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Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by elboru on Friday March 29, 2024 @10:52AM (#39864773)
> I don't think having a cold or two is going to put many people in this category.

Have you been around kids post COVID? Winters after the pandemic have been a nightmare for many parents. My nephews have basically been "sick" the whole winter (getting sick, staying home, recovering, going back to school, getting a new virus, repeat).

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by troyvit on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:09AM (#39865000)
It's been the same for my kids.

Another thing I've noticed is that post-covid they've come home from school with more stories of the teachers just putting on videos and having the kids watch that, or else they just read crap on their tablets. What I'm saying is, it seems like education has also changed post-covid. It's like the teachers are still remote-teaching even though everybody's in the classroom.

This is public school, and maybe that's how they do it these days?

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by analognoise on Friday March 29, 2024 @11:56AM (#39865577)
I’ve noticed that too! So many videos. “We watched a movie today” - what?

Is there some catalog of how many videos and things are watched during school hours, because I never remember that as a kid. Yes it would have been a VCR rolled out and all that, but if I wanted them to just watch a movie I could do that from home. So weird.

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by Jensson on Friday March 29, 2024 @02:04PM (#39867130)
> Is there some catalog of how many videos and things are watched during school hours

I remember watching video 4 times in school total. At the time teachers didn't know how to start the video player so a kid always did that, the teachers weren't used to showing videos in class at all.

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by seanmcdirmid on Friday March 29, 2024 @03:45PM (#39868205)
I remember video weeks at school, it was definitely a thing in the late 80s/early 90s. But then we also had study hall in Mississippi, where you spent one or two periods a day just sitting in a room doing absolutely nothing. The year I left, they wanted to make it mandatory (with the excuse that kids weren't getting enough time to do their homework, but it was really about saving money).
Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by tkgally on Friday March 29, 2024 @08:26PM (#39870563)
I went to public school in California in the 1960s and early 1970s. I remember a lot of time spent watching films and television programs during class. Sometimes the films had relevant educational content, but I realized even at the time that the main purpose was to pacify the children and give the teacher a break.

The worst case I remember was a social studies teacher in junior high school who, during the World Series, turned on the classroom television to the game and had us all watch it with him.

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by seneca on Friday March 29, 2024 @10:57AM (#39864831)
I have heard this from so many people, all over the country. I've heard many parents saying they're getting repeatedly sick as their kids bring diseases home.

Has anyone seen any actual research into why this is? It seems pretty serious.

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by vundercind on Friday March 29, 2024 @01:26PM (#39866670)
We didn’t have so much as a sniffle in our house for 2+ years. Masking, distancing, and not going to restaurants—we just did not get sick. Even after the kids went back to school—we had them in a school with heavy-duty air filters in every room and high masking compliance, at the time.

Now we’re sick constantly, it seems. It’s so much worse than before. I think our immune systems are doing some catching up.

[edit] for the timing, we started getting sick a bunch right around the time masking dropped off to near-zero everywhere around us.

Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by seanmcdirmid on Friday March 29, 2024 @03:47PM (#39868219)
It totally makes sense though right? While we had zero tolerance, our immune systems didn't get any work out, and vaccines can only take you so far and doesn't cover many nasty RSVs anyways. Now we are back, and our immune systems are simply not in shape.
Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by elboru on Friday March 29, 2024 @04:15PM (#39868525)
I’ve also heard that because of lockdown only the stronger variants of different viruses made it. So we’re dealing with them now. But I haven’t heard of any study about it yet.
Re:Why School Absences Have 'Exploded' Almost Everywhere by Fire-Dragon-DoL on Saturday March 30, 2024 @02:14AM (#39872306)
Same here (and we get it too). These 2 weeks are the first time I don't have extra mucus in my chest because there is no school.

Tuesday we are getting sick again, sigh.