Back to School, COVID Edition 2.0!

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and twelve, which is airing in late August of twenty twenty one. We're going to be talking back to school though with the background of COVID and particularly the delta variant going on right now, and how that is going to inform this school year, and what we can all do to do our best to make sure that our children have an uninterrupted year of education, that people are able to focus on their work despite this background of the pandemic going on. But we'll start with a little bit of light stuff, namely back to school shopping. We just got an email yesterday. I'm very excited about. So we've done back to school episodes for a couple of years now, and Sarah has always mentioned how awesome it is that her local public school when her kids went there, had a fundraiser where you could buy all the prepackaged school supplies for the individual classes. It was great. We never had that, but this year we do. Like they teamed up with Staples to do boxes for the elementary school grades. So I'm very excited about that. Possibly my kids will be less excited if they're not picking out their own pencils, but you know whatever, we'll focus that energy on back to school clothes shopping, right, I mean, Sarah, are you doing much back to school shopping these days? It's so funny because we're flipped because now the school that the kids are going to does not have the boxes. So we all piled in the car and went to Target, and I actually I handed each kid well not Doneevie, but I handed Annabel and Camera in their lists and kind of helped. They walked around and like found all the stuff, and I think they had fun doing it. I also like, we were at the mall and I allowed Annabel to splurge and buy a Kate Spade pencil case, which I kind of cover it. So we had a lot of fun doing back to school supplies shopping this year. We don't really get to do the clothes shopping because our school is uniform only, but they were kind of excited when even the uniform clothing arrived from Land's End and Gap, you know, had to buy all the bottoms and stuff the shirts come from, like the uniform company. But yeah, that's been our We're fully prepped. We've got new backpacks, locked and loaded. I'm trying to really enjoy the parts of back to school that I typically enjoy, even with other stressors going on at the same time. And you've been buying yourself school supplies, well that's okay. First of all, I always basically year round by myself what one might consider school supplies, and it tends to be like the more angsty I feel, the more shipments are headed to my house. And right now I have a jet Pens order in as well as an Aeron Chondran order in, so that says something. We can gauge the stress level by how many different stationary type stores are getting Sarah's business. But you guys have some easier logistics this year. I mean, this is one of the few years this is going to happen, but you have all three kids in one school. Correct, Yes, you said it was one of the few years. So actually our school goes to eighth grade, so if we end up sticking with it, I have potentially five years where this could happen, which is very awesome and part of why we did this. It is one drop off, one pickup. You do have to The school is like made up of little individual buildings, so you do have to kind of go around each circle and drop off each kid separately. Especially with COVID they do the whole temp check thing and everything. It's not like we get to dump them all off at the front door. But still it is a million times easier than what we were doing previously, and I'm just really excited for that logistics aspect of it. Yeah. Plus, if there's a lot of I mean, if individual small buildings, the lines for any of them couldn't be too long. It can be one of these things that's out blocking traffic, like a mile down the highway or some ridiculousness. Correct, So I think I had mentioned that the elementary school kind of Bell was going to previously. It's a wonderful school and it's close to our house, but the carpool line was like thirty minutes. So this other school is farther from our house, but a much, much, much easier drop off, and it is directly on my way to work and near one of the hospitals that Josh works at. So it's again, there was a lot of logistics in our decision making, as I think is warranted, and so just excited about that. Yeah, I mean, our logistics are going in the opposite direction. We have three different schools that we are in this year with different start times stop times because it one's a high school, on's and middle school. One's an elementary school, and so by the nature of public school busing, they have staggered start times because you know, you need to run the same buses for the different schools. So we'll see how that all goes. I am going to say the default will probably be the school bus, just because it's going to otherwise. I don't see how we could even do pickups for everybody or drop offs. It's just not going to work. Yeah, So I'm a little bit concerned about the logistics and we'll see how it goes. But you know, with everything, you figure it out, You get kids to their stuff, you work out a schedule and a routine that works, and it doesn't have to be perfect on day one, but the routine will get there eventually. And you know, we're trying to be excited about it too, because you know, it's fun to start school and see your friends again and start new classes, and especially you know, the kids going into middle school and high school have a lot of choice