End game for closed businesses

[disneysteve]

My son has a full time 1:1 aide. The teacher uploads material for us to print out and work on, plus IXL logins. Guess who is doing the work?

I still feel better off than the families living in shelters with iPads but no internet access. How are they supposed to learn? Or don't those homeless kids matter? The DOE sucks, disparity sucks. Keeping poor kids behind ... Welcome to America.

So true, both about special needs students and poor students. Something like 15% of homes in the US don't have internet service. That number approaches 30% in rural areas. There is still a very significant digital divide in this country. It's easy to be unaware of it if you aren't part of the affected population.

With special needs students, they often need 1:1 supervision, or at least much more personal attention, throughout the school day. How's that working with mom and dad and other kids all home and all needing to get their own work done?

[~bs]

Is there no state requirement for how long the school year must be, or did they waive that?

There is, just like all the other states, but pretty sure was waived.

I do get that many families, especially poor families may not have access to internet, computers, etc. But there was zero effort at any sort of online teaching. No teaching via videod lessons uploaded to youtube, no emailed instruction material, no online quizzes and tests, etc. Basically all the teachers and full time support staff getting paid for doing nothing.

[Scallywag]

In California, the school year is an average of 180 days. It hasn't been waived. My daughter's high school has moved from letter grades to Pass / No Pass. But this makes NO sense for kids taking classes with a lab component (such as Biology ot Chemistry) or with interaction components like PE / Dance / Theater Arts etc. There's no plan, no communication, nothing. Absolutely disastrous.

With special needs students, they often need 1:1 supervision, or at least much more personal attention, throughout the school day. How's that working with mom and dad and other kids all home and all needing to get their own work done?

That's why I am usually severely under-employed or just flat out unemployed.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

happens to everyone. Something will happen to ask the average person no matter where they live in the country.

[kork13]

Here in Alaska, we have a unique relationship with RavnAir, a regional airline that serves as literally the only commercial option (besides hiring a private charter or flying your own Cessna) to be able to reach many of Alaska's small, outlying cities/villages (both passengers & cargo). To say they rely upon it is a dramatic understatement.

Today, RavnAir filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, stopped all operations, and laid off all of its 900+ employees. They're awaiting the Treasury's bailout money, but until something happens there, Alaska's outlying villages will likely be in a crunch. TBD if they make it out on the other side somehow, or if (as I suspect), they may be bought up by one of the other companies... Alaskan Air or maybe Delta, perhaps even reformed as a totally new company.

That said, we have almost as many Cessnas in Alaska as we do people, big hearts for our own, and a strong survival instinct. If it really becomes a problem, I see it as a high probability that private pilots across the state will start flying people & supplies around the state in droves.

[amarowsky]

So true, both about special needs students and poor students. Something like 15% of homes in the US don't have internet service. That number approaches 30% in rural areas. There is still a very significant digital divide in this country. It's easy to be unaware of it if you aren't part of the affected population.

With special needs students, they often need 1:1 supervision, or at least much more personal attention, throughout the school day. How's that working with mom and dad and other kids all home and all needing to get their own work done?

This number seems so crazy to me (# of people w/o internet). Seems like 90% of the homeless people I see when I go to Detroit even have cell phones (internet access). Hard to believe 15% (let alone rural 30%) don’t have internet access.... I am a suburb kid, so I have plenty of ignorance to rural life. Just seems shocking... With all the LTE/WIFI all over.

[Scallywag]

This number seems so crazy to me (# of people w/o internet). Seems like 90% of the homeless people I see when I go to Detroit even have cell phones (internet access). Hard to believe 15% (let alone rural 30%) don’t have internet access.... I am a suburb kid, so I have plenty of ignorance to rural life. Just seems shocking... With all the LTE/WIFI all over.

