North Paulding High in Georgia has opened, and there are swarms of students milling around maskless in crowded hallways. What to do about it? I know! Prohibit the publication of any photos that show how incompetently they’re managing the pandemic!
A family member teaches at this high school in Georgia (North Paulding High) that's made the news. Teachers and students were told they could be suspended if they posted photos of the school in a bad light. The student who took this photo for the yearbook has been suspended. pic.twitter.com/plds4vZPNN
— Jamie Ford (@JamieFord) August 6, 2020
All those students ignoring the mask requirement? They’re fine. The student who posted that photo? Suspended! (It’s probably better for him, anyway). The administrators who permit that kind of crowding? Oh, they’re fine, no problem.
Would you believe there is already a COVID-19 outbreak among the football team, which held a practice the week before? You probably would. They opened anyway. The administration is incredibly slack.
Despite recommendations from CDC health officials, the district has called mask-wearing a “personal choice” and said that social distancing “will not be possible to enforce” in “most cases.” While the school provided teachers with face shields and masks and encouraged staff and students to wear them, they are not required and not all teachers have chosen to use them. One North Paulding teacher resigned last month over concerns about virus safety.
Jeeeezus. Just close all the schools already.
Maybe the suspended student posted the photo in self-preservation – he gets to stay out of a dangerous environment but without facing negative consequence because, hey, it’s not his choice, he was suspended.
I don’t know if “slack” is the word I’d use. Malignant maybe?
From that article:
That is exactly what a new cluster of Covid-19 cases looks like.
It’s a matter of time until they have an outbreak in the surrounding community, traced back to that school.
The students are at risk since around 1.5% of child cases end up hospitalized.
The higher danger is to their parents and other family members, who they will spread the virus to.
The unit of virus transmission isn’t really the individual.
It’s the family.
In many regions, 70-80% of viral transmission is intrafamily.
I’m starting to think the entire state of Georgia has a death wish. If hell existed I’m certain Satan would set aside a special corner for Brian Kemp.
This looks an awful lot like a premeditated assault on the entire student body and faculty. Is the administration shielded from liability in Georgia? I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for the dozens of entirely predictable deaths coming soon.
We should all thank them for doing this so early. After they’ve had to shut down due to the inevitable outbreak, perhaps other districts will take notice in time.
All thanks to governor Leeeeroy Jenkins!
Science has a difficult time winning against the stupid. Plus so many stupids relish in the fact they are stupid and know they are.
Wow. A photo of kids hanging out in the hallway is “painting the school in a bad light.” 1984, here we come!
the district has called mask-wearing a “personal choice”
Here’s the Paulding County Public Schools dress code (on page 13). They don’t seem to have a problem obstructing people’s “personal choice” about what body parts to cover (or not) as a general rule.
(Naturally, the restrictions they do have are, as is too often the case, particularly onerous on girls and members of ethnicities with thick, curly hair)
@#7, onefly:
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
(“Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.”)
— Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans) (1801), Act III, sc. vi (as translated by Anna Swanwick)
As with drunk driving, if the people who want to ignore the epidemic could somehow be constrained to merely harm each other, I would have no real problem with just letting them get on with it.
Well, at least the timing was right.
I just got an email from some old friends that live in the middle of nowhere.
One of them caught the Covid-19 virus and brought it home.
They don’t know which one, because…the whole family has Covid-19!!!
Unlike obtaining birth control or an abortion, which is a non-choice up to the local xian witch doctors known as ministers.
THERE IS NO MASK REQUIREMENT. That’s the whole problem. If mask wearing is not mandated and strictly enforced, then a lot of students simply won’t wear them. In fact, the school is doing everything in its power to discourage the wearing of masks by saying “you should wear them for your own good” and punishing anyone who complains that so many people aren’t wearing masks.
Have you never tried to tell a teenager to do something they don’t want to do because it’s “for their own good?” They’re unlikely to do it, and who can blame them? So many authority figures lie to kids as a matter of course and, by the time they’re teenagers, they’ve generally figured this out.