over what courses they are taking, and that has some cool elements for being excited about the school process and learning because you're getting to direct more of your learning and that's a pretty cool thing. I can't remember if this is your oldest first year of high school or so, yeah, it's his first year of high school. Yeah, I remember like looking at like the high school like course choices and being like, wow, this is so cool. That's so exciting for him. It is. It is. And Sam's going to one year of the old middle school, the one that Jasper went to for three years, and then our district is opening a new middle school and Sam and Ruth will be at that in another year. That they went ahead and decide. Normally, when people open a school, they do it one grade at a time, but our district has decided to just fully open it, and so that's, you know, going to be good that the two of them will be at this new school together. But it's like a school that doesn't even exist at the moment, So we'll see how this all plays out. But yeah, we're looking forward to it and looking forward to having Alex start his you know, going to our local public elementary school. He was supposed to start last year, and then we didn't because we weren't sure that things would be opening in person, and so we put them in a private school that was going to open in person. But I mean, it looks like things are opening in person for the fall, so let's hope we stick with that. So that introduces our COVID version of back to School Sarah, you guys, I mean, in Florida, it's just the case. Numbers are crazy right now. Right we're recording this mid August, and so maybe I'll be super optimistic and in ten days when this records, we'll be in a better place. I don't know, there is a lot, lot lot of COVID down here right now. To the point where our hospitals are back in kind of crisis mode again, not able to do the regular surgeries that would be taking place. You know, my husband's hospital they converted the cafeteria into COVID unit. They're worried about like daily oxygen deliveries and whether we're gonna have enough for the whole hospital system. Like it's it's pretty bad. And the good news is that still even with DELTA, most children are not getting severely ill from COVID, and I remain grateful for that every day, both as a parent and for my patients. The number is a little bit more than zero, though, And I guess you know, everyone's gonna have to enter the school year knowing that there's a chance your kids might get COVID and that they're probably going to do fine with it, but there are a few kids who do get sick from it. Just to like, I'm not going to give very specific numbers, but like our hospital has, I don't know, well, I don't care. I'll give numbers because by the time it's airs, they'll be very old numbers. But around ten pediatric in patients with COVID related illnesses, and the larger hospital to the south of US has about thirty, so it's not zero. And so I'm entering this year with like cautious optimism and trepidation. And I selfishly am probably a little bit more worried about multiple quarantines than I am I don't know, but to say selfishly, But then I am about my kids getting COVID in part because they're healthy and they're fairly young, and they had it before. But everyone's entering the year I think a little more anxious than we've ever been before, maybe even more so than past COVID years, just because at least down here, I think when we had the twenty twenty surge, well, I guess the schools were opening virtually, so it's just a little bit different. It's pretty much all anyone's talking about. And it's stressful. Yeah, and I you know, but again we always want to, you know, keep risks in mind, as you know, we have to weigh risks. As our previous guest, Emily Ostro would say, I mean, you know, kids will be some will be hospitalized for COVID. Your risks are probably higher of that if you have pre existing conditions, right that these are the things that are the children who are more likely to have bad effects from COVID. Often there's a co whatever I'm sorry, I don't know the word. Yeah, comorbidity or co occurring condition. I will say that the biggest theme for those hospitalized, at least down here right now are teens who could have been eligible for vaccination as well who are unvaccinated. And also obesity seems to be a really salient risk factor for older kids. Yeah, and you know, there's it's obviously very scary. There have been other things. Of course, kids have been hospitalized for too. I know we've brought my kids to the er with RSV in the past, so there are still, you know, risks for this. There have been risks for other things as well. We want to make sure we're always evaluating all of them though. Of course Sarah and I are vaccinated, and I've vaccinated my fourteen year old. He is fully vaccinated and has been for months, and as soon as Sam turns twelve, like we will be in the clinic the next day. That's how pro vaccine we are here, that we really do believe that it is the best way to fight this pandemic and how we can get back to normal and so if people are, you know, thinking about it. If probably a lot of our listeners are vaccinated, but if you have not done that yet, thinking about the upcoming school year, please go do it. Get your kids who are twelve years or old or vaccinated as well. I mean, Sarah, if you had a twelve year old, you would do it right, absolutely, and I plan to do it, you know, to give my kids the vaccine as soon as they are eligible. You know, to those who have been hesitant in the past, this