Thread by @45thabsurdist

As school starts in a few days, it’s easy to get mad at PPS for their safety protocols, because they are BAD.
However the bigger problems are the directives from the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). So let’s take a look:🧵

First, we have the PPS “Swiss Cheese Model,” which PPS diagrams as shown. It’s a system that relies on a series of nested and hopefully redundant layers. But if only a few layers are holding up the whole mess, then it’s going to fall apart, and there’s going to be outbreaks. 1/

The big thing to know about the PPS Swiss cheese model is that, however insufficient each layer of protection is in this plan, ODE has also removed a bunch of allowed layers, & PPS’s covid plan is bad precisely because it only meets the state’s minimum covid safety standards. 2/

PPS *could* be doing better on two fronts without running afoul of ODE reopening guidelines: they could have smaller class sizes and better social distancing. Covid protocols have changed constantly from meeting to meeting, and pressure can absolutely change them further. 3/

ODE builds its guidelines off the Oregon Health Authority, and OHA has repeatedly scaled back its recommendations based on the Governor’s fear of anti-masker/antivaxxer backlash. OHA (& CDC) rules aren’t “the science,” they’re science chewed up & spat out by “stakeholders.” 4/

In a recent ODE presentation to school administrators, the ODE presented the following two slides, in sequence, with no apparent sense of awareness or irony. 5/

Again, despite this chart, & the experience of every school which has opened so far this year, the idea that students might be able to catch and pass on delta-variant covid is dismissed as “anecdotal.” Which, welp, everywhere that opens in-person school sees youth covid go up 6/

This explains why OHA guidelines are so out of step with scientific consensus on viral spread, which consider a “contact” anyone within 6 feet for over 15 minutes, regardless of mass use.

ODE/PPS both only consider a “contact” to be closer than 3 feet for 15 min, unmasked. 7/

So what does this mean? Well if two kids sit in class 3 feet apart all day but with masks on and one kid had COVID the other would not be considered a “close contact” and would not be required to quarantine.

While the state just mandated masks outside this doesn’t apply to schools. PPS is requiring the them when not eating, but ODE stated recently in a meeting that “since recess is usually less then 15 minutes exposure during that time would not be considered a close contact”

Last year, 2 key tools to control outbreaks were limited cohort size & isolation/quarantine/reporting protocols. Cohorts were small, couldn’t interact with other cohorts, and schools were required to notify a cohort if there was exposure. None of this is supported by OHA now. 8/

Schools CAN do class and building notifications but it’s not required, and only close contacts will be required to stay home. which from above means practically no one.

Cohort size also went from 10 students at the beginning of last year to slowly getting bigger so that it now does not have a maximum group size.

Whoops. Tweeted without alt text. Those will be posted as comments on tweets with images shortly.

Multiple OHA/ODE meetings within the last two weeks have seen spokespeople for those agencies explicitly state that the goal of protocols is to minimize the number of students required to quarantine, and not to limit spread of Covid.

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PPS is in a bind because they have to fulfill the state requirement of full in person instruction for all students but they don’t have additional buildings or additional money to do that in a way that safely distances students, so they’re stuck doing the bare minimum.

With such loose quarantine guidelines from the state, schools can’t quarantine students beyond what the state mandates, because children’s access to education is pretty intensely protected by jurisprudence unless the state tells them it’s a pressing public health interest.

OHA could allow districts to implement stricter standards on some of these points. Right now, OHA’s standards are it.

And so PPS is trying to put a good face on it.

But hey, racially and economically marginalized communities overwhelmingly didn’t return for hybrid instruction, and PPS is giving all students free breakfast and lunch for the year. Free food for kids is good. Weird that it’s being used to lure back the populations hit hardest.

In conclusion: It Is All Bad.

On a building-by-building basis, admin, staff and teachers are trying to implement inadequate standards, and are often violating the explicit wording to try to make shit safer. But trying to observe actual sound public health measures has been reduced to a tacit conspiracy.

Nudge nudge, wink wink: if kids sitting 2.5’ feet apart in a class test positive, teachers might say students also didn’t have a good seal on their masks, to make sure more exposures get reported. And admin will probably not punish the teacher for lax mask enforcement. (Fin)