slog with the wife and 3 kids. Next day was 5 hours and much better and I think they are now settling at 3.5 or 4. And I’m pretty sure that 3.5 or 4 includes more instruction and learning than the 8 at school. Oh- and they are doing 4 days of school is all. 

Yeah we are on a Monday through Thursday class only. 9am to 4pm and very reminiscent of a college schedule. I’ll post the actual schedule soon I’m organizing this weekend.

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19 hours ago, troph said:

Yeah we are on a Monday through Thursday class only. 9am to 4pm and very reminiscent of a college schedule. I’ll post the actual schedule soon I’m organizing this weekend.

Same Monday thru Thurs. Start at 0800 thru 4 most days. The program we are using was really good with helping set up schedules.  We are still playing with it, but so far so good. 

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2 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

Same Monday thru Thurs. Start at 0800 thru 4 most days. The program we are using was really good with helping set up schedules.  We are still playing with it, but so far so good. 

Wow -- that's a lot of structured time.  I've mentioned previously that we did 2-3 hours of on-task time, then did lots of other stuff like turning making lunch or going to the grocery store into a math lesson. Going to the park for PE (and convincing the popo that they weren't truants.)  Field trips to museums and art galleries (or the deer lease.)  Then allowing for lots of individual reading time -- no computers.  My advice is to not fall into the same rigid structure that the public schools follow and let your kids find their own way that they best learn.  YMMV, of course.  Best of luck to all y'all.

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@DalTxHornFan I appreciate the info. We are only 1.5 weeks into it, it’s definitely fluid. But we have (for the oldest) a good chunk of that is  reading time. There’s a bit of chores/lunch/PE built into that time, too.  Unfortunately from 0800-1130-ish, most of it has to be review/computer learn (work schedules :() Then wife does a couple of hours of 1x1 for the remainder of the day.  The young ones (pre k and k) aren’t as rigid.  The schedule is mainly for my 3rd grader.    Working that schedule had us from first week in August until June 1.    That’s only with the “learning” program.  We are doing a second program that was tailored more to quizzing and testing.  We found one we really liked for the teaching, and one we really liked for the actual testing of progression.  Our neighbors have home schooled their 3 for years and gave us some pointers, but of course their mom stayed home full time.  We are going to make it work, one way or the other. Just trying to keep the kids educated and not sick. Believe me when I say I’m reading and taking to heart any of y’all with experience say. 

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our schedule doesn't fill up for another couple of weeks although it's started for sure.  when it kicks in for all of them the most classes any one child has in a day is 4 hours.  some days it's 2 hours and on occasion it's only 1 hour.  there is a LOT of unstructured time.  We will use that to guide study habits.  I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be freaking awesome.  

Course load:

10th Grader:  Algebra II, English, World History, Chemistry I, Computer Science: Hacking and Coding, Sociology, African American History, 3D Modeling, Spanish II.  Graded classes:  Algebra II, English, World History, Chemistry I and Spanish II.  PE:  Tennis, possibly sailing.  Spring may include golf.

7th Grader:  Algebra I, Literature, Introduction to Chemistry, Study of the Central Nervous System, World War II, Psychology, Ukulele, African American History, Introduction to Conversational Spanish.  Graded classes:  Algebra I, Literature, Chemistry, Central Nervous System, and WWII. PE:  Baseball, possibly sailing. Spring may include golf.

5th Grader:  Sixth Grade Math, Sixth Grade Writing and Grammar, Sixth Grade Reading, Planes of WWII, Tanks of WWII, African American History, Ancient Monsters of the Sky and Sea (Dinosaurs), Introduction to Photography, Lego Challenge (short class), Biology (Cells, Tissues, Organs, Systems), Introduction to Conversational Spanish.  Graded classes:  Math, Writing/Grammar, Reading, Biology, history class later (Planes and Tanks are short classes and for fun). PE: Baseball, possibly sailing. Spring may include golf.

Seems like a lot, but several are short burst classes (8 weeks, once a week) and others are participation grades (from us) the others are core and matter.  Some classes that are participation we may not even require homework depending on the quality of the class.  Sociology for my 10th grader has already started, but it's fun so he's decided to do the work.  