is just maybe a reasonable time to just look at things again, just because there may be factor. You know, we're now dealing with a slightly more contagious version. We're seeing a little bit more in kids. We're really seeing more of it in the unvaccinated, and the vaccine's been out for a little bit longer, so that might ease some people's comfort level if they want to look at data. Adverse effects can occur, but they are quite quite rare. So just you know, an invitation if this is something you weren't quite ready for before, it's okay to reevaluate and look at things now, because I think it's kind of more and more obvious that it's Number one protective of our kids overall, and number two kind of the right thing to do because as these kids may be spreading it more in schools, and I do think that's inevitable, and we're going to get to that next. You know, they could bring it home to vulnerable family members, maybe somebody who's immunosuppressed and took the vaccine but it didn't you know, take full effect, and so whatever we can do to perhaps lower that burden, I think is helpful. And some good news that we got over the past few days which is probably helpful for a lot of our listeners if you are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant in the next few months, that the CDC is now recommending that pregnant women do get vaccinated, that there is no increased risk of miscarriages in the first twenty weeks, and that women who do get COVID while they were pregnant are at increased risk of adverse events, including pre term births and other such complications. So that on the margin, you know, that was something I know that some people who hadn't gotten vaccinated that was because they were looking to expand their family in the next few months, and that is completely understandable, and I feel like that has not been brought up enough in the vaccination discussion, that of course pregnant women are concerned about putting anything new into their bodies, and especially when it is you know, emergency authorized. But they have been doing the research now and I think that is very compelling and so you know, hopefully people will keep that in mind as well. So we're going to take a quick ad break and then we're going to come back and talk about practical things we can do to get through this school year given some of the background and you COVID and the issues that will cause in schools. So we'll be back right after this audbreak. All right, Well, we are back talking about back to school with the background of pandemic COVID here for a third school year and what that is going to wind up meaning. So I think, you know what we we want to talk through scenario planning because while a lot of the politics and the loudest voices are talking about mask mandates, what district has it and if they're defying their governor or what have you, the masks are going to wind up being less relevant for what is going on, you know, than the quarantines, which is what is going to wind up happening and disrupting in other school years. So, Sarah, what is your school's quarantine policy like that you are looking at here. I actually don't know, to be completely honest. It previously was very strict in that not only if your child is in a class and they were wearing masks at least indoors, all the entire class would be out for like ten days. I don't think they were doing fourteen days. I think it was around ten days. And they were also quarantining siblings of the exposed. So for example, if annabel was masked in a classroom with a kid who got sick, then not only could Annabelle not go to school for the next week, but neither could Cameron or Genevieve. So that's pretty strict. I don't know if that is going to be the policy this year. I've not seen anything specific to that recommended by the CDC. I know everyone listening to this is going to say, oh, I either I wish my school had that, or oh my gosh, that is completely beyond So, you know, opinions may vary. I wish we could maybe, you know, just being editorializing a little bit of a middle ground would probably make me happier, But that's maybe where we are. They haven't released new guidelines for this year, so I'm not entirely sure. And even though Laura, I know the mass stuff is distracting, but it is also fresh because there's so much uncertainty. Like if you read the headlines with Broward School District, which is the public school district we were in. Again, we're in a private school, but I think they tend to align because we're in Broward County. It was like, school recommends masks, governor does not allow masks. School's going to defy the governor. Governor's going to withhold the salaries. School's going to go along with the governor. No, they're not. There's a go fundme. I mean, it is like when you're in it, it may be irrelevant, but it is very hard to ignore. So I guess we will see what happens. But I will also admit that I do plan on sending my children in masks to school. They're very used to wearing them. I am not planning to send them in n ninety five masks or kyn ninety five masks because I personally find those incredibly uncomfortable and do not feel that it is realistic to ask my children to wear that all day, and I think it could backfire into them wearing no mask when I'm not watching them. So just regular cloth, comfortable or disposable masks they'll be going in every day. And I am more anxious were the quarantines than anything else, in part because our policy is quite strict, and you know, we do have an anny for that reason, and she's great, but you know, part