Anyone here from OC?

[dogmom]

I am speechless:

“Orange County education leaders voted 4 to 1 Monday evening to approve recommendations for reopening schools in the fall that do not include the mandatory use of masks for students or increased social distancing in classrooms amid a surge in coronavirus cases.

The Board of Education did, however, leave reopening plans up to individual school districts.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-13/orange-county-board-of-education-recommends-no-masks-social-distancing-when-schools-reopen

Would love an explanation of this.

[bisous]

My SIL is and from her FB post about school I can see exactly where this comes from. Some of her friends are very, very anti-mask and think the virus is a hoax. MANY people I'm running to on FB (why do I go there again?) question the legitimacy of COVID which is interesting to me. They all cite that "the doctors disagree" but I'm just not seeing disagreement from any source that I trust.

I don't know if this is helpful (probably not!) but I was just aghast at the comments on her post so this does not surprise me.

[carolinacool]

Isn't the OC heavily Republican? Years ago when "Laguna Beach" was on (don't judge!), I looked it up to learn more about the area.

If that's the case, I'm not surprised.

[gatorsmom]

Isn't the OC heavily Republican? Years ago when "Laguna Beach" was on (don't judge!), I looked it up to learn more about the area.

If that's the case, I'm not surprised.

Well, I won’t judge you for watching Latina Beach if you don’t judge me for being republican. We aren’t all anti-mask.

Dogmom, given what I see happening with positive cases in California right now, I’m speechless too. The schools will be a germ factory. They will end up being shut down. Is a school lockdown better than wearing a mask? How can so many people be SOO in denial?

[carolinacool]

Well, I won’t judge you for watching Latina Beach if you don’t judge me for being republican. We aren’t all anti-mask.

Oh, for sure. I have several GOP friends who wear masks. In my state, at least, the people who seem to speak the loudest against masks have been Republicans. Although I guess they are more crazy than anything. I was generalizing. My apologies, Gatorsmom.

[bisous]

Well, I won’t judge you for watching Latina Beach if you don’t judge me for being republican. We aren’t all anti-mask.

Dogmom, given what I see happening with positive cases in California right now, I’m speechless too. The schools will be a germ factory. They will end up being shut down. Is a school lockdown better than wearing a mask? How can so many people be SOO in denial?

I'm a mask wearing Republican too (well, I'm usually Republican).

[BabyDahl]

I live in OC and was unable to get into the meeting to listen (max 1000 on Zoom). Not terribly surprised, this area has encountered a lot of resistance to the mask mandates:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-09/orange-county-public-health-officer-resigns-amid-controversy-over-face-coverings

We are part of a private school and are waiting for our July 22 announcement. Given LAUSD's announcement to go back in the fall, I don't know how this might affect enrollment in districts that hug the border, e.g. Seal Beach is next to Long Beach, will families with different preferences try to transfer?

[dogmom]

Well, I won’t judge you for watching Latina Beach if you don’t judge me for being republican. We aren’t all anti-mask.

Dogmom, given what I see happening with positive cases in California right now, I’m speechless too. The schools will be a germ factory. They will end up being shut down. Is a school lockdown better than wearing a mask? How can so many people be SOO in denial?

You might find this article interesting, Gatorsmom https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/15/73-democrats-are-wearing-masks-fight-coronavirus-only-59-republicans-are/

I do think the majority of people wear makes no matter what the party affiliation. There does seem to be a lower rate among people identifying as R, but I’d be interested to see the breakdown by place since R live in rural areas more that are not seeing as much Covid, although that is changing. I definitely think since Trump as the leader of the party has not supported mask wearing for a subset of Republicans it’s become part of the tribal identity. I find it interesting in the WP survey those that don’t identify with a party have about the same rate of mask use as republicans. I don’t think we can underestimated the damage the President has done by not coming out in favor of masks early on and reiterating it. There has been so much energy convincing people that the virus is real and that we should wear masks it leaves less time to address other measures. For me it is one of the major factors why our infection & death rate is so high. I am so disheartened by my follow citizens right now, although I’m not sure why since I should have expected this reaction. I just want people to stop saying “we need to go back to normal.” Normal, as we are till defining it is gone. It’s like someone in the middle of the Black Death saying “we need to get back to the normal feudal system.” Good luck with that. Or people thinking everything was going to go back to “normal” after WWII.