If school administrators talked to them like real human beings, treated them with even a modicum of respect and explained why they should masks, most of them would wear masks on their own (to get everyone to wear them would still require a mandate). They’ll never do that, though, because minors are property in this shithole country. They don’t have rights, as the flagrant violation of their First Amendment rights makes abundantly clear.
In the meantime, that violation of human rights, that punishment of anyone who speaks out about abuse, makes it clear what the administration really wants. The administration wants everything to go back to “normal,” and they’re more than willing to kill to make that happen. They’ll kill students and their families, they’ll kill teachers and their families, and they’ll kill support staff and their families, either because they’re tired of pretending to give a shit about other human beings or because they want sacrifices for the grotesque egomaniac in the White House.
Those kids aren’t “ignoring the mask requirement.” They’re doing exactly what their callous fucking overseers want, and some of them will suffer dearly for that evil political calculus. It’s asking a little much to expect every teenager in the place to be wiser and more mature than the fuckwads in charge of the school, especially when they’ll be punished for doing so.
And the truth shall set you free.
Somebody said that once. I can’t recall his name right off.
Constance, having a suspension on your record is VERY MUCH a “negative consequence.” It pretty much trashes one’s prospects for a decent college.
@Jenna:
A consequence that can be very easily spun into a positive. “I was suspended for being a whistleblower trying to save lives”. I think that improves their prospects.
@15 – Not necessarily. Record issues like this are examined case-by-case. This one isn’t dire; in fact it will probably be viewed as inconsequential (or maybe as net-positive), given the circumstance.
That school hall looks like a large test tube full of medium for growing coronavirus.
I hope y’all are right about the suspension being considered a net positive among college prospects.
Y’all, Georgia has a secret plan to be the first to achieve herd immunity. https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/05/13/what-you-need-know-herd-immunity-too-risky
Jenna — I’d take the suspension over a case of COVID.
And so, the litigation begins and the school district complains that it has no money.
While the attending students become ill, a handful die and the superintendent says, “Who knew, who could know?”,
“We followed the CDC guidelines. Or would have, if there were any.”
As interpreted by the self described stable genius in the White House.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-model-projects-us-death-toll-could-hit-300000-by-december/
A school nurse in the district has resigned in the face of the “masks are a personal choice” policy.
When students and their family members get the virus from the school then I recommend this follow up.
Each person that dies, charge the administrator with manslaughter.
Each person that gains a long term illness, charge the administrator with GBH.
@25 But isn’t Mike Pence making moves to prevent any workplace being liable for any bad behaviour that results in coronavirus?
My grandson attends school in a red county school district in Texas. Currently, my Trump-supporting daughter is not speaking to me. Apparently, since I googled the school district, Google News posts information to my news feed about that school district.
Today I learned that the district is so far steaming ahead with plans to reopen on August 25. The district is being bombarded with letters from some parents and from retired teachers imploring them to not reopen for in person education. The retired teachers are taking the fight to the district on behalf of the current teachers, who fear for their jobs if they complain in person.
The district points to the fact that 57% of parents who were polled requested in-person education for their children, I’m sure including my daughter and her husband.
I worry every day for that daughter and her little boy in Texas.
Re: nomdeplume @ #26…
That’s what Moscow Mitch is pushing hard to get.
News reports today are that at least on of the students says they were contacted by the school and the suspensions were cancelled. Hurray for the Streisand effect.
It’s been in the news frequently, of late. Currently, 1/3 of the staff and teachers are in quarantine, the second grade class is in quarantine and the school announced today that it’s jumping to streaming distance learning.
If the potential for disaster were not so dire, it’d make for an excellent Laurel and Hardy episode.
News on the ‘Net today is that the whole school was closed for scrub down cleaning since nine people (?students ?staff) came down with the CV since opening. The suspension of the student “leaker” was soon rescinded , obviously due to adverse reactions.
Oddly, there were two reports of suspensions, but I’ve only located one name or photographs associated with her, so I suspect that that media source made an error.
But, unless I’m conflating the school with another, isn’t the entire second grade now on quarantine?
In a different school, one child exposed 25 teachers, who have tested positive. I shudder to consider what practices weren’t followed in that specific case!
Of course, social distancing is a foreign concept for small children.