of me is even nervous that she'll at some point kind of lose her patience if she's having to basically homeschool again, which was terrible for our family. Yeah, I mean, I think our district is going to have masks required from what I've been reading. And the reason is not because of so much masks, you know, whatever the data may be on them or not on them. It's because it will allow them to limit the quarantines because then somebody won't be a close contact if they have been wearing a mask around someone, because the definition is like unmasked for fifteen minutes with somebody who has contracted COVID. So if you have the mask, then you can avoid the quarantine of children who most likely don't have it, but who were around the person who did. Which the scenario planning we want people to work with here is you could get a call from your school and saying, if you know you have a quarantine policy like Sarah's does, your kids can't come in for ten days? What are you going to do with that? Now? Hopefully there will be virtual options for the kids to keep learning, but I'm not sure that every district will do that. You know they've committed to in person school, now they may not have the setup for doing virtual. So now you've just lost ten days of learning and you as a family need to figure out the childcare arrangements. So hard thing to think about, but got to think about it. What are you going to do when this happens? What is your backup childcare? Can you or your partner stay home with your kids? How are you going to stay on top of what is going on in the curriculum so that you are able to do some of that stuff when that inevitably happens, so that the kids don't get too far behind. I would say another good thing a lot of districts are doing for older children is that if you are vaccinated, you can avoid the quarantine, which again then you're not missing school. So that may be another nudge if you have adolescents to get the vaccine for them, because then they won't miss as much school, and certainly missing school when you are over twelve, you are you know, there's a lot more that you're not getting. I mean, it's obviously annoying to have young kids that they're home, that you've got to watch and all that, but it's a little less of, you know, the stuff that is going to really be hard for Sarah. Sarah's making a face. Yeah, I get it. I get it, because it's you need to learn. They have to learn to read. I mean, like that's you have a kid, you're lucky because you're youngest who was affected during this time. Well he was able to go in person and he's a great reader. Like it's been easy for him. It's hard for me to know. You know, in our house, we have some struggles with that. And it may have happened, it may have been just as much of a struggle without the pandemic, but I'll never know, and I can't tell. And I what I do observe is that, like, literally, sometimes it looks like online learning is zero learning. And if you're getting farther and farther behind as a young child, one might argue that that's worse than if you can at least already kind of read and reason and maybe you'll maybe instead of learning calculus, you'll like dive into like Greek mythology and do something else useful like these foundational skills. Missing out on them, combined with the fact that some kids just do so poorly with screen learning, I think is just as bad. Yeah, they're both bad. No, I totally get that. I totally get that, and I agree that, especially for young kids, virtual learning is often really really tough, and for some kids more than others. We've mentioned in the past that Alex's private kindergirl garten class was all little boys because guests who did not want to attempt virtual learning with their active little boys that there were there was a definite element of this that some of the six and seven year old girls were better able to sit and pay attention. And I don't like gender stereotypes, but I can tell you that that is what happened with our school. It's a gender average, gender average, Yes, exactly. Well, I'm curious, what are you What are you going to do then, I mean if you because you think about these things, right Sarah, So, I mean, what advice do you have for our listeners. If people are you know, facing a situation where you are concerned about a child potentially getting behind and there could be long quarantines, I mean, what are you planning on. We've already had to do some things. I mean, we have a reading tutor that we're working with, sometimes some of it in person and some of it via zoom, because one on one via zoom is a little bit different than an entire class via zoom. And also we found that an outsider is better than a parent sometimes with certain things, or you know, that may be unique to our family, or maybe just be that my husband and I are not good tutors, but whatever it may be, that's that's been helpful. So I could see expanding that supplemental help in the future if needed. You know, again, we do have a full time nanny, so we will lean on her likely during some of these quarantine periods. You know, at some point she could burn out, and I think if it became dire, I would think about also like hiring like a college student to maybe come in for a few hours and do some tutoring, particularly for Cameron so that she can entertain Genevieve and animals. Is pretty independent. So yeah, I've certainly thought through a lot of this. I mean, there's always that catastrophizing that happens where I'm like, screw it, I'm just gonna quits much job. But then I think about that and it doesn't make any