Coming into this year’s school year, rumors were rampant about the number of new kids coming to Park City. The narrative was that people were fleeing their Coronavirus-infused hellholes to come to idyllic Park City – and they were bringing their kids with them.

At one point I heard there were going to be 700 additional students in our district. I could have believed it. The only problem is that it wasn’t true. Maybe the parents came here for the summer and are planning to stay for the winter, but it looks like they left the kids home with their nannies.

On Thursday, during Leslie Thatcher‘s Local News Hour on KPCW, Ms. Thatcher asked Park City School District Business Administrator Todd Hauber about the number of students the district is seeing so far. Mr. Hauber replied that official numbers would come out in October, but the district did an unofficial headcount (on Tuesday) like they do every year. According to Mr. Hauber, “There were around 3600 in-person students and around 835 online learners” as part of the count. He noted that the total is between 4400-4500 students and is usually about 95% to 96% of the number of students that are presented as part of the official count in October. He said the numbers are in line with what they were expecting.

I’ll point out that last year‘s official Park City enrollment was 4,757. If the headcount turns out to be 95% of the final numbers, our student population this year will be around 4,735 — down a bit from last year. That would be similar to last year, where we saw a 0.5% decrease in students.

In this Coronavirus-crazed world who know what could eventually happen with the numbers, but as of today, it appears the fears of our schools being jammed due to new students were unfounded.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Tomorrow’s the “final” day to enroll in remote learning in the Park City School District. If your child will be choosing this option, you need to complete the Remote Learning Form. More information on remote learning at the PCSD can be found here.

If you have been on the fence, now is the time to decide. The school district needs in-person/remote class numbers to plan appropriately. I’m frankly amazed that a week and a half is enough to adequately plan. So, please keep our community and teachers in mind and make your decision on time.

That said, the school district isn’t doing itself any favors on this topic. I’m often amazed at how poor communication can be from our schools on some topics, especially when their business is education. Just for fun, go to the Park City School District Home Page and let me know if can easily find the Remote Learning Form?

Maybe I missed it and they are blitzing parents with emails on the subject. Could be.

Maybe I’m blind and there is a gigantic button at the top of the school district website. If so, I didn’t see it.

Maybe there have been multiple posts on the district’s Facebook page helping them register for remote learning. Could be but all I see as of 1:30 PM on Thursday is something about graduation from two days ago.

Regardless, if they make it hard to register for remote learning, the district is going to get results later than is optimal. So, don’t be surprised if you can actually register for remote learning until August 19th.

Good luck with that teachers.

UPDATE (8/7/2020): Looks like the school district added links to the remote form on their Home Page. That should be helpful.

If you are teacher who will be teaching this fall…

If you are an administrator who will be running schools…

If you are a leader in the Park City School District…

There is one article you should read today in the New York Times. “When Covid Subsided, Israel Reopened Its Schools. It Didn’t Go Well.“

I know there is a lot of debate among teachers, parents, and others about reopening schools in Park City. Two weeks from now, though, it is happening.

Here’s what happened in Jerusalem according to the Times, “Confident it had beaten the coronavirus and desperate to reboot a devastated economy, the Israeli government invited the entire student body back in late May. Within days, infections were reported at a Jerusalem high school, which quickly mushroomed into the largest outbreak in a single school in Israel, possibly the world. The virus rippled out to the students’ homes and then to other schools and neighborhoods, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives.”

The problem was that schools caved to pressure from parents. “Then a heat wave hit. Parents complained that it was inhumane to make children wear masks in steaming classrooms where open windows nullified the air conditioning. In response, the government exempted everyone from wearing masks for four days, and schools shut the windows. That decision proved disastrous, experts say.”

Instead of closing schools, they told students they could take off their masks because it was so hot. They closed the windows. That removed the benefits of ventilation. They made bad decisions. They didn’t execute.

One bad decision, driven by parents and accepted by schools caused a catastrophe. In Park City … parents, students, teachers, administrators, and the district personnel will all have the chance, many times a day, to make good decisions or bad decisions. Those decisions could keep us on the path to making it through the year or careen us into the ditch. This can’t be emphasized enough. We all need to work together to give education a chance, but any single one of us can ruin it.

So what happened in Israel? Two students in one high school tested positive. Then the whole school was quarantined and everyone was tested. Sixty percent of those infected were asymptomatic. “Teachers, some of whom had been teaching multiple classes, suffered the most and a few were hospitalized, the principal said.