All Kids:  We will probably take a Texas history trip in our Fifth Wheel for the 7th Grader.  Probably some missions, battle sites and maybe some border culture if COVID calms down, and of course some fishing along the way.  We will also take a civil rights trip in the trailer for Thanksgiving through the South.   For both of the trips we will utilize documentaries and audible books to learn a bit extra.

Goal:  Cover core classes, learn some cool shit, integrate with some learning oriented travel and forget this COVID bullshit.

Unintended Consequence:  Unknown, we may not go back to LTISD ever.  

Edited by troph
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19 minutes ago, troph said:

our schedule doesn't fill up for another couple of weeks although it's started for sure.  when it kicks in for all of them the most classes any one child has in a day is 4 hours.  some days it's 2 hours and on occasion it's only 1 hour.  there is a LOT of unstructured time.  We will use that to guide study habits.  I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be freaking awesome.  

Course load:

10th Grader:  Algebra II, English, World History, Chemistry I, Computer Science: Hacking and Coding, Sociology, African American History, 3D Modeling, Spanish II.  Graded classes:  Algebra II, English, World History, Chemistry I and Spanish II.  PE:  Tennis, possibly sailing.  Spring may include golf.

7th Grader:  Algebra I, Literature, Introduction to Chemistry, Study of the Central Nervous System, World War II, Psychology, Ukulele, African American History, Introduction to Conversational Spanish.  Graded classes:  Algebra I, Literature, Chemistry, Central Nervous System, and WWII. PE:  Baseball, possibly sailing. Spring may include golf.

5th Grader:  Sixth Grade Math, Sixth Grade Writing and Grammar, Sixth Grade Reading, Planes of WWII, Tanks of WWII, African American History, Ancient Monsters of the Sky and Sea (Dinosaurs), Introduction to Photography, Lego Challenge (short class), Biology (Cells, Tissues, Organs, Systems), Introduction to Conversational Spanish.  Graded classes:  Math, Writing/Grammar, Reading, Biology, history class later (Planes and Tanks are short classes and for fun). PE: Baseball, possibly sailing. Spring may include golf.

Seems like a lot, but several are short burst classes (8 weeks, once a week) and others are participation grades (from us) the others are core and matter.  Some classes that are participation we may not even require homework depending on the quality of the class.  Sociology for my 10th grader has already started, but it's fun so he's decided to do the work.  

All Kids:  We will probably take a Texas history trip in our Fifth Wheel for the 7th Grader.  Probably some missions, battle sites and maybe some border culture if COVID calms down, and of course some fishing along the way.  We will also take a civil rights trip in the trailer for Thanksgiving through the South.   For both of the trips we will utilize documentaries and audible books to learn a bit extra.

Goal:  Cover core classes, learn some cool shit, integrate with some learning oriented travel and forget this COVID bullshit.

Unintended Consequence:  Unknown, we may not go back to LTISD ever.  

Get it done girl!  Sounds pretty awesome. 
we aren’t doing near that much as we’ve got K, 2nd and 4th but doing the same type of “other stuff” y’all are. 
we were at teddy Roosevelt national park last week so after school one day was a hike. We drove out about 45 miles to the park (staying outside it as RV is dead and we needed to do hotel stay) and I talked to them all about teddy Roosevelt touching on  what happens when a president dies, the Spanish American war, how the national park system works, the Nobel peace prize, the Panama Canal, why it’s so hard for a third party to win the presidency with out political system, and a few other Roosevelt related things (what a fascinating life that dude lived). That also led in to discussion of favorite presidents, some of the differences between the political parties, why I think Trump sucks, why not everything he does is bad and wrong, and how you should think for yourself, make your own decisions, and analyze life for yourselves. And why you should be wary of anyone claiming there is an easy solution to difficult problems we faced as a country. 
I don’t know that I’d have ever discussed even half the stuff we talked about with them if it wasn’t for what we are committing to doing through homeschool/being on the road. 

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Lil update from the eastern block (Tyler).

Just got the email from the high school that they already have had a positive case (Day 1).  They caught it with a temperature check before the kid got into the building.  No students exposed (according to them), but several staff members exposed and quarantining  My high schooler (both kids remote for the first six weeks (read months)) said, "At least they caught it before he came in."  I responded, "Yeah, but think about how many asymptomatic and presymptomatic kids got in." 

Hold on to yo butts!

