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Re-opening Schools?

planetgeli said:
Sigh.

Aaarghhhhhhh!

Get this.

Had a conversation with a staff member yesterday outlining my vulnerability. She was very empathetic as her 83 year old mother has the same condition as one I've got.

Fast forward to today. That same staff member got sent home at 11am. She'd come into briefing coughing her guts up first thing. Went home feeling ill at 11. After telling management she'd had no sense of taste or smell since Monday. At no point when I spoke to her about my vulnerability did she mention this.
So she's come to school for 3 days knowing she has symptoms associated with Covid. Because of her job, she is probably the staff member who has greatest close contact with the most number of kids.

Although I found out at midday she'd gone home and why, we weren't officially told anything until afternoon briefing at 3pm. And even then we were told "well as long as you've been socially distancing from her you should be alright".

Obviously I raised the contact with the kids point, who then all have contact with us. I asked for it to be confirmed she knew she had Covid symptoms dating from Monday. This was confirmed. I said "great" - and walked out.

Since then I have been bombarded with apologetic calls from management who have told me I can stay home - first (by one) until we get the results of her test and then by a higher manager was told 'for as long as I like until I feel comfortable. So, belatedly, they are at least being nice about this.

But what sort of fucking idiot comes to a school in the middle of a global pandemic knowingly with symptoms and says nothing? Those reading my posts on here know how disillusioned I am with some of my fellow staff - this is just a technicolour illustration of what I meant. It has destroyed my faith in people to do the right thing.

And there are two possibilities in my mind now.

First, the worst, that she is positive and there is a chance I could be fucked because of one person's utter irresponsibility.

And, and I have to say this, second...that she is actually making it up. It's not beyond her. She's full of shit at the best of times. She could easily fancy a couple of days off thinking there are no other consequences. The coughing this morning could be seen as theatrical. And we only have her word about the loss of taste/smell. And this is causing me unbelievable stress she obviously doesn't care about or understand.

My GP has been as reassuring as she can be. Slamming into this staff member for being irresponsible, but saying it's a tale she hears all too much. People not taking it seriously, people thinking they are invincible, people just not getting the transmission and contacts thing.

So now, for my own peace of mind, I sit here thinking up scenarios where it's going to be alright, that it's all bullshit on her part. While wondering if it is and completely failing to get my head around how someone can act like this in either scenario I've presented in the middle of a global pandemic.

I am...fucking livid. This doesn't just affect me. I have an older partner. Our lives now changed over the next few days. Let's hope it is just the next few days.

Fuck this.
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Huge sympathy. A teacher at my school has done the exact same thing, same symptoms. Only she went and got a test on Monday and somehow thought the reasonable thing to do would be to come to school anyway while waiting for the result. Sent home this morning because the result came through: positive. I just don't get it. My mind has been blown by the selfishness and lack of consideration. I was talking to her in the staff room yesterday, she wasn't wearing a mask.
 
Just had an email about two confirmed cases at my oldest's school - though apparently the kids weren't at school during the infectious period so no need to take any action.
 
baldrick said:
Huge sympathy. A teacher at my school has done the exact same thing, same symptoms. Only she went and got a test on Monday and somehow thought the reasonable thing to do would be to come to school anyway while waiting for the result. Sent home this morning because the result came through: positive. I just don't get it. My mind has been blown by the selfishness and lack of consideration. I was talking to her in the staff room yesterday, she wasn't wearing a mask.
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How on earth would anyone think it is ok to go to work while having symptoms requiring a test?
 
My eldest started secondary school less than 2 weeks ago. Already a confirmed case in yr 8 - whole year "bubble" sent home to isolate while the school was waiting for further guidance from PHE and establishing which kids and staff had close contact with the kid in question.

Can't fault the school's response, that's exactly what they needed to do. Scary though.
 
Buddy Bradley said:
Fuck her. Get her fired. She deserves at least a severe written warning for being so stupid.
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There is a problem with this - notwithstanding an issue with an employee who may take the piss (and there ARE those), working in schools (where you are reasonably well protected - I can't even imagine how this goes with zero hours/no sick pay/no paid time off for sick kids/multiple other shitty contracts) means you are used to being sent above for periods of absence (either total days or numbers of), which ultimately lead to various disciplinary procedures.
There are also layers of (thick, incapable) middle-management to work through but essentially, sickness is not looked on favourably, so there is a long standing dilemma about how sick you need to be - and that is not easily let go, especially when you may feel your job is already under threat.

So - calling someone out for being 'stupid', when they've been actively encouraged to come into work ill, for years? It doesn't really work.

