Parents Are Starting Another School Year During COVID-19 — And Things Have Only Gotten More Complicated
On today's episode of BuzzFeed Daily, we broke down the top pop culture headlines AND discussed how parents and kids are dealing with in-person schooling amidst COVID-19. You can listen below or scroll down to read more about the interview!
So let's dive right into it! Recently we talked to Mike Spohr about how it feels sending his kids back to school during a pandemic. Here's some of what we learned:
BuzzFeed Daily: Normally, parents overall seem to look forward to the start of the school year. It seems to give them a break from the need to entertain their kids 24/7. For your family, what was the mood in your household as the beginning of this school year started?
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Mike Spohr: Well, it was probably different than the typical year. There was definitely excitement about going back to school. The kids were excited to go back and see their friends and they had their new backpacks and new clothes and all that stuff. So there's a lot of that good feeling. But there's also a lot of worry because frankly, we are sending our kids back to school when there's this pandemic going on and there's no vaccines for kids 12 and under at this point. Both of my kids are under that age, so that was really worrisome. And there wasn't really much you can do, especially when the classrooms this year were full. Last year, at my kids' school, they basically split the day into two halves. So the first half the day, half the kids came, and in the second half of the day, half the kids came as well. So each one was only like a half class, but now at this point, everyone's there. It's the whole class. And so there's more kids in the room.
BuzzFeed Daily: You mentioned that the classrooms are completely full. Is it just full, everyone back in person? Is there any kind of remote learning? Is there a hybrid at all or is it just back to normal, essentially?
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MS: It is essentially back to normal. You know, there really isn't, at least in our school districts, any kind of remote learning like there was last year. Last year, if you kept your kids home, they would have the remote learning on the computer. But right now they don't have that, and everyone has to go back if they want to have the normal education.
One of the big problems with that is there's constantly these COVID exposures happening at the schools. Every single day, I get an email from the school saying, "Someone at your child's school has tested positive for COVID. If your child was near this person, you have been called earlier in the day." So they tell you that. But there's exposures happening every day. And every kid that was near that person then has to take a 10-day quarantine period away from the school.
My kids actually were exposed. They weren't exposed at school; it was a sporting thing they went to. But anyway, they had to then take the 10 days away from their school. So they'll be back on Thursday. But missing six school days when they don't really have anything set up at this point — it took a few days for them to send home a couple little worksheets. But there are tens, if not dozens of kids every day who are being quarantined like this and they don't have anything in place for the kids to really learn. So that's a little worrisome. There's a lot of kids who are missing a lot of school right now.
BuzzFeed Daily: We are seeing sometimes viral videos of things happening at school board meetings where adults — probably many of them without actual children — go on these political rants about masking and freedom. As a parent, how do you react to that right now?
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MS: Well, thankfully, we don't have — well, maybe we...have those kinds of people. But yeah, they're always like, "You're Satan. You’re the devil incarnate and these masks are the instrument of the devil." And they're always saying all these totally outlandish things, which worries you because those are your peers as parents and they have every bit as much control over how the school is safe for the kids, because they're sending their own kids there. I don't know how you combat that. You really can't. You can really only handle your kids and your situation, but you're really at the behest of these parents who have very different viewpoints, I suppose you could say.
We also discussed Angelina Jolie's recent interview with The Guardian, in which she revealed some details about her relationship with — and subsequent divorce from — Brad Pitt.
She said that despite knowing she’d received unwanted advances from Harvey Weinstein in a hotel room when she was younger, Brad opted to work with Weinsten twice over the course of their relationship.
Angelina said: “I never associated or worked with him again. It was hard for me when Brad did. We fought about it. Of course it hurt.”
She also addressed her allegations of abuse against Brad, saying she feared for her children during the marriage. She said: “I’m not the kind of person who makes decisions like the decisions I had to make, lightly. It took a lot for me to be in a position where I felt I had to separate from the father of my children.”