Also, remote learning was pretty much an unorganized shit show.  We will survive, and it will get better.  But it took my wife's getting the kids looking in the right place (and then she helped a dozen of their remote learning friends).  But in any event, it beats the alternative for now. 

This has been a preview of what will happen when the rest of Texas decides to dip its kids' toes (just the ones that go wee wee wee all the way home) into the hot lava of in-person schooling during a pandemic (in case that wasn't pretty obvious).

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I have zero confidence AISD will even come close to pulling off being ready for virtual learning on 9/8.

From what I am hearing they delayed start as very few teachers just weren't remotely prepared to start on the original back to school date.

Just a feeling overall I have that it is just going to be a disaster and another semester just wasted. (Spring was an absolute joke (while understandable))

Fingers crossed

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Question for those temp checks... for the kid that go caught with a fever did the school immediately test him or did the parents take him in to get tested?

My issue with how my school is handling things is the temp check keeps them from going but then you basically have to quarantine or come back with an alternate diagnosis from your own pocket.

Hell my 1yo has a fever all the time since he is teething.


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You’ve always had to get that alternate diagnosis from your own pocket. Kids already weren’t allowed to be in school with a fever.  Just about every district has had that as a policy for years before Covid.  The only difference is that they can enforce that better now that they are doing temperature checks rather than relying on parents to be honest and not send their kids to school when they’re over 100°  

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11 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

You’ve always had to get that alternate diagnosis from your own pocket. Kids already weren’t allowed to be in school with a fever.  Just about every district has had that as a policy for years before Covid.  The only difference is that they can enforce that better now that they are doing temperature checks rather than relying on parents to be honest and not send their kids to school when they’re over 100°  

Sure, but the difference now is that if you get a fever you can't just go back in two days when you're over it. Now you are presumed to have COVID and need to stay home for 2 weeks.

That's what I'm hearing anyway

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2 hours ago, BrazilHorn said:

I have zero confidence AISD will even come close to pulling off being ready for virtual learning on 9/8.

From what I am hearing they delayed start as very few teachers just weren't remotely prepared to start on the original back to school date.

Just a feeling overall I have that it is just going to be a disaster and another semester just wasted. (Spring was an absolute joke (while understandable))

Fingers crossed

If my school were to start on Monday, we would be ready. Teachers have been assigned students, teachers have been trained, blend courses are loaded and ready. Parents/students will have a one stop shop for all assignments and links. Schedules for students have been out for over a week. We have done numerous zoom meetings with 250+ parents so they should be informed. There will be glitches along the way but there is no reason for this to be a disaster.

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5 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

If my school were to start on Monday, we would be ready. Teachers have been assigned students, teachers have been trained, blend courses are loaded and ready. Parents/students will have a one stop shop for all assignments and links. Schedules for students have been out for over a week. We have done numerous zoom meetings with 250+ parents so they should be informed. There will be glitches along the way but there is no reason for this to be a disaster.

Hopefully that holds for rest of AISD. I just have little faith that Casis & O'Henry will be squared away. Fingers crossed as my boys are in tough years (5th & 8th) to have poorly executed virtual teaching etc. I am prepared already to hire tutors/supplemental teaches as my 5th grader is being told he will only have 90 mins of virtual instruction a day.(8th grader 4hrs)  Will need to find a way to occupy them productively for the other hours in the day.

 

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I’m learning so fucking much

1.  Square has four equal sides. Holy. Fuck. 
 

2.  A bird is a living thing. A bird feeder is a non living thing. God. Dammit. Fuck. 
 

3. These zoom kindergarten meetings are shockingly similar to my work meetings. The ability to mute/unmute can be mastered by young children but apparently not some grown adults with “jerbs”. 

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13 hours ago, BrazilHorn said:

I have zero confidence AISD will even come close to pulling off being ready for virtual learning on 9/8.

From what I am hearing they delayed start as very few teachers just weren't remotely prepared to start on the original back to school date.

Just a feeling overall I have that it is just going to be a disaster and another semester just wasted. (Spring was an absolute joke (while understandable))

Fingers crossed

We've discussed it up thread a bit.

