How will schools be able to go back in September? (Continued)

wirelessdude01

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

The teacher from the main room is connected by satellite link. If the child is stuck the teacher can help them.

How does that work in reality? The connection won't be two way, either audio or visual.

downthemiddle

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

The €376 million package includes:

€53 million for an additional 1080 teachers


€84.7 million so schools can employ replacement teaching, sna and admin staff


€41.2 million for primary subs

€40 million for additional supervision post primary
Min 1 release day for principal per week

We have had this discussion, not that it matters. You will plough on anyway.
The document allows for 12 additional subs at primary level in Dublin, assuming Arklow is a typo.
Additional cover is to come from support teachers impacting on the most vulnerable in school communities.

khalessi

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

The teacher from the main room is connected by satellite link. If the child is stuck the teacher can help them.

Please link the legislation you are referring to

Im sure they be able to manage to Explain if the child is stuck adding 2 +2

Before I do please explain why you inssit on trolling the thread. Are you in that much need of attention?

F5500

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

A satellite room feeding from the main class doesnt need a separate teacher. Anyone with garda vetting and a bit of child care experience could supervise.

Would you consider that to be fully adequate? Having a teacher in one room teaching via a video link?

wirelessdude01

downthemiddle wrote: »

We have had this discussion, not that it matters. You will plough on anyway.
The document allows for 12 additional subs at primary level in Dublin, assuming Arklow is a typo.
Additional cover is to come from support teachers impacting on the most vulnerable in school communities.

Would ya stop trying to explain the practical realities to people who don't want to know. Headline figures is all they know as fed to them by the government.

Alrigghtythen

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

So a non qualified person is the type of person dispatched to the marquee? What happened to all these teachers that the headline figures are meant to be paying?

Legally the children are meant to have a teacher with them.

The marquee could be the teachers staff room. The teachers staff room the satellite room

Some of them are getting €143 on top of thier normal pay to move tables

Alrigghtythen

F5500 wrote: »

Would you consider that to be fully adequate? Having a teacher in one room teaching via a video link?

Yes, there is a virus going around if that's what it takes to get the schools back safely. They are rotated back in to the main class for the next class. We've all had to make adjustments.

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

How does that work in reality? The connection won't be two way, either audio or visual.

Microsoft teams is two way

Blondini

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Microsoft teams is two way

And the canteens? Are they two way?

Alrigghtythen

Blondini wrote: »

And the canteens? Are they two way?

No, One way directional flow to control people movement.

Blondini

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

No, One way directional flow to control people movement.

And the gazebos?

Alrigghtythen

Blondini wrote: »

And the gazebos?

Same. What sort of people flow have are you planning for your class? One way systems are recommended or will students just be let run around?

F5500

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

A satellite room feeding from the main class doesnt need a separate teacher. Anyone with garda vetting and a bit of child care experience could supervise.

This suggestion for September is very similar to what was happening throughout March and April, the only difference being that students were at home in their living rooms as opposed to a marquee in the schoolyard (which we all know is ridiculous tbh).

If you consider this to be adequate, is it not far simpler to continue in this vein than go organising parish halls/marquees/whatever, no?

Blondini

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Same. What sort of people flow have are you planning for your class? One way systems are recommended or will students just be let run around?

I'm thinking of pods of 17 with a distance of 3mm between them.

One way system: Enter through the roof, exit via an underground bunker.

No masks though, let's not be ridiculous!

wirelessdude01

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Same. What sort of people flow have are you planning for your class? One way systems are recommended or will students just be let run around?

I'm trying to figure out how to fit them all in. One way systems will be looked at at a later date. I wanted to have some pods of 8 as that allows me to fit them in and have walkways to/from the toilets that I'm happy with but principal said no to pods that size. Max of 6 allowed with 4 the recommended size where possible.

Alrigghtythen

F5500 wrote: »

This suggestion for September is very similar to what was happening throughout March and April, the only difference being that students were at home in their living rooms as opposed to a marquee in the schoolyard (which we all know is ridiculous tbh).