sense, and it also wouldn't be very nice to my colleagues and patients who really continued to need medical care. So we will not be doing that. But it sometimes crosses my mind. So if that's also you your normal, Yeah, you're normal, and it's it is so stressful the way I'm thinking about what the quarantines that people are going to be dealing with this year. It's like having a baby in daycare during the winter, is how I'm thinking about it. Because the first year that when Jasper was a baby and we went through the first winter in daycare, it was literally only five weeks out of about three or four months that he was not able to attend. And that is a pretty hard burn rate to sustain as a working parent. Of a coverage of you know, needing to have your kid at home during this time, and figure out, well, how can I keep advancing in my career, how can I even meet the basic expectations of my job when I have these sudden absences that can be extended. You don't know how long they'll be, that can happen very suddenly, and that are hard to cope with. So, you know, I think it's just make sure you got backup plans, make sure you've thought about what you're going to do, make sure you've had a family conversation if there are two of you, how you plan to split. Hopefully not, but if they do happen, the extended periods at home, if there is professional support from elsewhere you can bring in, whether that's other family members or hired caregivers like a nanny, a sitting service, a backup sitting service of people who are obviously fully vaccinated because they wouldn't want to be around potential exposures otherwise. But you know just what you're going to do, whether you can work from home, like what sort of scenario you can set up with your manager to possibly have extended periods of working from home Suddenly if it needs to happen, and if you are in a job that does not allow for that, you need to figure something out because it could totally happen. And I want to just give my feeling like I really wish this wasn't happening for a third school year in a row, and it is so frustrating, and I feel like what parents have been through over the past few years is just so much rough. We can all just sympathize to gather that we have all been through this, and obviously some people have had it much worse than others, but it hasn't been easy for anyone. So we want to just give a note of encouragement for everyone as we're going into this school year to think about what can go wrong, but also try to be as upbeat as you can to give the kids some element of normalcy and make it feel like as much of an adventure as you can, even if there are so many things that are so tough right now, Yeah, the whole one day at a time, and I think looking forward rather than back is really helpful right now. I of course am very pro vaccine, as we've discussed, but I think I'm tired of hearing people say preventable. I mean, who cares. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. We don't even know. It's not really relevant to what we're dealing with now, And I think it does take away from, like, you know what, be grateful for the fact that we still are starting school, be grateful for every day, and take one day at a time and kind of focus on strategizing and moving forward. And I'm preaching to myself because I was very much stuck in a spiral. But I think the more that kind of like the early days in the pandemic, we can just zoom into each day and celebrate the good things and be safe within reason, the better off we're all going to be exactly all right. Well, on that note, let's go to our listener Q and a part of this episode. So did you want to take this one? Or did you yes? Because I want you to answer it because I don't have I don't have as many thoughts as you do. Well, why don't you read it? Then? Sure? I like this phrase. My question is should I leave my gilded cage but stagnant job. I have fifteen years of work experience, including five years at a top management consultancy and an MBA from a top school. I work at a large organization in organizational development middle management, which is my preferred field. The big pros at my job are that I have amazing work life balance, very good pay, and very little stress. I enjoy my coworkers and overall are very comfortable and able to handle my mom responsibilities, which is wonderful. The problem is that our company is shrinking and promotion opportunities are very few and far between. We are also going back to the office, which is a huge negative due to my long commute and will significantly impact my work life balance. I have some flexibility, but not as much as I prefer. At my company, I'm considered a great performer, but fairly green, with only only in quotes fifteen years of experience. Most likely it would be another five years before I was up for promotion to an executive level. I fear that staying at the company will stagnate me and my skill growth and make me less marketable. I don't want to lose out on future potential income or career growth, but I also recognize I have a pretty good setup. I would appreciate your insights. Yeah, well, this is a good question, and we get a version of this one a lot. I feel like we've been doing a lot of best of both worlds. Frequently asked questions light life, which is that you know, people have worked really hard to get to a place of good work life balance, and that's great, but life is not built on work life balance alone. And sometimes people start saying, well, you know, I'm still an ambitious person. I want to figure out what to do with myself, and