AISD would not have had enough devices available if school had started this week.   I know this for a fact.  TEA would have come down on them hard for not being ready/having enough devices, because apparently the TEA's mandate these days is to shit all over public schools as much as they can, and to only reluctantly back down/extend deadlines in the middle of a fucking worldwide pandemic.  

I also know they've been putting a lot of the teachers through a lot of training for Canvas/Blend, etc, and they've also been putting out basic/starter curriculum for the first month or so, as a district, so that teachers have a base to start form, and they can tailor it as they see fit.  

Now not all teachers maybe taking it as serious as they should, but they will be found out quickly and I'm sure their principals will hear about it.

Pushing things back 4 weeks sounds like a strategic move as well - if Labor Day is the shitshow that we are all expecting, AISD wouldn't have had kids showing up for a week or two in-person, only to send them back home again.  Pushing the start date back to Sep. 8 allows them to push the in-person back to October, which gives enough of a buffer for us to figure out if Labor Day will be a shitshow of covid spreading.

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13 hours ago, ZB'Tejas said:

My issue with how my school is handling things is the temp check keeps them from going but then you basically have to quarantine or come back with an alternate diagnosis from your own pocket.

Hell my 1yo has a fever all the time since he is teething.

As mentioned earlier, plenty of parents will give their kids medication to knock a fever down so the kid can go to school.  They then hope the clock runs out and the kid doesn't have their fever come back until the afternoon, at which point the parents are conveniently unable to come to the phone.  A Surly poster has a school nurse for a wife and has mentioned it, my wife has seen it as a teacher, her friends have seen it.  It's common.

But now we are in covid.  So little Johnny's mommy giving him something to knock a fever down to get him through the day is not a situation of him having a fever in the afternoon, seeing the school nurse and saying "yeah, my mom gave me Tylenol or something so I could come to school" and the nurse rolling her eyes and getting pissed.  

It becomes a Big Fucking Deal that could cause a lot of problems for a lot of parents.   Think about some asshole parent sending their flu-ridden kid to school, and it spreads a bit, causing problems for all the other kids and parents involved.  But now it's fucking covid.

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9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

We've discussed it up thread a bit.

AISD would not have had enough devices available if school had started this week.   I know this for a fact.  TEA would have come down on them hard for not being ready/having enough devices, because apparently the TEA's mandate these days is to shit all over public schools as much as they can, and to only reluctantly back down/extend deadlines in the middle of a fucking worldwide pandemic.  

I also know they've been putting a lot of the teachers through a lot of training for Canvas/Blend, etc, and they've also been putting out basic/starter curriculum for the first month or so, as a district, so that teachers have a base to start form, and they can tailor it as they see fit.  

Now not all teachers maybe taking it as serious as they should, but they will be found out quickly and I'm sure their principals will hear about it.

Pushing things back 4 weeks sounds like a strategic move as well - if Labor Day is the shitshow that we are all expecting, AISD wouldn't have had kids showing up for a week or two in-person, only to send them back home again.  Pushing the start date back to Sep. 8 allows them to push the in-person back to October, which gives enough of a buffer for us to figure out if Labor Day will be a shitshow of covid spreading.

I agree they weren’t prepared, and hopefully you and Larry T. are right and they now are ready. 
I think this is shaping up for a full year of virtual. 
Start 9/8 with 4 weeks virtual 

Next 4 weeks are hybrid where virtual is optional. (This is when covid cases happen at scale)

That puts you at 11/2. Which is close enough to Thanksgiving to not make it worth hassle of bringing kids back. 
 

Then maybe they try a week post Thanksgiving and cases appear, so then it becomes virtual til post Xmas. 
 

Rinse, wash, repeat. 
AISD is in tough spot but I just don’t see this year being executed well. Happy to be wrong as it’ll save me a ton of $ on additional tutors/teachers etc

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From NE Texas: Pleasant Grove and Liberty Eylua ISD both started in person Aug 10th.They both had a covid case to start the year but quarantined those affected and have been able to continue. Sports are still on the schedule with volleyball and track this week and football games starting next weekend.

Texarkana ISD started this week and no problems so far. Strength and conditioning/practice occurred almost all summer, band/drill team activities as well. The football season doesnt start until Sep 24 but they have a scrimmage against Longview the 18th.

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6 hours ago, BrazilHorn said:

I agree they weren’t prepared, and hopefully you and Larry T. are right and they now are ready. 

