To be annoyed with college

[Bunnyfuller]

DD headed off to college today to be told to go home as soon as she got there. One of the lecturers has ‘symptoms’, no positive test, so they’ve closed the department and ‘we will be moving to online learning, you will be given details in the morning’.

Excellent. She’s an art student in the middle of a massive 3D project AT COLLEGE.

Am I being unreasonable or is this as OTT as I think? It’s quite clear from the news that Omicron is widespread out there already….please tell me we’re not moving into this destruction of education again? My other child is in GCSE year and it’s already horrific with her having essentially missed 2 years of school yet exams are supposedly going ahead back to normal.

Bumping - so many AMAs I fell off the page!

What wouid be unreasonable is someone coming in to school with symptomatic covid and infecting both staff and pupils. Disruption would be far worse in that case.

So what do you want them to do?

What on earth do you think they should have done instead?

Maybe I wasn’t clear - they’ve closed the whole art and media department because 1 person has symptoms, not confirmed Covid. I understand the person themselves staying off but closing the department? Really? Are we there?

It’s about 20 lecturers and the accompanying classes…

I didn’t think we had got to needing to isolate because someone you’ve been near has symptoms?

Anyone else seeing mass closures of classes following someone on the staff having ‘symptoms’?

My DH is a lecturer- 2 weeks ago he had symptoms. He stayed home, department wasn't closed. All in-person teaching continued as normal apart from DH's classes which he postponed or asked colleagues to cover. He had test, which was negative TG, and he returned to work when he was well enough to.

@N0tfinished thank you. This is what I expected, not virtual lockdown.

This isn’t following guidelines and seems OTT. I am going to call tomorrow and explore. I think it is way too early for this sort of reaction.

YANBU that's ridiculous. When they're a confirmed case it's a different matter, but my god my whole family has had symptoms since the kids went back, and guess what, non of us actually have Covid as the symptoms are the same as a zillion other things! Grrrr

We had a colleague come in with symptoms. She went on to test positive after infecting two other members of staff, one who ended up being blue lighted to hospital. It’s now a complete nightmare because we are chronically understaffed.

You don’t know that those other members of staff aren’t auto immune or have other reasons to be off. I do think your child’s art project is a bit precious and you need to think about the wider picture.

Wow at the other end of the scale dd said students are coughing all around her and don't do lateral flows and don't bother with pcr and no one tells anyone to go home.

My other dd school has given a clear plan of action if they go in line again, who gets protity and how they will get dc into school on rotas and wfm.
Sounds perfect to me I'm astonished it's deemed OK to have endless supply teachers in who just do crowd control and that's it when teachers are ill??
Remember we were told it didn't affect dc??

That staff absence might have pushed their numbers over for
Health and safety.
Schools and colleges are really struggling for staff at the moment.

But if that staff member has covid and has been in college up to now, in small confined spaces with their colleagues and students, they could potentially have spread it to many of them. Them all staying in now would potentially spread it round more of them and round other parts of college (if they leave their area to go to refectories, toilets, library, common areas) as well. Some of those people would spread it to family members at home. This close to Christmas it could affect people's plans for Christmas, holidays away, visits to familes and all sorts. I bet if learning had carried on and your child brought covid home from college and spread it to the family and meant that you all had to isolate through Christmas then you'd also be cross with college for having carried on despite knowing that people were showing symptoms.

I'm not sure why you've put 'symptoms' in inverted commas - do you suspect them of lying?

As others have said too, colleges are chronically understaffed. It won't just be this one member of staff off. If they have too many off, then they HAVE to shut areas to keep numbers legal. Our college has a huge amount of staff and students off currently. Some can work from home and some can't, but if your college is trying to put on some learning from home then that's positive, surely?

Just spoken to the college. It is definitely one member of staff with symptoms that could be Covid. Or could be a cold. No positive LFT or PCR. They’ve already closed the Refrectories etc. Kids and staff wear masks inside.

The government guidelines do not say isolation if a person has symptoms. For the person, yes, but not for all their contacts. This isn’t just about ‘but it’s nearly Christmas’ - kids’ education has already taken a hammering, and it’s just going to continue if educational establishments invent their own rules. My younger daughter is at secondary school, and they are continuing with person with symptoms - isolate until neg PCR, anyone else carry on as normal.

@shinyme the class is midway through an assessed large 3D project as in items they’re working on at college. They can’t work on them remotely.

I work for the police. If we sent everyone home that had been near someone with symptoms there would be no one in work after a week.