If you consider this to be adequate, is it not far simpler to continue in this vein than go organising parish halls/marquees/whatever, no?

The difference is the children are rotated back to the classroom for the majority of lessons and school life and socialisation can continue


Lol, I've said a few times that an option could be the teachers would be in the marquee and the staff room a satellite room


Recommended by the nphet and good enough for the people who kept the country running in the biggest pandemic of our time when there was a lot more uncertainty, but not good enough for a teachers staff room?

Parish halls are too expensive I was told

iamwhoiam

Absolute fair play to NPHET for putting education before the opening of pubs

Blondini

To be honest Alriiiighty, with all these marquees, we could be in for a Winter of discount tents.

s1ippy

So it's not safe for crowds of 500 to gather for two hours outdoors, but it is safe for up to 500 people to be inside in a building together for 8 hours. The double standard is staggering, especially when you consider that plenty research is indicating that children over ten years old transmit the virus and have similar outcomes to adults. Children under ten are likely to also transmit the virus and get sick, just at a lower rate. The research is there, so to ignore it is clearly to be in favour of business as usual at any cost to the health and well-being of families with children.

The July 21st paper on transmission:
https://virologie-ccm.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/microsites/m_cc05/virologie-ccm/dateien_upload/Weitere_Dateien/Charite_SARS-CoV-2_viral_load_2020-06-02.pdf

Here are reports from two Swedish schools in which teachers died.

https://www.lararen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/efter-larardoden--nu-oppnar-kageskolan-igen

THE CORONAVIRUS At Kågeskolan in Skellefteå, 1 in 4 teachers has tested positive for covid-19 and one teacher has died. Now the school is reopening - and the question many ask themselves is what happened to the government's promise of infection control money.


LENITA JÄLLHAGE
6 MAY 2020
Kågeskolan in Skellefteå has reopened after two weeks of closing. Almost 1 in 4 of the sampled teachers tested positive for covid-19, according to the region's testing. As Läraren.se reported at the end of April , a teacher in his 60s has also died in the suites from the disease. Most of the infected teachers who have been infected work at the school's upper secondary school.

Mikael Johansson, chairman of the Skellefteå Teachers' Association, says that there are still teachers who are absent from Kågeskolan, but most of those who have been ill for a long time have recovered and are back at school.

The question that many ask themselves both at Kågeskolan and at other schools and preschools in the municipality is: Why does nothing happen with the government's promise of the infection control allowance?


Mikael Johansson. Photo: Lärarförbundet Skellefteå
- The National Board of Health and Welfare went out with this almost three weeks ago and this silence becomes difficult as the anxiety is greatest among those who perceive themselves to be in a risk group. It feels troublesome to say the least in this context because we have many employees at our schools and preschools, not just at Kågeskolan, which belong to risk groups, he says.

One week ago, the Västerbotten Region had received answers to all tests from the staff from Kågeskolan. The tests showed that 18 of a total of 76 sampled employees at the school tested positive for covid-19. The infection control doctor Gunilla Persson at Region Västerbotten then stated, in a press release on the municipality's website, that the spread of infection mainly took place between staff working in the upper grades, while staff in preschool classes, primary school and leisure were not hit as hard. Employees who felt the slightest symptoms of a respiratory infection were encouraged to stay home when the school would open to prevent the infection from flaring up again.

Despite the fact that the situation has been pressured with many patients and a colleague who has died, the teachers still feel, according to Mikael Johansson, that the situation has begun to return to normal.

Do you feel that the unrest is under control among the staff who have now returned?

- I understand that you have a calm and have a good dialogue with your boss and it feels important that it has worked well throughout this time. I have been in contact with one of our local representatives at the school both during the closing and on Tuesday. They have some substitutes on site but she says it feels like the situation is under control, he says.

Has it been difficult to get substitutes to want to work at the school?

