A big reason for the cohort method is to reduce who needs to quarantine when someone ends up positive (notice I said “when”). If a school chooses to quarantine based on contact, they will only have to do a certain number of students in a certain number of classes vs multiple students in multiple classes. People still need to play it reasonably safe, and they aren’t. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.
Our HS says that we will know what’s going on in three weeks. They sent a short questionnaire that asked about bus needs and if you prefer full time, blended learning, or all remote learning. The lower grades sent out a useless questionnaire asking about bus needs. I think they want to go back as much as possible for childcare needs, which I don’t agree with (we should be finding/creating alternative childcare options for parents). Neither school has room to social distance. It’s going to be a mess. But it will be fine. Everyone is dealing with it.
I will say that we play it pretty safe and stay around others who do, too. When school starts, we will have to be vigilant since children can be silent carriers and we need to protect our older and sicker populations.