A question for parents and opinionated people

So, I accept that I’m in the massive minority here in that my children will be going back as soon as schools reopen, so on what grounds would those of you who don’t want them to oppose it? Is it for their health, or your own?

My own view is that when you look at the worldwide stats, the health risk to children is so minuscule as to not even enter the calculation, it’s akin to saying you’re not going to let them go on a car journey because there’s a tiny chance of death.
Yes, there’s a risk to myself and my wife with kids acting as a carrier but to us the huge damage already done to their education - and the psychological damage of encouraging them to hide, quivering from the disease far outweigh the potential health risks to me. That’s why my children will be going back to school.

 

It'll be my son who opposes it, particularly if none of
his friends go back!!

 

It feels unfair to open schools on a voluntary basis. Schools should either be closed (if unsafe*) or open (if safe*). If open, attendance should be compulsory again.

Basically the French government are bottling it. As if folk don't have enough to worry about, now they have to decide whether to mess up their kids education or put them in harm's way.

* by safe/unsafe, I mean for everyone connected with the school, not just the kids.

 

Ive already stated .
Im not happy about him returning before September.
Hes 14 years old im concerned how this could affect his education.
Im more concerned about his well being.

 

Neither, it’s for everyone else’s. There’s over 2000 pupils and staff at my school and that’s just one school. There are around 9 million children in schools and hundreds of thousands of staff. Those people will then be seeing and interacting with millions more people, hundred thousands of who will be vulnerable in lots of different ways. It’s far too soon when we’re still seeing around 700 deaths a day.

 

1. Exactly. Forgetting the kids for the minute (not really but you know what I mean), then just looking at staff alone we have pregnant staff and those with pregnant partners, staff with ‘underlying health problems’ and those with partners/children/other family members who live with them who have them. Then you’ll have people with symptoms and those who live with people with symptoms needing to self isolate. Then you’ll have the general sickness anyone (staff or their dependants) can get at anytime. One of the big reasons schools closed was because they rapidly got short staffed and were shutting down themselves before the government made them. A school as big as ours only has 3 cover supervisors, once you’ve deployed those, what are you going to do with classes of kids? You can’t lump them together, they’re supposed to be social distancing after all.

 

Over 10 million pupils, and just over 500000 teachers (not including support staff). The odds of kids dying are (currently) very small, but even small odds with a large number of children is a few hundred deaths. The odds of teachers dying is higher, so (at least) a few hundred of those would also be sacrificed along with a similar number of partners. The real toll would be among the parents and grandparents, which could be several thousand.

 

That's my feeling too, @Old Goat, but as I alluded to in the OP, maybe some of those people who complain about the nanny state will in future reflect that it's a lot more straightforward when the state makes a firm decision and backs their own stance.

 

It's perhaps belatedly occurred to me that this consideration might actually form part of the French government's policy. Given the nature of the decision and each family's unique situation there's bound to be only a percentage of pupils that return at first and although I acknowledge that it's still going to be incredibly difficult for staff to manage, this approach will at least facilitate a gradual increase in numbers in the event that the impact on public health remains limited, as everyone hopes even if some are less optimistic than others. If the results of the phased "déconfinement" are within what the government considers acceptable (there's got to be a trade-off here - sadly no deaths is an unrealistic target on a national scale) then more parents will feel that it's safe enough to send their children back to school and attendances can be allowed to rise at a steady and more manageable rate until such time as the state decides to make attendance compulsory again. It's a nice theory. It's risky, of course, but then we're all getting used to balancing risk these days every time we step out of our front doors.

It's worth remembering that France appears to be a little way further along the curve than the UK. There were 218 Covid 19 deaths recorded here yesterday, 125 of which were in hospitals and 93 in EHPADs (nursing homes and the like).

 

Heard that France is going back to school on 11th of May with 15 kids max and it will be dependent on how bad the department (French county) is in terms of Covid.

 

September seems like a reasonable target. At some point Children are going to need to go back to school. It's just how essential we deem that. Obviously not as essential as making cakes, those "key workers" are having to take all those risks already.
700 a day deaths is truly horrific but so are the effects of the lockdown. It just feels like a no win situation.