yes, I can handle all my responsibilities, but I would like to be challenged too. So my general thought is that there is zero downside to looking around for other opportunities. There is no law against job hunting, especially now, there's probably a lot of opportunities out there. We keep hearing about, you know, how many people are trying to scale up hiring and are having trouble doing so, the perks that people are offering. It's good to look and see what's out there, and this is true for everyone. There is zero downside to looking around, to boosting your network with the goal of seeing what is out there. So what I would recommend this person do is really start working through your contacts, have those lunches, have those coffees, call the people you haven't talked to in a while, figure out what's going on in your industry, which organizations are scaling up, or maybe related industries that you might find interesting. As you see what is out there, as you see what is available, as you see what you might be qualified for, you might decide that what you have is awesome and you want to stick with it. But you also might decide to try something else. It is also always possible that you will get a job with even more work life balance and even better pay, and that's more exciting. Like you don't know, people haven't optimized for everything in their jobs because we tend to take what job we see and that is convenient and that is being offered at the time we are looking, which means it's highly unlikely that it is perfect on every dimension except one, right, So it's always possible that you will find a even better job. I would also say that you don't know for sure that you won't get promoted with your own organization too. I mean, people can often just assume things and not say anything, But if it is a goal of yours to move up the ladder, then have a conversation with your manager and say, like, listen, I would like to be challenged more. I would like to have more responsibilities. Here are some things I've thought about doing. What do you think of any of this? And your manager might say, hey, that sounds great, Yes, go do that, or they might say, hey, by the way, did you know that Joe is retiring next week? And they're like, his job is coming up? Who Now that I know you're interested in it, let's talk about whether it would be a good fit for you. You You know, you just don't know until you have this conversation, so there's no downside. Go ahead and have it. Go ahead and look around. You may not decide to rock the boat at all, but you may decide to and maybe, you know, give yourself a couple of months to figure this out and we'll see how it goes. Love it. I don't have much to add to that one. I think that was I just liked your answer. Great answer, And I hope this listener gets back to us maybe in a couple of months, and lets us know what she does. But she does stay in the gilded cage or find something else, all right, So our love of the week mine is going to be morning runs. I don't run in the morning all that often in the early morning because it's just hard with a baby who wakes up early and sort of is trading off with me. Michael, I often want to sleep during my trade off part of the morning. But this morning I got up went for a run. I went past this beautiful mist over a field. It was just gorgeous and it was only seventy degrees. It'll be ninety five by the middle of the day. But running in seventy degrees with the mist, it was just so nice. It was a great way to start the day. And yes, I'm tired because I didn't get enough sleep last night, but maybe I'll take a nap later and then I could get my nap and the run in the morning. So that's that's my love of the week. Oh I wish we had any time of the day here that you could run in seventy degrees. It's not possible because it never gets to seventy degrees, sadly, All right, Well, my love of the week is so you know how you'll have like a phone background, then you leave it there for like three years and you realize you have a picture of like your two year old and they're actually five and blah, blah blah. Well, I had subscribed to some email newsletters and I think it was like the simplified one and she's like, I have a summer free phone background, and I was like, why not? So I put it on for summer. It was this cute little summer wave scene. It was awkwa. It was very nice. And then August hit and I got another newsletter from a different person. This one was from inkwal Press, with who we had on the Tanya Dalton on the podcast a couple of years ago, and I put on her calendar as the background, the free thing, and it's you know, these free ones are polished and pretty because some designer made them, and I just think I might be like a seasonal phone background person. Now it's kind of fun. Yeah. No, I didn't change mine for years, and then you know, last spring I put on a nice flowery scene and I'm enjoying looking at that, but I guess, yes, I should change it again at some point. You can get it autumn leaves. When it turns out you look at it so many times a day, can you know if you put something inspiring it could actually affect your mood, which would be kind of cool. So something to think about. All right, well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking going back to school during the time of COVID. We are wishing all the best for our listeners, happy and healthy school year with lots of good things, even if there will be some challenges. So we will be back next week with more on making work in life fit. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.