CDC: Full Reopening of Schools and Colleges Presents 'Highest Risk' for Spread of COVID-19

[It’s so Joever]

I think the biggest problem both sides (although one side more than the other) have when talking about reopening schools is the tendency to lump in everyone under 20 into one category.
The timelines for reopening primary and secondary schools should look dramatically different, because Covid-19 acts differently between kids before puberty and adolescents.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/18/how-likely-are-kids-to-get-covid-19-scientists-see-a-huge-puzzle-without-easy-answers/

We are finding that younger kids (5-12ish) tend to be spared from Covid-19 and also are just bad at spreading it.
However, teenagers seem to spread it at the similar levels as young adults, which honestly would make sense. Biologically, a 16 year old is closer to a 25 year old than a 6 year old.
The current outbreaks and anecdotal evidence from places such as Camp Kanakuk also support this idea.
Plus one of the biggest reasons to open schools is because parents have to work. This makes sense for elementary aged children, who probably shouldn’t be left alone for long periods of time, but teenagers are different (obviously) so the reasoning doesn’t apply to them as much.

[It’s so Joever]

Also does anyone know of schools for middle or high school where a proposed idea is moving the teachers around but trying to keep groups of students together? Maybe move certain electives online to accommodate for this?

Funny, that’s exactly what my mother thought schools should do.
Then again, she grew up in Yugoslavia where teachers moved around from class to class rather than students.

[It’s so Joever]

I think the biggest problem both sides (although one side more than the other) have when talking about reopening schools is the tendency to lump in everyone under 20 into one category.
The timelines for reopening primary and secondary schools should look dramatically different, because Covid-19 acts differently between kids before puberty and adolescents.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/18/how-likely-are-kids-to-get-covid-19-scientists-see-a-huge-puzzle-without-easy-answers/

We are finding that younger kids (5-12ish) tend to be spared from Covid-19 and also are just bad at spreading it.
However, teenagers seem to spread it at the similar levels as young adults, which honestly would make sense. Biologically, a 16 year old is closer to a 25 year old than a 6 year old.
The current outbreaks and anecdotal evidence from places such as Camp Kanakuk also support this idea.
Plus one of the biggest reasons to open schools is because parents have to work. This makes sense for elementary aged children, who probably shouldn’t be left alone for long periods of time, but teenagers are different (obviously) so the reasoning doesn’t apply to them as much.

Agreed with a lot of what you said, but another reason particularly important here in Chicago is that many students do not have access to proper online learning, and reducing their already-lacking education during formative years could have some bad longterm effects ... likely worse than them getting COVID or even often times (statistically speaking, not morally pandering) them spreading it.  In Chicago's public school system, fewer than 1 in 3 students have access to a computer at home where they can consistently log in to do school work, and that doesn't even include households where kids will inevitably have to share what might be one computer for several kids.  We need to be careful, but a lot of the "Why on Earth would we send kids back?" attitude disturbingly seems to stem from an upper-middle class perspective.  Additionally, the funding is not there to provide all of these kids with computers to take home, even if we raise even MORE taxes on the citizens of Illinois (let's remember that this economic downturn is not exactly expanding the tax dollar base).

The thing is, these kids are also the ones most likely to be severely affected or have their families severely affected by Covid due to healthcare disparities.
If anything, Covid-19 has been made worse by our inefficient systems.