Once again, if there was adequate testing in place, this would be less of an issue (including diminishing the bad feeling it creates between colleagues).
 
That's ridiculously selfish of those colleagues to come in despite having symptoms. I would be so, so angry.

At my school, we haven't had any confirmed cases yet but our headteacher said she fully expects a few year groups having to isolate by the end of the week because there are so many pupils awaiting test results. But until they are confirmed as being positive, none of their close contacts have been told to isolate which surely doesn't make sense?

I am starting to feel really panicky - we are in an area where numbers are ridiculously high and we have small classrooms with 30+ kids in crammed in. The windows - like in so many new schools - only open by a couple of inches. It seems almost inevitable that we will all get it.
 
sheothebudworths said:
So - calling someone out for being 'stupid', when they've been actively encouraged to come into work ill, for years? It doesn't really work.
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FTR, it goes against my principles, short of massive gross misconduct or negligence or similar, to put anyone out of a job. I would never do that.

But the scenario you're outlining here isn't really the case in these Covid times. Nobody is now being actively encouraged to come to work with Covid symptoms. The opposite is true. And this is a case of known symptoms. In the middle of a global pandemic. There is no excuse for this level of stupidity at the moment.

I won't attack her on the basis that she deserves to lose her job.

But fuck defending her in a context that simply doesn't apply right now.

She knew what she was doing. She doesn't deserve being excused in any way in the context of how we live and work right now with Covid.
 
sheothebudworths said:
There is a problem with this - notwithstanding an issue with an employee who may take the piss (and there ARE those), working in schools (where you are reasonably well protected - I can't even imagine how this goes with zero hours/no sick pay/no paid time off for sick kids/multiple other shitty contracts) means you are used to being sent above for periods of absence (either total days or numbers of), which ultimately lead to various disciplinary procedures.
There are also layers of (thick, incapable) middle-management to work through but essentially, sickness is not looked on favourably, so there is a long standing dilemma about how sick you need to be - and that is not easily let go, especially when you may feel your job is already under threat.

So - calling someone out for being 'stupid', when they've been actively encouraged to come into work ill, for years? It doesn't really work.

Once again, if there was adequate testing in place, this would be less of an issue (including diminishing the bad feeling it creates between colleagues).
Click to expand...
Yeh. For the past six months the normal rules have been ripped up. The clear advice has been not to come into work if you think you've got this novel virus. Maybe people have been actively encouraged to work when ill, not all have - where I work we've long been told not to come into work if ill. Stupid? Perhaps that's a bit much, but under the circumstances a reasonable description. Oh and for most people it's a rolling year governing the sickness absence days / occurrences. They'd have had to have had a bad autumn and winter to start running into procedure escalation now and there'd be hell to pay for any school whose management forced CV+ people to come in and work.
 
planetgeli said:
FTR, it goes against my principles, short of massive gross misconduct or negligence or similar, to put anyone out of a job. I would never do that.

But the scenario you're outlining here isn't really the case in these Covid times. Nobody is now being actively encouraged to come to work with Covid symptoms. The opposite is true. And this is a case of known symptoms. In the middle of a global pandemic. There is no excuse for this level of stupidity at the moment.

I won't attack her on the basis that she deserves to lose her job.

But fuck defending her in a context that simply doesn't apply right now.

She knew what she was doing. She doesn't deserve being excused in any way in the context of how we live and work right now with Covid.
Click to expand...
Ftr, I don't disagree with any of that - it's the leap to 'get her fired' - and for context in the place that I work (in a school and where we have have hundreds of kids passing through, daily, along with lots of other staff - and where my own direct managent aren't distancing as they should) it was just a reply to that. I think it's easier to respond loudly, when you don't work in education.

My further thoughts for today are that I DON'T think they will close schools (that's my bigger worry, that it'll just escalate at an increasingly scary rate, with schools further abandoned to make their own decisions) and also that the news I've seen today seemed to be around pacifying parents - that kids and parents should be a testing priority - with no mention of school staff.
Tbf, just some cunt Tory, spitting out words - but I won't be surprised - they'll have the double win of keeping parents at work, along with looking like they're adhering to the cost/care of closures, on children, too.
 