- I do not have an overall picture around it. I know that the staff shortage was previously resolved with other staff from the labor market unit within the municipal administration. There were administrators and supervisors, some of whom had a teaching background, but now I do not really know how they did before they opened again, says Mikael Johansson.

The teachers have experienced that the digital teaching has worked during the two weeks that the teachers have worked remotely and now the teaching has started again at the school.

The teachers' union is now working with the employer to ensure and strengthen and clarify the measures and recommendations that exist to reduce the spread of infection. Mikael Johansson says that in the media and in social media there has been a focus on whether the children are infected or infected and on the business in general.

- We try to turn the perspective and focus on how to reduce the spread of infection between the adults at school. We have experienced that in the big discussion about the school, the employees and the question of their work environment have been a bit lost, he says.

In discussions with the employer, the Swedish Teachers 'Association in Skellefteå works with work environment rules and the authorities' recommendations to clarify guidelines and do as much as possible to try to prevent the spread of infection in schools.

- Locally, we have looked at clarifying and highlighting new parts in the guidelines on how we, for example, make adjustments with distancing between adults. It's about how we handle it in workrooms, staff rooms, how often cleaning is done. Of course, we also work a lot with how to reduce the existing anxiety, he says.

Among other things, it is about finding alternative premises in the school so that the teachers do not sit too close in their workrooms. That teachers use digital meetings rather than physical ones. And can manage their planning time from home or elsewhere if, for example, you have cramped rooms at the school. Mikael Johansson says that it does not work fully at all school units in Skellefteå, but they work with everyone to make local risk assessments and find adaptations.

- It is most difficult to deal with anxiety in preschool. There, the anxiety is even greater than in the schools and there are often fewer opportunities to take action and make adjustments. The preschool staff often work close to each other, they have more cohesive days and it is more difficult to get away in other rooms. We can try to alleviate the anxiety with adjustments, but what our members in risk groups are waiting for is above all the government's announcement of infection control money, he says.

https://www.lararen.se/nyheter/coronaviruset/anstalld-pa-danderydsskola-dod-i-corona

CORONAVIRUS An employee at Stocksundsskolan in Danderyd has passed away as a result of covid-19. It happened during the Easter break. The school has been open as usual.


EMMA OLSSON
26 APR 2020
F rånvaron among school staff peaked after the winter holiday, while one-third were gone.

- But that is what it looked like at most schools in Stockholm, says principal Marie Altenberg.

A few weeks later, the school was hit by a death. One of the staff died as a result of covid infection.

- The employee was not infected at school. We have no one else in the hospital and everyone else is back and we have normal sick leave. From that point of view, it does not look like we have a general spread of infection, says principal Marie Altenberg.

The municipality of Danderyd has also not taken any special measures after the death.

Can you be sure that there is no infection at school?
- Neither you nor I can be sure of that anywhere. But there is no difference if a person tragically dies in a disease, this disease has a course where it is difficult to determine who is infected or not. That a person dies, I do not think affects how we act. We will take care of the relatives, says Kent Henningson.


Kent Henningsson.
Many schools have closed and cleaned up after confirmed cases of covid-19…
- I do not know many schools. How many schools then?

Have you had contact with an infection control doctor?
- We have not had any discussions with infection control about closing schools, other than the issues concerning the upper secondary school, where all schools are in distance education.

How have the employees' reactions been?
- There is no teacher who has been in contact with me about it. It is always tragic that people pass away. So it is the same reaction as on other occasions when someone passes away, says Kent Henningson.

The spread of society makes it difficult to trace the infection, explains Per Follin, infection control doctor at the Stockholm region.

He can not answer why the region did not do the same extended testing at the school in Stockholm, as the region Västerbotten had done at the affected Kågeskolan in Skellefteå, where a teacher died in covid-19.

- Around each established case, an assessment is made by a treating doctor, which includes infection tracing, reporting, rules of conduct and more. We also see the spread of society, which has an impact on tracking. Regarding what happened around a teacher in Stockholm, it is thus up to the treating doctor's tasks and the assessment he makes. Why someone does something different elsewhere in Sweden is difficult to say, he writes in an email to Lärarnas tidning.