Just having devices for everybody, and having a baseline four weeks of online work ready puts them way ahead of where they were at this spring.

6 hours ago, BrazilHorn said:

I think this is shaping up for a full year of virtual. 
Start 9/8 with 4 weeks virtual 

Next 4 weeks are hybrid where virtual is optional. (This is when covid cases happen at scale)

That puts you at 11/2. Which is close enough to Thanksgiving to not make it worth hassle of bringing kids back. 
Then maybe they try a week post Thanksgiving and cases appear, so then it becomes virtual til post Xmas. 

That's the problem.

On the one hand, Austin has been really good about wearing masks in stores, etc..  On the other hand, I was at our neighborhood park twice in the last three days, and I saw 10-15 adults and as many kids, and only a few were wearing masks.  Kids were all over the equipment, each other,  playing with the same toys, etc. and adults were near each other without masks.    So for those of us working to keep our families away from the covid, we are going to be sending our kids to school with kids whose parents don't give a shit.  So they could easily get the schools shut down again.  These are probably parents who don't give a shit about sending their kids to school sick before the pandemic.

And that's not talking about the expected outbreaks from Labor Day.

My only hope is that Abbott doesn't interfere with the local cities/counties, and we can keep Labor Day outbreaks to a minimum this time around.

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The school year for Spring Branch in Houston is nine minutes in and going as anticipated. Zoom crashed and the 4th graders email account has disappeared. Blocked. The principal is encouraging the kids to have a good day despite anticipated tech issues. Let the learning begin.

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On the latest call with our principal, she said that there's no capacity to have social distancing for in person instruction beyond the initial maximum head count they have planned for.  If more than that number show up, they'll just be crammed into a classroom.   Also, it sounded like the office admin assistant would be supervising the in person Zoom learning for kids that show up so it won't even be a teacher since they'll all be remote from home.  

 

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Zoom is down for the entire district, which is 100% virtual for the first two weeks. My elder boy’s first day of middle school begins in 40 minutes. I’m sitting in a mostly empty elementary school trying to get a computer that works for the fourth grader.


Assume you know by now, but it wasn’t the districts fault, it was down across the entire country. Actually, it went pretty smoothly for us, besides Zoom being down for a few minutes. We got a note quickly from the principal with a new link & it worked with no issues.
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Good times in Eanes yesterday. There was a back in school protest.

 

This lady called some 15 and 16 year old

Counter protesters skanks.

 

Nice.

 

While I don’t doubt the teens were acting like shitheads, dude, you are an adult. Act like one.

 

 (Spoiler, language)

 

 https://www.instagram.com/p/CEV5ri5FNyp/?igshid=pn7a347e1lkg

 

 

 

 

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Just had our Zoom meeting for middle school volleyball.

Sports aren’t really happening, at least at that level.

Since we are in Stage 3, kids can’t play together. For practice, they will each be assigned a ball. They can hit it up in the air to themselves or against the wall. They cannot in any circumstances pass to each other or touch another kid’s ball. They are not allowed within 10 feet of each other. In stage 3, no games are allowed. At Stage 2 they can play games but they said it’s unlikely we move to it until late November or December.

My daughter is gonna pass on sports this year. We will just volley with each other in the yard. It’ll be more productive than what they’ll be allowed to do at school.

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To echo CooterBrown's point (I had posted this info in the Covid 19 Texas thread). In order for AISD to play sports Austin has to be at Stage 2. This is a rolling 7 day average of hospital admits <10/day. This has not happened since the end of May. Current Travis County rolling 7 day is 18.8 admits/day.

Give you an idea of what the daily case numbers would have to be to get to the <10 level, Travis County would have to be at 65 cases a day (Travis has ~15% hospital admit rate from cases). The last time that level was achieved was June 8th.

If you have kids that you were hoping would play fall sports (as I do), I am not going to say it is an impossibility but it is HIGHLY unlikely. This is for high school and middle school both, so again, not saying there is no chance, but it is highly unlikely at this juncture.

Schools have all they can handle getting Zoom to work and handling virtual vs in person learning for those that don't have proper home learning environment. I think athletics will get zero thought in big scheme of things.

 

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  • hayden_horn changed the title to AISD's (and other districts) Plans for Schools Starting August 18

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