Lemmon gets only a week into school before having to send kids home due to coronavirus. The Lemmon School Board has sent all elementary students home for two weeks due to four positive coroanvirus tests among staff:
One hundred twenty-one students are staying home because four Lemmon elementary staff members tested positive for coronavirus Monday afternoon.
…Lemmon School District Superintendent Steve Bucks said the district tries to social distance and do weekly specialized cleaning but “No, we didn’t expect this to happen this quickly but we knew it would eventually happen.”
At this time, Bucks said he is not aware of any student testing positive of the virus.
The Lemmon School District did not and still does not have a mask mandate.
…Bucks said over the next few days, Lemmon teachers are copying materials and preparing their lessons with the intent to start online learning for K-5 students on the last day of August [Alexus Davila, “Lemmon Elementary Students Told to Stay home After Coronavirus Outbreak,” KEVN-TV, 2020.08.25].
Superintendent Bucks says the district knew a coronavirus shutdown would eventually happen, but the teachers still need a few days to produce the materials necessary to switch to online learning? You started the school year without Plan B for your first nine weeks of classes already produced and ready to deploy the moment that inevitable shutdown happened?
It’s not online learning that causes shortfalls in student performance; it’s lack of planning for online learning. We’ve had a whole summer to develop online learning contingency plans; there is no excuse for schools not to be ready to send kids home today due to coronavirus and continue with online lessons tomorrow.
Even though death rates are declining as the medical profession is learning more about the virus, South Dakota deaths will be double what they should have been because positive cases have doubled here.
Driving around town last evening, I saw several groups of teens engaging in sports activities in close proximity. As many as 25 kids tightly packed in a group with no masks. What is that?
Now, the fair starts and schools open just as South Dakota cases skyrocket. This is crazy.
What economic harm is there in wearing masks?
I know that the vast majority of kids will survive Covid but they can have complications and they can spread it to their teachers, parents and grandparents. Is that too difficult a concept for some to understand?
Arithmetic and science lack, as we can see from our educators and their superintendents. If you could see the need for on line classes, but you didn’t do the math or the science to prepare for it, then what good are those in charge? So now the kids have been exposed and now they are at home…without masks. Sounds like a good start to the school year to me.
This is a classic case of burying your head in the sand since we are in this remote rural area, we will be fine.
This is just what happens when people are not being smart. Precautions like staying apart and the wearing of masks, I bet were not being done. Maybe this will wake up a few people, and I hope everyone is OK.
I have been telling people since the right wing started the brainwashing saying that kids do not get sick from Covid19, that the kids are just part of the school. What about the teachers, aids, bus drivers, food service workers and all the others that keep the schools operational? Even if the kids do not get sick, the school employees will.
In these small towns like Lemmon that does not even have a hospital, what happens when the volunteer EMS service gets infected and there is not an ambulance to respond to emergencies?
All the right wingers just keep saying this is all fake. How many people have to get needlessly sick or die before people stop believing the right wing extremists?
Gee Kristi (well she’s pretty busy and “important” trying to get the biggest mob boss in the world reelected; oh and Lemon, glad for some action… but repeating:
So now the kids have been exposed and now they are at home…without masks.
What about the teachers, aids, bus drivers, food service workers and all the others that keep the schools operational? Even if the kids do not get sick, the school employees will.
In these small towns like Lemmon that does not even have a hospital, what happens when …?
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.