Why am I not surprised?

 

Last week, I wrote about our school district's plan to reopen in-person instruction for the elementary school children on October 6th and 13th.  Although this was good news, I knew that there was a huge possibility that it wouldn't happen.  I wrote about how one of the main things that I have learned in this pandemic is not to trust any announcement that anyone makes until it actually happens. As a result, I really did not get my hopes up which turned out to be a smart thing.  Our district sent out this email today announcing that they are postponing the return of students back into the classroom due to a rising trend in Covid-19 cases.  This news was released just four days before Ella was supposed to go back to school!  I must admit that I was temporarily disappointed and wanted to cry, but proud to say that I got over it in a matter of minutes.  There has just been so many cancellations and disappointments since the middle of March that I have finally started to get used to them.  I basically have become numb to these sorts of things.  And, although I still would love especially for Ella to return to school, I am just going to keep on marching with this challenging and, at times, ridiculous homeschool program because I just don't have a choice.

And just for the record, let it be known that our county's department of healthy "recommended" that no school districts return to in-person instruction because we were one person away from hitting the predetermined, maximum number of Covid-19 cases in our county.  We are only allowed to have 75 cases per 100,000 people in our county which is only .07% of our population.  As of yesterday, our county was at 74 cases per 100,000 people.  In my humble opinion, this number is absolutely ridiculous!  At this rate, we will NEVER be allowed to send our children back to school until a vaccine is available to everyone.  It actually infuriates me that the powers to be have determined this to be the "safe percentage" as it just seems nearly impossible to maintain.  Our leaders are basically subjecting our children to a less-than-quality education this year and forcing them to fall behind academically for years to come.  Oh, how I wish that I could change this!