- We take normal measures, if it is the case that the relatives think it is appropriate, we talk to children and staff and parents that the person has passed away. We do nothing else in this case, says director of education Kent Henningson

If the teachers' unions don't step in and defend their members, in 2021 they might not have as many members left to defend.

F5500

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

The difference is the children are rotated back to the classroom for the majority of lessons and school life and socialisation can continue

Bring them in on a 2-3 day basis. Plenty socialization and normality/routine for them while keeping the total number of students on the premises at any one time lower and more controllable.

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Lol, I've said a few times that an option could be the teachers would be in the marquee and the staff room a satellite room

One extra room per school will not be sufficient to allow for splitting every group of say over 24 students in half to allow for the suggested social distancing.

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

Recommended by the nphet and good enough for the people who kept the country running in the biggest pandemic of our time when there was a lot more uncertainty, but not good enough for a teachers staff room?

Perfectly good enough imo but completely unnecessary if students educational and social needs can be met by doing a rotation of say 2-3 days between in-school lessons and online lessons.

Smacruairi

No, the unions are doing well letting sense drip in. Keep it going for another week or so for the embittered pub owners to point to schools now before they point out the obvious.

am_zarathustra

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

The difference is the children are rotated back to the classroom for the majority of lessons and school life and socialisation can continue


Lol, I've said a few times that an option could be the teachers would be in the marquee and the staff room a satellite room


Recommended by the nphet and good enough for the people who kept the country running in the biggest pandemic of our time when there was a lot more uncertainty, but not good enough for a teachers staff room?

Parish halls are too expensive I was told

What is it you actually do for a living?

Insurance won't cover a marque. Secondly they are not secure, they will be broken into at night, where we are people drink in the back of the school most nights as is, I hardly think encouraging them with a nice covering is advisable. They are also very poorly ventilated and will be damp and cold.

Staff will sit in cars if they have to. It's be annoying but it'll be fine. The issue is all students will not fit in most schools with 1m distancing.

There are no extra teachers in the system. Not a single person has contradicted that that works in education. There was already a hiring crisis as has been explained to you repeatedly.

Bar new buildings, internet is sketchy in a lot of buildings. But again splitting the class wont work anyway, we don't have teachers to cover these satellite rooms.

We are converting couple of practical rooms at the moment and that will help with space but honestly it's staffing that will close our school. The flu pins us to the collar every year, usually a couple of seniour management just take exra classes and cover for a few weeks. In most schools they are older so will thye be wiling to take the extra risk to thanklessly make this nonsense viable?

Anyone suggesting 2nd year PMEs, in most schools in Dublin they are already teaching substantial hours and providing cover. There still isn't enough.

There are outside the box ways of dealing with this, allowing overtime would possibly help. Just pay the 2nd year PMEs to teach half a timetable officially, why pretend its not happening. Formalise it to allow splitting of classes officially, ad hoc cant be planned for and doesn't help when we need to keep classes stationary.

The reality is kids will be sent home at short notice this year and we need a plan for that. If 10% of any school staff are sick what do you do at PP, classes will be not be covered. Favours of splitting classes into other classes won;t be done. I had 6 History students in the back of my Biology class for the guys of 2 months the year before last, my gf is a lecturer and was reading their research projects and recommending books. That's the reality of schools in urban areas. A marque out the back and a bit of a teacher we can't recruit won't solve that.

am_zarathustra

Ii would also say it is disingenuous to say that this virus doesn't effect kids and most people will be fine. You have no idea of the long term effects, and given the viral profile there probably are long term effects.

There are brain issues, clotting issues, post viral fatigue.....definite lung damage in decent number of people. Viruses are bastards, they are not as predictable as bacteria, they mutate, they adapt, they have off target effects......they leave bits of DNA behind just to mess with the host. We don't know how badly people will be effected long term. Saying we know its safe is absolutely not true

HerrKuehn

s1ippy wrote: »

So it's not safe for crowds of 500 to gather for two hours outdoors, but it is safe for up to 500 people to be inside in a building together for 8 hours.