Shelters near where I live do not have internet access, so no Wi-Fi for the school provided iPads. Parents may have cell phones with Internet access but doing homework on cell phones is a nightmare - try it, please! Plus, many have been unable to pay bills on the phones and may not have a phone much longer, what then?

[disneysteve]

This number seems so crazy to me (# of people w/o internet). Seems like 90% of the homeless people I see when I go to Detroit even have cell phones (internet access). Hard to believe 15% (let alone rural 30%) don’t have internet access.... I am a suburb kid, so I have plenty of ignorance to rural life. Just seems shocking... With all the LTE/WIFI all over.

A big part of the poverty problem is the relative invisibility of it. If you aren't impacted by it, it's far too easy to not even realize it exists.

Sure, a lot of poor folks have cell phones. Frequently they are pre-paid phones with maybe 100 minutes of usage per month. If they have data, which is a big if, it's certainly not unlimited. Most of those folks burn through their available minutes and data within the first week of the month and then it's just a brick for 3 weeks.

There's no way a kid could use mom or dad's cell phone to do their virtual schoolwork.

[disneysteve]

This number seems so crazy to me (# of people w/o internet).

Here's one article from last June. It gives lower numbers - 10% overall, 15% rural - but I've seen higher numbers from other sources.

https://www.allconnect.com/blog/33-million-americans-dont-use-internet

This article also says that 44% of households earning less than 30K don't have broadband internet. So they might have some access but it likely isn't sufficient for video streaming, Zoom/Skype classes and meetings, etc.

[Scallywag]

A big part of the poverty problem is the relative invisibility of it. If you aren't impacted by it, it's far too easy to not even realize it exists.

Sure, a lot of poor folks have cell phones. Frequently they are pre-paid phones with maybe 100 minutes of usage per month. If they have data, which is a big if, it's certainly not unlimited. Most of those folks burn through their available minutes and data within the first week of the month and then it's just a brick for 3 weeks.

There's no way a kid could use mom or dad's cell phone to do their virtual schoolwork.

Well, it's not really invisible if your involved in the community to any extent. As i said a few posts ago, many Americans are poor but credit makes us all look rich. It's the sad, devastating truth.

[disneysteve]

Well, it's not really invisible if your involved in the community to any extent.

Definitely, IF you are involved. If you just go about your business, it's far too easy to not only ignore it but to really not even be aware that it is there.

[~bs]

CARES ACT part 2 coming. Guessing it will be mostly extension of cares act part 1. Need to keep the money helicopter flying or the plebs will riot.

[disneysteve]

I haven't looked into the details deeply. Clearly, the goal is to keep COVID patients off the Mercy. I don't know what they are equipped to manage, and I don't know what conditions are on the exclusion list. It just apparently isn't a simple streamlined process to divert patients there from the hospitals.

Last I saw, they had 20 patients (not 3). They have room for 1,000.

I heard this morning that the Mercy will finally start taking COVID patients which is great, since that's what it's actually needed for. Of course, the same time they announced that, they also announced that one crew member has tested positive for COVID. The ship has a crew of 1,200 and has been sitting doing essentially nothing for a week. Odds are that if one crew member is positive, a few dozen are at least so that may complicate matters.

[TexasHusker]

CARES ACT part 2 coming. Guessing it will be mostly extension of cares act part 1. Need to keep the money helicopter flying or the plebs will riot.

need to make sure that people aren't making more on unemployment than employment. When this economy re-opens, my biggest competitor is going to be unemployment, as with the U.S.'s temporary (I hope) extra $600 per week to unemployed folks, they can make more money being unemployed than going to work.

Big, big problem for me and hundreds of thousands of other businesses.

[disneysteve]

When this economy re-opens, my biggest competitor is going to be unemployment

Is it, though? Sure there will be some slugs out there who would rather sit home than work but everyone I know can't wait to get back to work. If you told my daughter she could go back today, she'd be there as fast as she could.

If your employees would rather sit home and collect than come back to work, the unemployment system isn't the issue.