Not to mention, if they are counting last year a lot of schools had very strict policies regarding Covid isolation. If a kid wasn’t able to isolate, their 10 days of monitoring ended 10 days after the Covid positive person’s 10 days. I tested positive 12 days after the rest of my family and restarted my daughter’s clock - had she not tested positive herself she would have been out for a minimum of 32 days. She ended up being home for 24 days instead. Luckily, most of our house was positive all at once, and not like dominoes. She did attend remote learning, but not all the teachers did it every day and if there was a sub, she was marked absent for that class.

We got the obligatory “your kid has been chronically absent” letter with a sticky note telling us it was just a state requirement to send it, and they were well aware of why she had been home and not to worry about it.

Wear what you want to wear! But fair warning, come wintertime, you’re going to wear a beanie/knit cap just like everyone else.

The big hospitals have volunteer services.

My 6 year old stepped off the bottom step in a pool while I was turned the other way saying something to my grandmother. He made absolutely no noise at all and I only realized he was drowning because I turned around to check and make sure he was still within arm’s reach (you know, so he wouldn’t drown). It’s happens SO fast and it’s so quiet. Now I won’t even swim with my younger kids unless there is a 1:1 adult to kid ratio, even if there are lifeguards, and we don’t take our eyes off them.

My 6 year old stepped off the bottom step in a pool while I was turned the other way saying something to my grandmother. He made absolutely no noise at all and I only realized he was drowning because I turned around to check and make sure he was still within arm’s reach (you know, so he wouldn’t drown). It’s happens SO fast and it’s so quiet. Now I won’t even swim with my younger kids unless there is a 1:1 adult to kid ratio, even if there are lifeguards, and we don’t take our eyes off them.

You can do it without a lawyer and get it notarized. Legalzoom has a really easy format that asks questions and then puts it all together for you. Then you get it notarized, make sure your POA knows where to find it, and move on.

U/zombieintrovert found this as I was scrolling looking for that other post

You can drive from the top of the state to the bottom in an hour, and other than the far rural Northwest and Northeast corners of the state you won’t find yourself far from civilization. Education overall is considered good when looking at the US as a whole. There are big wealth disparities between the rich towns and the poor towns, and education follows because the property taxes in the towns are what fund the school systems. Rich town = high taxes = highly funded school system. It’s easy if you picked an area to look into the school systems in different towns. I included a list of sundown towns in a comment further down where someone didn’t know the term. Some of the towns I nodded at, other ones I raised my eyebrows at because I am surprised. I think racism in general is certainly quieter up here than other states, and tends to be more systemic than personal. You won’t find people casually throwing around the N word, so a large part of the population doesn’t think it exists here.

The culture in the northeast is “kind but not nice”, as the saying goes. People here are often viewed as being cold and standoffish in comparison to just about anywhere else. We embrace it and you will see many jokes about just wanting to be left the heck alone. But people are genuinely kind - New England is the type of place where you can get a flat tire and someone will stop and change it for you without saying more than 5 words and just be on their way. It’s not personal, we’re usually just either too cold or too hot.

There’s a funny post on here from the past week that kind of lays out what each county in CT is like, I’ll see if I can find it and tag you. The state is super small in comparison to any other you have been in. Honestly, you might as well consider CT/MA/RI if you’re looking to come to the area.

I think where you’re coming from is a helpful thing to know, because then we can address what is different here vs where you are. If you’re coming from southern CA, you may find that living here feels cheap but the weather is rough. If you’re coming from MS, you’ll feel like everything is expensive but I promise it’s worth it. If you’re coming from MT, you’ll feel like everything is close together. It’s just very hard to make comparisons without knowing where you’re from, because the US is so varied!

A Sundown Town is a town that (unofficially in today’s day and age) is a “white people only” town.

https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/