Buddy Bradley said:
Fuck her. Get her fired. She deserves at least a severe written warning for being so stupid.
Click to expand...
No, It's not her total responsibility. If management had been clear enough and showed that they meant it regarding staff not presenting with any symptom then I'd like to think even the biggest idiots or company men wouldn't turn in. But this hasn't been prioritised by the gvt/Welsh gvt or LEAs
sheothebudworths said:
I'd expect it to be parents who forced a school shutdown, but furlough is ending and wfh being discouraged...
Click to expand...
What the the teaching unions up to? They seemed to be pretty vocal at first, but I've not heard anything of late and in terms of the Tories plans, I think giving the teachers unions a good kicking is a bit of a side quest for them during these times
 
nogojones said:
No, It's not her total responsibility. If management had been clear enough and showed that they meant it regarding staff not presenting with any symptom then I'd like to think even the biggest idiots or company men wouldn't turn in. But this hasn't been prioritised by the gvt/Welsh gvt or LEAs

What the the teaching unions up to? They seemed to be pretty vocal at first, but I've not heard anything of late and in terms of the Tories plans, I think giving the teachers unions a good kicking is a bit of a side quest for them during these times
Click to expand...

Well, tbc, I meant a complete closure (with the speculation that schools will shut again - my response was more around it being parents just withdrawing kids).

I think the various unions involved (not just teaching unions - school staff are widely represented, too - GMB, Unison etc) have been as busy as the schools have in trying to both pursue and catch up with constant last minute changes - remembering we have a gov who are openly deceitful and corrupt now - and that there IS a focus on keeping schools open. It's been made purposefully difficult to support that, against objecting to all the failures in provision and funding for schools, and now with testing, which is fucking essential - and was always promised for education reopening.

The unions were certainly shut out of lots of negotiations early on, even when the narrative was that the gov was 'in coverstaion' with unions and heads.
I saw, today, an open letter has been sent direct to Boris, bypassing that other useless fucker - 10 tests for each school, no matter what size it is (loads of bluffing from them today based on that) - schools with over 1,000 kids all struggling with that, obviously.

Erm, that didn't really answer your question! I think you're right that it's a job in hand, dismissing the union voice - I can only tell you that I've had very good communication from them here and that they are engaging well with the local authority for health advice etc (same as the schools), That's a problem though, eh - all of focus is being/has to be directed locally, with much better effect, but with no funding to do it.

I have also seen a fair bit from the teaching unions in the press, too, very recently - but the return to schools was largely overshadowed by the exam shitshow - there was definitely a lapse in any news until the first week or two had passed, funnily enough.
 
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Pickman's model said:
Yeh. For the past six months the normal rules have been ripped up. The clear advice has been not to come into work if you think you've got this novel virus. Maybe people have been actively encouraged to work when ill, not all have - where I work we've long been told not to come into work if ill. Stupid? Perhaps that's a bit much, but under the circumstances a reasonable description. Oh and for most people it's a rolling year governing the sickness absence days / occurrences. They'd have had to have had a bad autumn and winter to start running into procedure escalation now and there'd be hell to pay for any school whose management forced CV+ people to come in and work.
Click to expand...

Yep. And our 'rolling year' is an academic year, i.e September to September. There's no way anyone is rolling into sickness trouble 2 weeks into September. 10 days or 3 periods of absence is the rule.

But it is all about keeping schools open. With the situation I've explained today, and even though my management are bending over backwards this evening for me, the briefing manager said when explaining the situation that there will be no self-isolation for the whole school that has been in close contact with her or the kids she's had contact with until/if she comes back with a positive result. My situation is being treated differently because a) I have underlying conditions and b) because they are scared of me because I'm not afraid to speak my mind.

I won't be going back for a few days. Everyone else will. And, as Pingety Pong says, this does not make logical sense, only economic and political sense with the decision schools must stay open at all costs.
 
Literally the closest building to my kids' high school. The school kids will be walking along the canal with these students every day. It really feels like just a matter of time.

www.google.com

Napier University virus cluster probed after cases linked to student flats

NHS Lothian are carrying out contact tracing after a number of positive cases at the Bainfield apartments in <a href="https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/all-about/edinburgh">Edinburgh</a> .
www.google.com
 
That's my understanding, too - nothing changes without a positive test - but there are very limited tests and schools have just been told they must be open, with limited funding to do so.
Symptoms for kids have changed, too, but haven't been updated when it comes to getting a test (if they could even get one).
I'm saving my anger for that, but it doesn't mean I'm not scared.
 
chilango said:
Guardian reckons that could already be 25,000 teachers out of school self-isolating, with some schools reporting 20% of staff out.
Click to expand...

I can really imagine some wavering on symptoms that I know are much more common in kids, but which still aren't metnioned as any of the main three, too - for kids and staff, who're parents, too.
It's like a house of cards.
 
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