Julia - I live in Northern California, and literally the Milpitas public schools in my area run electronic banners in front of their school telling parents to bring their sick kids to school, and then take them back home after they've been signed in. Why? Because CA state legislature conditions financial support to schools on attendance. So Sacramento has used a carrots/sticks approach to deal with absenteeism, and now the schools literally promote bring your sick kid to school day.
Wait Julia 'til a new more infectious and virulent variant emerges - because it is just a matter of time - who will be blamed then? The unvaccinated? The immunocompromised? The president? The Chinese? The WHO? The vaccines? Big Pharma? Evidence based medicine?
It is going to be a sight to behold! Oh Duh, we didn't see it coming.
In our house, we were talking about the absurdity of that article this week. OF COURSE absenteeism is higher, there is more illness!
Even IF you don't accept that COVID is damaging immune systems, in the best case we have all the childhood diseases that we had before and now COVID on top it. It would be surprising if absenteeism WEREN'T higher.
But, reading through the comments by NYT readers, it is stunning how many of them basically agree with the premise of the article and blame it on overindulgent or irresponsible parents.
The top "NYT Picks" comment includes, I kid you not:
"Try to gamify attendance, show up get rewarded (not with a meaningless printed piece of paper, something visible to every student, teacher) in a positive way to encourage attendance."
The top-rated "Reader Picks" comment complains:
"Parents take their kids on week long vacations when they should be in class."
The second-highest rated one harrumphs:
"Many trends are converging in American schools that will result in a less educated population. The relaxing of grading standards, doing away with the SAT for college admissions and the acceptance of absenteeism (as this article points out) all lead to one thing: an undereducated society who lack critical thinking skills."
None of them mentions "more illness" as a possible contributing factor. (In fairness, there are some "NYT Picks" that do make the case that their kids have been sick more, and that sick kids shouldn't be in school.)
The link for "Millions of US Children Experience Range of Long COVID Effects" seems to be "http://Millions of US Children Experience Range of Long COVID Effects" instead of "https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2815350"
Julia - I live in Northern California, and literally the Milpitas public schools in my area run electronic banners in front of their school telling parents to bring their sick kids to school, and then take them back home after they've been signed in. Why? Because CA state legislature conditions financial support to schools on attendance. So Sacramento has used a carrots/sticks approach to deal with absenteeism, and now the schools literally promote bring your sick kid to school day.
Wait Julia 'til a new more infectious and virulent variant emerges - because it is just a matter of time - who will be blamed then? The unvaccinated? The immunocompromised? The president? The Chinese? The WHO? The vaccines? Big Pharma? Evidence based medicine?
It is going to be a sight to behold! Oh Duh, we didn't see it coming.
In our house, we were talking about the absurdity of that article this week. OF COURSE absenteeism is higher, there is more illness!
Even IF you don't accept that COVID is damaging immune systems, in the best case we have all the childhood diseases that we had before and now COVID on top it. It would be surprising if absenteeism WEREN'T higher.
But, reading through the comments by NYT readers, it is stunning how many of them basically agree with the premise of the article and blame it on overindulgent or irresponsible parents.
The top "NYT Picks" comment includes, I kid you not:
"Try to gamify attendance, show up get rewarded (not with a meaningless printed piece of paper, something visible to every student, teacher) in a positive way to encourage attendance."
The top-rated "Reader Picks" comment complains:
"Parents take their kids on week long vacations when they should be in class."
The second-highest rated one harrumphs:
"Many trends are converging in American schools that will result in a less educated population. The relaxing of grading standards, doing away with the SAT for college admissions and the acceptance of absenteeism (as this article points out) all lead to one thing: an undereducated society who lack critical thinking skills."
None of them mentions "more illness" as a possible contributing factor. (In fairness, there are some "NYT Picks" that do make the case that their kids have been sick more, and that sick kids shouldn't be in school.)