This is what happened across the country next, “Seeking to contain the contagion, the Education Ministry vowed to shut any school with even one Covid-19 case. It ultimately closed more than 240 schools and quarantined more than 22,520 teachers and students. When the school year ended in late June, the ministry said, 977 pupils and teachers had contracted Covid-19.”

Some people in Park City would argue, “can you even open schools safely?” It’s a fair question, but that debate has passed. Now it’s all about the execution. What’s at stake are lives and in the broader sense the Park City winter season. If that goes away, much of the best parts of Park City will go with it and may not come back.

Every day, every student, parent, teacher, and administrator has a part in a grand game. Can we generally do the right thing? Can we make good decisions? Can we have discipline?

If not, Israel’s experiment tells us what it will look like.

And if we look like this school in Georgia on its opening day, we know where we are headed.

Ok Park City Teachers, now I’ll forgive you if you strike, just don’t come to school, or lobby hard to be one of the remote-teachers. In what may be some of the craziest talk I’ve heard from a Utah official (and that says something), Governor Herbert today provided 102 pages of guidelines on reopening schools. Some of it is downright crazy.

Here are some highlights of the guidelines from the Salt Lake Tribune:

Officials have come up with a concept they call a modified quarantine. This means children can immediately come back to school after close contact with someone who has the corona virus — as long as the child doesn’t have symptoms and no one in their household has tested positive. Translation: Don’t worry, this thing doesn’t spread asymptomatically at all. If a child doesn’t have a fever, he cannot get anyone else sick. Please ignore just about everything you have ever read about this virus. It’s all going to be OK. We NEED your kid in school.

Teachers can also feel free to come to school after being in close contact with someone with Covid-19, “especially in cases where there are no substitutes available. If having a substitute teacher will negatively impact student learning or there is not another employee who can do the job of the person who was exposed, teachers and employees who have had an exposure to COVID-19, but who do not have symptoms, may go to work.” Translation: Teachers stay home if you’re sick, unless of course there aren’t enough substitutes, which there won’t be because substitutes aren’t stupid. So, please come to work and infect your co-workers and students. We need you.

A school should only shut-down after 15 concurrent cases of Covid-19 at the school. Then they are remote for two weeks and then back to school. Translation: Ignore exponential growth. Pray for R0 to stay under 1.

A class should be remote-only after 3 concurrent cases in the class. After two weeks, they are back. Translation: See 15 per school above. However, the 14 day rule makes some sense given research that says people are only contagious for 11 days after symptoms appear. But please ignore that 3 other people probably got Covid in the class and they will show symptoms right about the time everyone returns.

However, if a student is exposed to someone with Covid-19, they are prohibited from clubs and sports because  “it increases the number of people they may expose to the virus that causes COVID-19.” But they can come to class and school. Translation: You are much more likely to spread corona virus on a well-ventilated and outdoor soccer field than you are sitting in a classroom for six hours, with 30 other kids, 4 feet apart. The scientific minds at the state of Utah never cease to amaze.

The guidelines highlight that students, teachers, and staff are likely to be exposed “many times during the year” to Covid-19. Translation: Schools are going to be like those chicken-pox parties during the 1980s. Yeah, let’s get everyone infected so they don’t get chicken pox again. SHHH don’t tell them about shingles.

When a student or teacher contracts Covid-19, the entire class or school will not be informed. Only those people who have come into contact within 6-feet for 15 minutes or longer will be notified. Translation: If we tell people that other people around them at school have Covid-19, those people may get tested too. That would make our case numbers look really bad once school starts. That could shut down schools and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Schools can make a list of high-risk individuals. Then those high-risk individuals who have been in the same room as the infected person will be notified of Covid-19. Translation: Park City Schools should list all teachers and children as high-risk.

Janitors should wait 24 hours before disinfecting a classroom with an infected individual because that will give the virus time to die-off. Translation: they haven’t read that the virus lives on glass for 4-days. Furthermore, they don’t seem to realize that in that 24 hours, unless the classroom is entirely shutdown, that the entire class will be in the classroom the next day without it being sanitized.

If you are a glutton for punishment, you can read the entire 102 pages of guidelines below. If you’re like me, you’ll start reading the document and think some of it is reasonable (which it is). You’ll read something that says children and teachers should quarantine for 14 days if they’ve been exposed to someone with the virus, and you’ll think, “yeah that’s what I have always heard. What is the Park Rag talking about?” Just keep reading the guidelines.