It is about the risk versus the benefit though. What benefit is there to having crowds of over 500 people outside? We could have summer festivals etc I guess. Would it really bother people much if we didn't have that this year? On the other hand getting schools back is really important, possibly the most important thing. I would rather go back to not being allowed travel outside the 5km area and have schools back, rather than having the current freedoms but schools closed.

Alrigghtythen

am_zarathustra wrote: »

What is it you actually do for a living?

Insurance won't cover a marque. Secondly they are not secure, they will be broken into at night, where we are people drink in the back of the school most nights as is, I hardly think encouraging them with a nice covering is advisable. They are also very poorly ventilated and will be damp and cold.

Staff will sit in cars if they have to. It's be annoying but it'll be fine. The issue is all students will not fit in most schools with 1m distancing.

There are no extra teachers in the system. Not a single person has contradicted that that works in education. There was already a hiring crisis as has been explained to you repeatedly.

Bar new buildings, internet is sketchy in a lot of buildings. But again splitting the class wont work anyway, we don't have teachers to cover these satellite rooms.

We are converting couple of practical rooms at the moment and that will help with space but honestly it's staffing that will close our school. The flu pins us to the collar every year, usually a couple of seniour management just take exra classes and cover for a few weeks. In most schools they are older so will thye be wiling to take the extra risk to thanklessly make this nonsense viable?

Anyone suggesting 2nd year PMEs, in most schools in Dublin they are already teaching substantial hours and providing cover. There still isn't enough.

There are outside the box ways of dealing with this, allowing overtime would possibly help. Just pay the 2nd year PMEs to teach half a timetable officially, why pretend its not happening. Formalise it to allow splitting of classes officially, ad hoc cant be planned for and doesn't help when we need to keep classes stationary.

The reality is kids will be sent home at short notice this year and we need a plan for that. If 10% of any school staff are sick what do you do at PP, classes will be not be covered. Favours of splitting classes into other classes won;t be done. I had 6 History students in the back of my Biology class for the guys of 2 months the year before last, my gf is a lecturer and was reading their research projects and recommending books. That's the reality of schools in urban areas. A marque out the back and a bit of a teacher we can't recruit won't solve that.

If you have extra space to convert as you are doing you dont need a marquee. If you teach in the city and haven't got extra rooms there are ample parish halls and cheap community centres. No need to fret about it not suiting your school. As the road map says each school will have individual needs and they have been given the freedom to assess what who'll suit the individual schools.

Funny you say to me
There was already a hiring crisis as has been explained to you repeatedly.

When I suggested a solution to the hiring a couple of posts ago. A qualified teacher is not needed to supervise a satellite room.

am_zarathustra

HerrKuehn wrote: »

It is about the risk versus the benefit though. What benefit is there to having crowds of over 500 people outside? We could have summer festivals etc I guess. Would it really bother people much if we didn't have that this year? On the other hand getting schools back is really important, possibly the most important thing. I would rather go back to not being allowed travel outside the 5km area and have schools back, rather than having the current freedoms but schools closed.

Schools have to go back, the kids need to be in school but we just can't have them there 6 hours a day safely with the current level of space and staffing.

4 hours at PP is manageable. Cut down on class size using the excess. Older kids could come in later. Maybe start at 10, it would suit them. Move towards full time as we see how it plays out.

Primary is trickier, I wouldn't have the experience to know the problems they face. It's certainly harder to introduce phased measures there

tscul32

Our school has a junior and senior side to it, but just the one hall to share. We have a scout den and a small parish centre beside us too. But neither school has a free room and there are about 50 classes between the two schools so even with options you'd never be able to have enough satellite rooms, let alone staff to supervise them.

Alrigghtythen

am_zarathustra wrote: »

Schools have to go back, the kids need to be in school but we just can't have them there 6 hours a day safely with the current level of space and staffing.

