Georgia School Official Responds to COVID Crisis With 'Tone Deaf' Blue Jeans Proposal

[demmiblue]

“Our administrators sit in their offices sending out condescending little emails, as if jeans are going to help protect us or our families from getting sick,” one teacher said.

By the fourth week of the new school year this month, COVID had exploded across Georgia’s Bulloch County School District. As of Monday, 900 students in the district of just 11,000 had tested positive for coronavirus in the first three weeks of school.

For weeks, teachers and many parents had called for a mask mandate. But superintendent Charles Wilson refused to issue one. Instead, on Thursday night, he sent an email blast with the subject line “word of encouragement” to all the teachers in the district. After thanking them “for all that you are doing for our students and for each other,” the email, which has been seen by The Daily Beast, continued:

“I talked with principals today and we all agreed that, though it is a small gesture, you would enjoy the liberty of wearing jeans for the next month. So, by all means, please enjoy your jeans throughout the month of September (and the rest of August).”

If Wilson had meant his email to quiet the growing anger among his employees, it did just the opposite.

...

And, teachers say, the consequences of inaction in Bulloch County have been obvious. In the last two weeks, more than 1 percent of all school-aged kids have tested positive for coronavirus in Georgia. But in Bulloch County, 3.5 percent of all school-aged children, more than triple the rate statewide, have been infected with COVID in the last two weeks, according to data from the Georgia Department of Health.

By Monday, three weeks into the school year, 4,900 students were in quarantine, though in this district, which allows students with direct contact to continue attending classes unmasked until they show symptoms, that was less restriction than label.

This district has also apparently tried to give the impression of taking action on masks without really taking much action. On Aug. 12, during the second week of school, the district announced in a Facebook post that Wilson had activated the district’s “high spread protocol.” But the dramatic-sounding move represented just a sliver of change: signs encouraging mask-wearing would now be placed throughout each school. Masks were still not required, classes remained in session and students who had been exposed were still allowed to attend those classes, unmasked, until they showed symptoms.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/georgia-school-official-responds-to-covid-crisis-with-tone-deaf-blue-jeans-proposal

[GPV]

1. If I received an email like this one from my superintendent....

[madaboutharry]

2. Another day, another idiot.

Teachers can wear jeans for a month while they are exposed to The Delta variant. How does this help?

The reason we are doomed is because of all the stupidity.

[MLAA]

6. I guess the idiot superintendent wants his staff and students to be more comfortable

in jeans on their way to the hospital and a 40 hour wait in the ER lobby until someone dies and they get a bed at the hospital.

[Walleye]

3. Blue denim facemasks for everybody

[70sEraVet]

4. Sending out e-mails to demonstrate their absolute disdain

[tanyev]

5. Woohoo! Jeans AND Covid. The land of the free, baby.