Then you’ll learn about modified quarantine which says children who have been in close contact with Corona Virus can keep on coming to school, as long as they are symptom free. You’ll learn that teachers should quarantine at home upon exposure, unless there is no one else to teach their class. You know, because teaching is more important than the health of everyone at the school.

This whole thing is kind of bizarre. I feel for you teachers. This document is the opposite of whatever would inspire confidence. I’m probably still sending my kids to in-person school. Mostly because I hope the rest of you parents aren’t crazy enough to do that :-). That said, this makes me strongly reconsider in-person learning.

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that “The largest teachers union in the state is calling on Gov. Gary Herbert to keep Utah schools closed this fall — saying it’s too dangerous for educators and students to return while cases of the coronavirus remain high.”

The union wants schools to start ONLINE-only in August. My bias is that I am planning on returning my children to in-person school in the fall. My reasoning is that:

• My wife and I both work, which makes remote-learning difficult.
• The research also shows that young children (we are in elementary school) are less likely to spread the virus and therefore they aren’t the petri-dishes we assume they are.
• I don’t believe that I educate my child as well as a professional teacher does.
• I don’t believe that our teachers have enough training and/or direction to ensure remote-learning is as effective as in-person learning.

Those are my reasons.

Don’t get me wrong, i understand that some families have decided on remote schooling. That’s understandable. I also understand that teachers are scared. I’m scared for my kids. I’m scared for their teachers. I’m scared for my kids’ grandparents who are the most impacted. This is serious.

Yet, I feel like the subject keeps being treated as a blip versus the new normal. Nothing will fundamentally change by Christmas in the Corona-world. Even if they find a novel vaccine to the novel Corona virus it won’t be widely distributed. So, if we do remote school-only in August it is really remote-school throughout the year. It’s a long year.

So, if the UEA pushes this and forces remote schools, that’s OK. I get it, teachers have decided that’s the way they want to roll. I’m Ok with that and our family will adjust. However, along with agreement, comes high expectations.

If remote-school is demanded by the teachers, then they have to deliver. Education had better be better than ever. I better be able to plop little Bobby down in front of his iPad for six hours a day and learn just as much as he would have during in-person school. I’m not the teacher, the real teacher is the teacher. That’s my expectation.

That’s frankly the challenge.

Every student in the Park City School District has two district-offered options this fall. Students can attend in-person school or students can attend remote school. If parents don’t choose an option, their students will be enrolled in in-person school. If parents choose the remote option, they need to declare that by August 7, using this form. If you can declare it earlier, that will help the district plan more effectively.

For elementary schools, remote learning will require a one-term commitment. A student can not vacillate between options. Classes will be taught by a Park City School District teacher, so your kid won’t be pawned off to Kahn Academy. That said, you still do have the option, like you always have, to use third-party, online educational services.

For remote elementary learning, we don’t know who a student’s teacher will be yet — and it is likely the school district doesn’t know yet either. Will it be one of the teachers that normally teaches your child’s grade at your school? That’s unlikely unless 25 children sign up for remote learning from one grade at one school. So, it will likely be a teacher teaching multiple grades that may come from your school, another school in PC, or at the district office. That likely all depends on how many children and the distribution of children that select remote learning by August 7.

If you select the remote option, it won’t be like the spring. There will be a schedule that your child must follow. The current plan is for live check-ins to be at 9 AM and 12:30 PM. So, your child must be there for those or they won’t be counted in attendance records. Then there in Math, Reading, Science/Social Studies, PE/Coding/Arts/Music, independent work, writing, and small group and one-on-one time. Recesses, breaks, and lunch happen throughout the day.

Through second-grade, remote education will be done through See-Saw. Canvas will be used for 3rd through fifth grade. By declaring which tools will be used, the district has answered one of its largest criticism form the spring: too many tools were used and parents often didn’t know what application to use. The downside of this is that elementary teachers, who haven’t used Canvas before, will have to learn it.

The district at least has a plan for the semester, which is good. There are a number of issues up in the air, but that’s to be expected. Plans also change, so things could look a little different in a month and we should know more as we get closer to August 20. That said, at least there is some information to choose whether you want your child to attend remotely or in-person.

Here is a sample First Grade schedule provided by the Park City School District.