SMCISD Administration To Present 2020-2021 Reopening Plan
Corridor Staff
On Friday, July 10, San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Michael Cardona announced the district will present the 2020-2021 reopening plan soon.
Districts across the nation are preparing and evaluating plans for students to return to school this August while the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
Cardona said the Texas Education Agency’s announcement last week was disappointing as it provided no real direction or guidance for school districts.
“It did not adequately balance student needs with staff concerns as well as constraints placed on local school districts due to COVID-19,” Cardona said in his letter. “As we have done since the beginning of the pandemic, SMCISD will continue to adjust and move forward to create the best possible solution.”
The administration will present the reopening plan to the board of trustees during the July 20 regularly scheduled board meeting.
Cardona said he encourages families to watch the meeting virtually by going here.
According to Cardona, the plan will be shared district-wide within the few days following the board meeting to allow the administration to make any necessary changes.
The answer is simple. Children are in the absolute best position to not even be impacted by this virus. They need to go to school. They need to see their friends. They need structure. And sadly, some need an outside eye to ensure their welfare. These are all things we are forgetting when we look at pure numbers and the Scary Red Maps/Dashboards. There is a cost greater than the handful of kids that might miss a day or two. There are all the other kids that are missing much, much more.
Educators are probably in the best position to see all these other unintended consequences. Yet for some reason they are the ones that are most strongly against re-opening. They fight tooth and nail to stay closed. I believe there is a conflict of interest here. I believe we are in a Reagan vs the Air Traffic Controllers situation here. I say we go full Reagan. Set a date and if the teachers don’t show… You’re fired. Next man up.
Mr. Holeman I disagree because I come from a life that includes 4 children and 3 close family members that are teachers, 1 a special education teacher. Perhaps the viewpoint you are giving does not include any other perspectives than your own. Although, children are not being significantly impacted, that does not exclude them from being infected. If schools plan to re-open, many parents will choose to either homeschool their children or enroll in an online environment. Likewise, teachers are scared to return to an environment that could possibly threaten their lives. If you were a policymaker, would you be willing to accept responsibility for the lives lost? I would not be able to sleep at night. Perhaps this is a good time to self reflect on our biases and empathize with those who are having to make difficult decisions.
“If you were a policymaker, would you be willing to accept responsibility for the lives lost?”
Yes, I was in the military. I was responsible for the care, feeding, and general welfare of my personnel. That includes having to clean up messes. (Thankfully, my guy wasn’t the one that blew his brains out. It was his room-mate.) That requires leadership, vision, and a willingness to accept risk to get the job done. Life is risky. You live with it everyday. A basic tenant of adulting is the ability to responsibly weigh risk and act accordingly. That is why we DON’T treat children like adults. Children don’t have the necessary skills and experience.
But I sure hope these educators would. Children are filthy. Boogers, snot, blood, lice, dirt, spills of all kind, and the occasional kid that likes to share his paper mache paste. If this scares them, I wonder what the next bug will do. Does your family want to live in constant fear? I hope not. Thus, thanks for the help, but they should find another line of work.
Mr. Von N:
If you were a policymaker, it’s obvious you would not be willing to accept responsibility for anything involving risk, as you and your liberal ilk never accomplish anything other than noticing others of your idealistic perfection, rather than simply accepting risk as the natural absence of perfection in all things.
In other words, every time good becomes the enemy of perfect, we find your kind holding down the fort. My mother was a career teacher, and in your role as teacher, her students would have laughed you out of the classroom.
I completely agree with Von N. Teachers are right to be worried. Children are major disease vectors and this is no ordinary ‘bug’.
Right now more Americans have died of this virus than died in the whole of WWI. That’s not including those who now have to live with permanent damage to their lungs, heart, or brain. This is not an ordinary seasonal bug.
Our state keeps recording record high numbers of confirmed cases. Those in charge of our schools face a tough choice. Hopefully we can all start behaving more responsibly to protect our communities. If everyone is extremely careful about wearing masks and social distancing we can get our numbers under control. Unfortunately some people are still not taking this virus seriously enough; they are extending the nightmare for everyone.
This is why numbers taken out of context are such a big problem here.
1. “Right now more Americans have died of this virus than died in the whole of WWI. ” — First we know the COVID death numbers are inflated. The include COVID related deaths in which COVID didn’t actually cause anything. It was just along for the death ride. Additionally, today Texas reduced the Bexar County case count by nearly 1/7th. Then there is the problem with population changes. You are comparing today’s death toll with an event that happened 100 years ago. Our population is more than triple of that country. So while the pure numbers look bad, all things considered we are actually doing quite well.
2. More evidence keeps coming out that masks and social distancing are making the situation worse. Yet politicians blindly cling to yesterday’s “settled science” because the new (previously suppressed) science might just prove to be a highly inconvenient truth for those currently in office.
I encourage you to look for alternate opinions that challenge what you currently believe. That way you can at least sleep soundly knowing you truly know what you believe and why you are behaving as you chose.
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Schools need to open. “The Science” says so.
Dear Fear Mongering Alana:
Unfortunately some people are still not accepting the media hype seriously enough. Hence they are not allowing people such as yourself to extend and share your nightmare with others. Huge increase in diagnostic testing combined with a steep simutaneous drop-off in mortality rates = emotionally deprived doomsayers.
Please don’t acknowledge those pesky facts behind your curtain, we accept your needs.
Oh, and we love your WWI mortality numbers. Try including the actual death rate attributed to poison gases (prior to being outlawed under rules of war), as continued to kill soldiers for years following this conflict. Moreover, your “seasonal bugs” and world wars have a lot in common. That is, now that you’ve enough time on your hands.
Be it remembered how in 1968, we had the Avian Flu (another asian virus) which attacked and killed 120, 000 Americans out of a total population (then) of 209 million. We didn’t wear masks. We didn’t write letters about the nightmare. We put a man on the moon that year. Huge riots in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit; it was a very good year for do-your-own-thing in overdrive.
This year, however, we discovered we were wrong in 1968. Now, as a population of 330 million, we understand why we should have shut down the economy and hid back in 1968. Horrible thing to look back and see how much we could have overcome by forsaking critical thought and simply learning to love the fear. Not to worry though, as you’re now part of the solution.
Another problem w/ the WWI comparison. Not only did we have less than 1/3d the population at the time, but only half of those actually were eligible to serve and only a percentage of those that did serve ended up on the front lines. So that wartime death toll was actually very high.
“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow to fond of it.” — Robert E. Lee as transcribed by someone that spent 20 years supporting multiple unending low level conflicts.