4 hours at PP is manageable. Cut down on class size using the excess. Older kids could come in later. Maybe start at 10, it would suit them. Move towards full time as we see how it plays out.

Primary is trickier, I wouldn't have the experience to know the problems they face. It's certainly harder to introduce phased measures there

The teacher in secondary has 22 contact hours a week. Good timetabling could average each one to 4 and a quarter hours contact time a day

s1ippy

HerrKuehn wrote: »

It is about the risk versus the benefit though. What benefit is there to having crowds of over 500 people outside? We could have summer festivals etc I guess. Would it really bother people much if we didn't have that this year? On the other hand getting schools back is really important, possibly the most important thing. I would rather go back to not being allowed travel outside the 5km area and have schools back, rather than having the current freedoms but schools closed.

You're talking about essential versus optional, I'm talking about safe versus unsafe.

The cost-benefit analysis should factor in both of those considerations. It is necessary for children to return to school, but doing so in an unsafe way vastly outweighs the benefit to them returning. When the "by hook or by crook", stack-em-high approach goes ahead, these are the outcomes, based on countries who have attempted reopenings like ours:
- Increased transmission throughout the community
- Repeated local school closures necessary, leading to nationwide school shut-down
- Health outcomes less favourable for all in the event of hospital overcrowding
- Businesses having to close due to increased clusters, sick staff etc.

I should probably reiterate at this point that while I deal with a multitude of schools in the course of my job, my organisation announced that we would be working from home until at least the school year commencing 2021 because it is not safe for us in schools.

Here is another staggering example of the double standard between the message to schools and the message to the public in general.


https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/1290709582508105729?s=20

Where else could that kind of mixing happen. Hmm.

am_zarathustra

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

If you have extra space to convert as you are doing you dont need a marquee. If you teach in the city and haven't got extra rooms there are ample parish halls and cheap community centres. No need to fret about it not suiting your school. As the road map says each school will have individual needs and they have been given the freedom to assess what who'll suit the individual schools.

Funny you say to me
There was already a hiring crisis as has been explained to you repeatedly.

When I suggested a solution to the hiring a couple of posts ago. A qualified teacher is not needed to supervise a satellite room.

Satellite classes are a mad idea. Our kids have practicals....go to the local parish hall for an hour, then come back for woodwork (which has to go ahead, including projects as stated in the guidelines). Then tip back for an hour, then come back for home ec, but not all of you, just come of you. I teach in the inner city, a third of the teachers we hire every year can't hack the behavior of the kids or even keep them in class normally, sending them off to a satellite place with a randomer supervising.....I cant wait to call our insurance company and explain that.....not a bother I'd say. We couldn't get insurance for a basketball court because it was too close to a wall. We just need to stagger the come back. It's not rocket science, it's just cautious and will allow habits to embed better.


Again, didn't answer the question about what you do for a living?

Smacruairi

Alrigghtythen wrote: »

If you have extra space to convert as you are doing you dont need a marquee. If you teach in the city and haven't got extra rooms there are ample parish halls and cheap community centres. No need to fret about it not suiting your school. As the road map says each school will have individual needs and they have been given the freedom to assess what who'll suit the individual schools.

Funny you say to me
There was already a hiring crisis as has been explained to you repeatedly.

When I suggested a solution to the hiring a couple of posts ago. A qualified teacher is not needed to supervise a satellite room.

So you were asked to back up your ability to fit 30 kids in a room and you couldn't so you stopped trying.
You were asked how to staff all the extra classes that you are moving off site, and you couldn't, so you now will accept anyone the guards say is OK.
So now, when I'm fitting out the parish halls or marquees for live streams, do I just drill and place webcams myself or do I need to ask for permission? How do I get Internet to a marquee. Am I installing a huge screen too? Are all the kids allowed to opt out of being on screen recorded too? Can the teacher?
What about lunch and supervision of such in these halls. Are they mini prisons? Do they have to stay inside?

You're a bloody clown.