In this episode, I again speak to the Superintendent of Mission Public Schools to get some answers about what back to school will look like for students across grade levels.  Mostly this episode is intended to help parents who are still trying to decide whether or not to send their children back to in-class instruction or whether another option is the correct choice for their family at this time.  The different options (regular school placement, distributed learning and home schooling) are defined, discusses and weighed out a little with pros and cons. We discuss the learning groups (cohorts, bubbles whatever you're calling it!) and what function they truly serve.  If you want to know why the high school is in-class one day a week and why it isn't your youngest children that you should be the most worried about then listen now! We even discuss teachers in the 1900s hint: just like you CANNOT show up to school with the sniffles today, you didn't want to show up with dirty fingernails back then! 

Here is the link to the study of COID-19 in schools in Australia that we discussed-they have their Term 2 study up now too. The main point is that unlike the flu, COVID-19 transmission in schools is quite rare and children are not the primary part of the population who are passing this virus around: http://ncirs.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/NCIRS%20NSW%20Schools%20COVID_Summary_FINAL%20public_26%20April%202020.pdf 

The following link is to an article written by 2 paediatricians who say their main goal is to protect children with science the end of the article states: "we have five studies assessing the secondary attack rate of COVID-19 across age groups, in which four report a considerably lower attack rate in children and one which reports the same in children as the general population. It appears fairly convincing that children are less likely to acquire the infection than adults, by a significant amount." https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/the-missing-link-children-and-transmission-of-sars-cov-2/ If Mission is your local school district you can find up to date information on their website: www.mpsd.ca