The Price Of Pandemic Opportunities – Laptops, Public Policy And Science Awareness

All this isolating and cowering in the shadow of a revolution of computerized learning shouldn’t remove us from the exhilaration of making a difference. Our actions as individuals and as families may well be making a significant difference; data is too poor to know for sure yet. So while a “bend” in the curve is hard to attest, still the trend of cases is not truly exponential. The cases reported daily by LA County’s Department of Public Health are far from the predicted exponential plotted on a log scale below as the straight, dashed line in yellow (an exponential trend plots on a log scale as a straight line).

There are other aspects of slight positivity. The pandemic may be creating budding physicians and virologists and epidemiologists in the students among us.

Featured in this latest stack of links (below) are many reputable sites for medical science and covid statistics.

The pandemic is creating an opportunity for stakeholders otherwise confined to a classroom far from the Board of Education. As part of a civics lesson, it could be possible to participate today at 10am by realtime viewing of school politics in play. Tune in here to listen to the Construction Bond Oversight Committee (BOC) debate funding (p. 20 of the agenda) for the thousands of digital devices being distributed to households across the District. The District proposes to spend $77.4m on these devices. The construction bonds monies proposed devoted to this expenditure will come a little from monies budgeted to “upgrade and equip” schools with new technology, and by depleting the entire bonds budget for “tech infrastructure and upgrades.” There are so many questions about oversight and tracking these devices, about logistics and administration and utility and the use of taxpayer-approved long-term construction funds for short-term day-to-day supplies.  Do digital devices collectively comprise the infrastructural bedrock of schools? Are the funds approved by voters specifically for facilities rightfully construed to include laptops?

Study The Science Of SARS-CoV-2 and Covid:

Track The Epidemiology And Course Of The Pandemic:

Pitch In:

Extracurriculars:

Testing And Grading Updates

    • CAASP/SBAC statewide testing is cancelled per executive order of California’s governor.
    • ETS ~ administers TOEFL, GREs, CAASP, etc.; IB exams are cancelled for this school year; SAT and ACT testing is cancelled through April awaiting further developments for future decisions. Do not rely on any, including this, second-hand information – confirm rapidly-changing testing dates (hyperlinks above should be OK) with test administrators directly.
    • AP is providing free remote learning access and is “developing a new at-home testing option.”
    • K12 grading during a pandemic and college admissions is reevaluated.

Academic And Family Resources

Policy/General LAUSD Information:

Governmental Response Including Health Information, Announcements, Public Health Measures

Please leave favorite resources in the comments below. They will be incorporated into future updates. Thank you.

One thought on “The Price Of Pandemic Opportunities – Laptops, Public Policy And Science Awareness”

  1. I am grateful for all the good COVID-19 stuff I’ve found on this site – especially the videos that help explain things for kids. Any recommendations for kid-targeted video to explain physical distancing? Thanks.

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