Our St. Louis plans were officially cancelled and our daughter’s Girl Scout sleep away camp the last week of summer was also called off, so our summer is officially a vast wasteland of nothing.
Rec and Park still hasn’t announced if they will have any kinds of camps. Even if they do, we probably won’t participate because it doesn’t seem fair to take those spots when our situation is more flexible than most people’s. I also doubt my kids will handle wearing masks all day very well. I know we need to start training them to wear masks for next school year, but I’m dreading it.
I’m not trying to complain about the summer, because I know I am very lucky that I don’t have to work. I mean, I’ll be working, but it’s not the same when people aren’t expecting deliverables from you on a daily basis. It’s just a lot of time to fill, with confusing guidance on how we can safely fill it.
I can see that we’re heading into that time when we see and hear and read about other people’s choices as reopening begins and we start to wonder what we feel is appropriate and whether or not we should take the actions of others into considerations (after following public health guidelines of course). I’ll be curious to see what California requires and recommends starting on June 1st. Besides the reopening of county parks, nothing has really reopened in my world yet so I haven’t had to make any decisions about what I feel comfortable doing or where I feel comfortable going. My parents want more time with my kids – they want to take them for an entire weekend – but that is still technically against the rules. Once that is an option again I’ll have to decide if I accept the risks of my kids possibly exposing my parents. What does one do if the people who are more at risk accept the risk and want to be with the people who are less at risk? These are hard questions to answer.
I’ve read a couple of articles suggesting that countries that are re-opening, and even data from the US that looks at when different aspects of the shelter in place started in different areas, suggest that closing schools did/does not make much of a difference in community spread. I wonder if any study could come out that would inform the return to school in the fall. My guess is no.
My district is now anticipating a $4 million dollar budget deficit, which is crippling for a district as small as ours. I don’t really understand why I’m not reading ANYTHING about the devastating budget crisis that is about to hit public schools across the nation. I guess there are more important things to consider.
I’m becoming more concerned with next school year for my own kids. SFUSD is a mediocre school district (at best) when there isn’t a pandemic destroying the foundations of public education – it will most certainly be a shit show of epic proportions next year. My daughter is in a 4/5 split this year so she’ll have the same teacher next year, which eases my anxiety a lot. My son, who is struggling with all this a lot more, will hopefully have a teacher I’ve wanted for years (we missed her with my daughter because she moved down to 1st grade when my daughter was moving up to 2nd). But still, even if they have good teachers, the situation will be so grim. And I plan to move them both out of their school the following year (we aren’t planning on staying for 6th grade even though it’s a K-8 so we’ll need to find a middle school for our daughter), which means I have to find new schools for them when touring will probably not even be allowed. I honestly hadn’t really thought that much about them in the context of the next school year and now that I am I’m feeling a little panicked.
It’s the middle of the week and I’m tired and things feel harder right now than they will after the coming long weekend. As always, I’m trying to take it one day at a time.
The chaos of cancellation for safety of summer programs will in some ways make closing schools look easier to deal with from parental viewpoints. Very hard.
About your parents and exposure. It has sounded to me like your parents have been in a very tight bubble and your bubble has been tight re the kids and only very carefully managed grocery store type exposures for adults. SO you are actually looking at simply merging those two bubbles and that would be fabulous for all of you and make your survival of the summer so much better. I assume you would simply continue the limited other exposures as you have been doing, and perhaps add temperature checks every day/night prior to the visiting. That in and of it’s self has the positive of showing the children how everyone’s temperature normally changes at different times of days and thee range of a normal temperature which is super helpful for the rest of their lives to know. I think this is the reward for all 6 of you for SIP tough times.
I wish it were possible for me to do that with my grands/children. But the family that has been strict SIP is too far away and the close one has had no choice but more exposure. They do all the precautions they can but their risks are way higher than your family’s.
SO, I TOTALLY encourage you to set up a program and routine that includes the children going to grandparents both singly and together regularly over the summer. It would be so good for the grandparent’s mental health and amazing for you and for your husband and your marriage and good for your children too. WHAT A WIN.
Hope this happens AND, that I am not missing really big important facts that would change that equation.
The idea that you can merge that bubble gives me so very much hope and cheer!!!!!
And the realities about schools for the fall and the unknowns about that and budget cuts makes that hope and cheer super important. Is it still an absolute that your husband wants to only live in SF? But even if that were no longer a factor, the reality of jobs and holding on to them is massive. So sending you much support and many many thanks.
Odd thought re future schools. At one time, if you taught in a different school district than you lived in, it was possible to get intra-district transfers so your child could attend in the district where you work. No idea if that still happens or would be a good idea. Also have some faint idea that doing that sort of thing made you a bottom of the lottery/application person in terms of acceptance for high schools in SF. So, if you look into such a program be sure to look at implications about high schools as well.
I can bring my kids down to my district through 8th grade (our district feeds into a high school district that serves five districts on the peninsula), but I’m hoping not to do that. I don’t want their lives and their activities and their friends to live so far away. But it helps to know I have the option. It takes some of the pressure off.