A Look at Reopening Schools In America

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By Larry Daniels

We need to travel along with the average student to school to gain perspective on the dangers they face during a pandemic. Let’s start from home and put on a backpack.

In a recent poll conducted by Axios-Ipsos, a survey consisting of 219 US parents revealed the following results:

How much of a risk to your health and well-being is sending your child to school in the fall?

71% of the total respondents said it would be a large/moderate risk.
82% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Democrats.
53% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Republicans.
89% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Black
80% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Hispanic
64% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as White
72% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Male
70% in the large/moderate risk group were identified as Female

In the same report, Axios found that one in three Americans trust the federal government to look out for their family’s interests. The lowest in 16 weeks of the report.

An underwhelming 62% of Americans now say they’re wearing a mask whenever they leave the house, up 9 percentage points since June, Axios also found. Our children clearly need a better example of mask-wearing in the home.

In a recent, heartbreaking article published by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, a jaw-dropping 31% of children tested positive for Covid-19 up to age 18. 16,797 out of 54,022 were shown to be positive after being tested by the State of Florida. The positivity rate for Florida’s entire population stands around roughly 11%. Granted, Florida is a major hotspot, but clearly a very large number of children are already infected with the disease before starting school weeks from now.

Bus transportation to school is an issue that doesn’t get a lot of attention these days. Several dozen children crammed into a bus is not exactly social distancing. I imagine mask wearing will be mandatory by children, but are we really going to expect the bus driver to police this 100% of the time? Kids fidget; it is what kids do. Senator Ted Cruz was recently photographed not wearing a mask on a mandatory mask wearing flight. The airline is investigating. Ted is a grownup; an important grownup. The virus spreads easily in enclosed spaces like buses and airliners. HVAC filtration is an important consideration for the movement of the virus for passengers in these situations.

We have arrived at school folks. What can we expect? ABC News recently reported a massive cluster of cases at Al-Taqwa College in Australia. It is believed to have started with a grade 6 teacher, who is thought to have contracted the virus at a family gathering, and it has spread rapidly to staff and students. At this stage, 147 cases have been linked to the school. Figures provided by Victoria’s Department of Health show 76 of those cases are students, 28 are staff, 16 are close contacts and 27 remain under investigation. It is still not clear when the school will reopen.

The New York Times recently reported that New York City schools will not fully reopen in the fall. Mayor Bill De Blasio announced on Wednesday that public schools would still not fully reopen in the September, saying that the classroom attendance would instead be limited to only 1 to 3 days a week in an effort to continue to curb the coronavirus outbreak. Under the mayor’s plan, there will probably be no more than a dozen people in a classroom at a time, including teachers and aides. Educators widely considered online learning to be a poor substitute for the classroom, especially for younger children and those with special needs. The problem seen here is that this group is also a higher risk when it comes to the virus. School leaders will let parents know in August which days children can report to school, and which days they will learn remotely. The city’s models are based on current federal guidelines that recommend 6′ of distance between students. City Hall does not yet know precisely how many parents are planning to keep their children home from school but will begin formally asking families next week. The vast majority of the city’s public school students are low income, and many of their parents and caretakers are essential workers who had little choice but to report to work, even at the height of the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest unanswered question of the reopening effort is how working families will find child care for the days when their children cannot be physically present in school. The mayor said the city would look to maximize classroom space whenever possible but acknowledged, “this is something we’re going to be building as we go along.” Keep in mind that New York City is the largest school system in the country; by far.

Though Union leaders have raised alarms about whether schools will have enough personal protective gear and nurses to safely reopen, the city has said it will deep clean schools each night and have sanitizer and disinfectant in all classrooms and common spaces. Some teachers have said they did not have enough resources to keep schools clean when the virus was spreading in March. All teachers and students will be expected to wear masks throughout the school day come fall.

In an article posted in the Los Angeles Times this week, Superintendent Austin Beutner announced that the Los Angeles campuses will not reopen for classes on August 18th, and the nation’s 2nd largest school system will continue with online learning until further notice because of the worsening coronavirus surge. Children, he said, “are looking at a lifetime of consequences if we can’t get them back in a school setting as soon as possible, but it’s gotta be safe. And what we can’t do is turn our schools into some giant petri dish and have irreparable health and life consequences for all of the school community.” A dear friend who is a schoolteacher in Wisconsin applauded this approach. She has often said the students’ safety comes first. In my view, the safety of teachers and staff must be held in the highest regard as well.

Conclusion:

Political forces are currently in a rush to reopen schools. In my view, President Trump and Secretary DeVos are in a panic to get America back to “normal” to win votes in the fall. Families, students, and school employees will be put at risk for political gain. The outlook for virus growth is trending upward throughout the nation. Fortunately, Trump and DeVos do not have the power of reopening schools. They have recently threatened to withhold federal funding for schools. I am almost certain that a majority of Americans would disagree with this tactic. Personally, I would not let my child attend school this fall. Rather than rushing to make decisions about how to safely reopen while the virus numbers are still surging, let’s all have an intelligent discussion about it when the virus numbers come down.

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