I’m not able to watch SB right now but I’m getting flooded w messages from scared people cuz what @fcpsnews is suggesting doesn’t make sense & is untenable as cases continue to rise and new variant is even more transmissible. Please do tag me if you understand what’s happening

Um...Getting messages that plan is to let individual schools make the decision? So does that mean Langley where almost no one has Covid gets to go to school but Herndon where almost everyone has Covid doesn’t? Someone just wrote me that @Karen4Schools just raised that concern?

Okay, I put what I was doing on hold to listen to this meeting for a little while. @FCPSSupt says they've been working with the local health dept but not knowing whether the VA Gov is going to discuss students. Asks Sean McD to discuss rigorous process for hiring monitors.

I can't imagine that this is going to actually happen, any of this. Cases are higher than they've ever been and as @AbrarOmeish just mentioned, we don't know anything about transmission in schools, schools have been closed. She asks about vaccines for staff, Dr. Bs admit not sure

Abrar says that Governor saying no longer pushing students to return. She says we could potentially wait because we are getting folks vaccinated quickly. Dr. B says some stuff. Principal assn. is talking. Principals apparently overwhelmingly do not want to bring kids back.

Oh this is the super cute Mr. Badsekis from the Forest Edge Elementary days of my son. I don't watch while I type. I type and listen its open in another tab. Now Dr. Goodlow and Mr.? Middle and HS reps from association. She does NOT sound like she thinks they should go back.

She says they're trying to move forward w plan but cautious. She's talking about targets and plans. Mr. Lutz? HS principals. They just learned about the plan yesterday!!!? Oh lord apparently the mitigation strategies. He says that the HS principals are not on board sounds like.

Well sounds to me like the principals associations are not in agreement with Gatehouse on this plan to return. Abrar wants to ask the board how they feel and to get a pulse of how her colleagues feel on this. @stella_pekarsky I think is losing signal? Can't hear her.

@Megan4Schools says she doesn't want to do that yet because not all the board members have spoken and she "needs more information" which is what she always says. @Kaufax4Schools says she was almost at a point of asking same as Abrar to pause and take a pulse.

TDKfrustrated with staff to have gotten this plan at 9pm last night. She said that after hearing from the principals she is not happy with this. She asks Brabrand if he has date for vaccination, no does not. Unhappy with equity issues of opening some schools not others

"Mitigation strategies when possible" exactly. Eating, buses, there are lots of times they won't be in place. This whole thing is ridiculous and I need to stop listening! This isn't going to happen of course. This isn't even possible. I should go live my best life.

Dr. Brabrand sounds exhausted and over it. He knows damn well this isn't tenable. He is between a thousand rocks and a thousand hard places. And this Board is also, and the citizens of this county, state, nation, and world are too.

@Megan4Schools says that she thinks that what staff has proposed is what they always were proposing. She is saying that our size cannot be our deficit. She doesn't think this is a lack of equity at all. "School by school we are going to have to be nimble" which is true, but the

fact is that the equity is at the center of it. She wants to look at other divisions which she always says, she says she needs more data, and she needs the Board of Supervisors to get with them to get our teacher vaccinated. THIS IS TRUE. And the Board of Sups has totally dropped

the ball on this. The BoS does NOT work with the SB to work on schools which is stupid and infuriating.

to be clear *to work on schools RE COVID*

He is saying he agrees that they need to be pushing this together. @LJ4fcps said something and I got distracted, but she seems to be saying that the school by school approach was NEW and not in any prior plans, but she also said she agrees with Megan who wasn't surprised

@LJ4fcps saying plainly that none of this makes sense. Dr. Brabrand is saying that principals were NOT blindsided, but they acted blindsided. This is awful. This is a plain beatdown. yikes. He is saying he's been working with principals and that theyve not been left out of loop

TDK said earlier that she applauded principals for being brave because of hierarchy that they spoke up. But Brabrand saying that he has a culture where principals are allowed to "speak truth to power" by speaking truth to Board. But LJ saying that families are seeing the spikes

and not understanding how simultaneously they're now going back to school. Ooof. This is crazy. Super yikes. @LJ4fcps said people assumed that as numbers rise that we would pause return and now the response is "lets just keep going". I don't get it. Me either LJ, me either.

Marty Smith is now talking about the 3rd indicator. I missed the beginning and I don't know what was on that "slide 10" There is something on slide 10. I dont even know how to speak to this meeting... I don't even know what is happening.

@ElaineTholen says "why are we pushing to open when everyone else is shutting down." She says she represents a district with a large % of families who want in person, but she has heard from people asking to change their choice as numbers rise.

She says also that we need to pause. She says we have to explore the school by school so we don't have to shut everything down when we have outbreaks. @KarlFrisch "we need to put official weight behind our words" regarding talking to Governor to get our teachers vaccinated quick

He speaks to @Karen4Schools resolution, which I missed. If someone knows what the resolution was, please let me know. But it must be something about what Governor is saying about school return. Contradictory stories were put out? He is asking Brabrand about whether vaccination

was brought up in communication with State Superintendent of Schools Lane and they have been talking about vaccinating educators and support staff. Everyone seems to be on the same page there. I dont know what the resolution reads.

Okay I'm going to try to get it when they read it. @RachnaHeizer said, could we all speak before we do that. Okay, they're not going to do the resolution or the taking of the pulse after everyone talks.

Surveillance testing. Dr. Boyd discussing. Aside: No charges brought against officers in the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.

@RachnaHeizer asks why we aren't doing surveillance testing. Oh lord she asks if she should wait for Dr. Gloria. Please don't. Dr. Brabrand says that we have many things competing for dollars now.

Rachna says that surveillance testing allows us not to rely on volunteer testing. Rachna says same as everyone else that the numbers give us pause. The numbers are high. They all have major concerns. Megan was the only one so far that doesn't seem too fussed.

Rachna asks the ever cute Mr. Badsekis how do we both letting kids into school and doing it within a timeline and also safely. He says that maintaining supervision and teaching kids about the mitigation strategies and that they will continue to prepare in the pause if they pause

Dr. Goodlowe says that she is working with the superintendent and it is a mischaracterization to suggest they were blindsided. Sounds to me like someone got a text from someone lol.

That was actually out the box, first thing she said. Hard to imagine that wasn't in response to someone expressing displeasure from leadership team at Gatehouse, but that might just be my storytelling mind making tales haha.

@MelanieForEdu saying that the Board of Supervisors and County Executive have to stand with the SB to support vaccinations. She is expressing her lack of confidence with Dr. Gloria because she hasn't been in a school or presented to the BoS.

She says that Brabrand was charged with making a plan in accordance with health guidelines federal and state so on what authority are we voting it down? Just asking rhetorically.

@Keys_Gamarra discusses how much information there is and where to you get it from. She asks if the opening or the closing schools would be a central office decision or school by school? Dr. Brabrand says that Covid is inequitable. Also true. In terms of impacts.

She says that how do we make our decision making also centering equity. Covid doesn't respect equity and but we are charged with making equitable decisions re educating during Covid, Brabrand says. KKG says that we need more testing because other districts are using to support

opening decisions etc. Oh lord. I think Dr. Gloria is here. I should go get my dinner.

She talks surveillance testing. She says it is not recommended for asymptomatics. Most positives are false positives for asymptomatics. 2/3rds are false positives. She talks about their labs, Health Dept will be working with FCPS to get results in a day for symptomactic people