[AnnieW625]

I live 3 miles from the OC border but have many friends or FB acquaintances that live in the OC. Most of them are mad about it. Those are the ones though who lean towards the BBB demographic of higher to very high income with one SAHP and or the ability to hire part time house staff to help manage their daily households. They will be the ones to opt for all online school until there is a vaccine. I know one high school teacher in Orange County and she is not a fan of the plan and doesn’t want to be a babysitter for people’s children (per a FB meme). Each local school board will I’m sure have their own plan. Below is an article about Santa Ana Unified, which is very urban and leans more liberal and more working class (like parts of Anaheim, and Garden Grove) than the rest of the county. Orange County is also 100% represented by all Democrats in Congress these days and 3 of the 4 districts (Coastal OC Laguna Beach to Seal Beach, San Juan Capistrano and inland a bit to San Diego, and Irvine) all generally lean Republican, where as the lone Democratic leaning district is central north to west OC.

https://voiceofoc.org/2020/07/santa-ana-unified-school-district-adopts-plan-for-reopening-schools-in-the-fall/

FWIW: I live in a very mask compliant area and have yet to see anyone in person mask shame or tell someone off who is wearing a mask.

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[pharmjenn]

My SIL teaches in the district, and given what I saw at funeral for FIL, she probably is anti-mask. She had her mask below her nose for most of the ceremony, and off for a good 10 minutes while sitting next to her 85yo mother. We are not on speaking terms, so just silently shook my head and made sure DS and I were across the sanctuary from most people.

I am surprised they are even going back into the classroom after LAUSD and SDUSD announcements. My district in Nor Cal had their board meeting last night, and I listened for over 4 hours before I had to go to sleep. For 2 hours they aired the voicemails they had received, and I heard maybe 3 calls in support of in person learning, and the rest all want 100% distance, at least to start. They didn't vote last night, but made it clear that will be the plan so that parents can begin to plan.

[AnnieW625]

Again not saying the OC vote was right, but this was the Orange County Board of Education. The bulk of Orange County school districts is made of cities with their own school districts and boards. Comparing districts in Orange County to LA Unified and San Diego Unified is like comparing apples to watermelons. LA Unified alone covers 700k+ kids where as in the entire county of Orange County they only cover 370k kids, and San Diego Unified covers 121k kids.

Some school districts only cover high schools and the cities have their own elementary/middle school districts (Anaheim, and Huntington Beach have this model; so the 4 high schools in the city of Huntington Beach, and 2 high schools from the neighboring cities of Westminster, and Fountain Valley belong to the HB high school district). Anaheim does this as well, but Anaheim covers middle and high schools. The district per Wikipedia has 22 schools altogether and covers Anaheim, Cypress, and La Palma. It also doesn’t include a lot of East Anaheim (Anaheim Hills) as that is covered by neighboring districts like the one that covers Yorba Linda. (I could be wrong on that, but I think it is accurate).


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[PunkyBoo]

We are in OC My DS1's school district (7-12th grade schools only) has acknowledged that it has schools in the zip codes with the highest covid rates in the county. So they are scrapping the hybrid model they planned to start with and are going to start 100% online. They start 8/12 so there's not a lot of time left.

A while back, the OC Heath Department head said masks were required, and then she got death threats against her young family and herself. So she quit. Since then the county supervisors have been waffling. We're still staying home as much as possible, and wearing masks when out. Yes, OC is primarily Republicans, and I've stopped reading a lot of NextDoor for the same reason I quit Facebook years ago- I have low tolerance for nutjobs and use social media to proliferate idiocy.

[PZMommy]

This has been all over my teacher boards. Each district in the OC can make their own rules. Last I heard Anaheim will be starting all online. Santa Ana was planning to start hybrid, but may change to online.

The public health officer of LA was asked about this. She said any school that opens will most likely end up closed within a week due to an outbreak. She said the numbers out here are too high to safely reopen schools. FWIW she is a former high school principal.

The former OC health officer stepped down after receiving death threats for making masks mandatory. ��