Nine ways America is having the wrong conversation about 'reopening' schools by Andrea Ward

“When we think we have a choice between virtual learning and ‘normal’ learning. If our school buildings open for in-person instruction in a few weeks, things are going to look very different. Most of us agree that virtual learning, for the general population, is nowhere near as good as in-person learning. But the measures we would need to take to keep students and teachers safe in our schools would eliminate most, if not all, of what makes in-person learning so great. Collaborative group work? Nope. One-on-one conferences at the teacher’s desk? Sorry, no. Partner discussions, active learning ... you get the idea. Anxious teachers trying to avoid virus exposure may resort to lecturing from the front of the room and passing out worksheets, no matter how much they want to do better. ‘Normal learning’ is not on the table this year.

“When we pretend students are going to follow the safety guidelines. The vast majority of students will try to do their best, but let’s really think about what we will be asking them to do. I teach eighth grade. (I know, God bless me. I get that a lot.) If you haven’t been in an eighth-grade classroom since you were in eighth grade, you might not remember what one looks like. I will tell you. It looks like a whispering, giggling, snoring, snacking, writhing mass of humanity constantly touching each other. The only thing eighth-graders love to do more than touch each other is ignore rules created by adults. Yes, even to the detriment of their own health and safety. (Adolescent brain development at work.) There goes your six feet of separation and your mask requirement. Frequent, sustained hand-washing? Not when the sink is outside the bathroom in the hallway where all your bros are waiting.

“When we refer to the low infection and death rates among kids. Emerging evidence suggests that kids over 10 may contract and spread the virus just like adults do. Still, even if kids do get sick and die at lower rates, schools are also workplaces full of adults. Younger adults, older adults, adults who have underlying health conditions, adults who live with or care for people with underlying health conditions, adults who love working with children and want to serve their communities but don’t want to give up their lives for it. Can we really ask this of them when we have a viable alternative in virtual learning? When people use low child infection and death rates as a reason to open schools, the subtext is, ‘it probably won’t be your kid.’ But it will be someone’s. How many community members are we willing to sacrifice? Don’t answer that. The acceptable number of deaths is zero.

“When we imagine schools can make their programs COVID-safe without additional funding. It feels like every year we say we must ‘do more with less,’ as if it’s possible to make endless increases in efficiency. But I will tell you public education’s dirty secret: We are not doing more with less. When we get less — fewer teachers, fewer support staff, fewer resources, fewer programs — we do less, no matter how much we want to do more. This will be even more true when the pandemic-related decline in state and local tax revenues combines with the need to divert existing budgets to double transportation routes and custodial schedules and purchase PPE and disinfecting products and a plexiglass ‘bubble’ for every desk. How many mobile hotspots and curriculum supports could be purchased with those funds? How many existing programs and positions will need to be cut instead?

“When we equate teachers with front-line workers like doctors and nurses. Yes, it’s true that doctors and nurses voluntarily put themselves into close, personal contact with very sick, very contagious people. But the health care system is largely set up to mitigate the risk of this contact. Doctors and nurses wear extensive PPE. They generally see one patient at a time. Most health care facilities have plentiful disinfectants close at hand and effective cleaning procedures already in place. This is not to dismiss the often grave risks that health care workers undertake with every patient contact. But this contact is an essential function of their very essential work. Teachers can educate students remotely. It isn’t ideal, and we lose a lot of what we value about teacher-student relationships. But it can be done well, and it’s safe.

“When we assume that the greatest threat to children’s mental health and well-being comes from staying home. Schools provide critical support for student mental health, and we would need to be creative to serve students’ social and emotional needs well remotely. But when we use student mental health as a reason to go back to school during a pandemic, I wonder if we have deeply considered the environment we propose to send students back into. This will not be a year of teacher hugs and lunch with their friends and awesome collaborative projects. All the normal stresses will be compounded by anxiety about the virus, constant vigilance about safety, and possibly even the need to cope with the deaths of teachers or classmates. We also need to acknowledge the needs of special education, English learners, at-risk, low-socioeconomic-status, and other groups of vulnerable students that receive essential services through public schools. This decision is a no-win for many of them. Families of special-needs students may not be equipped to provide the continuous care or specialized education that their children receive at school. Parents in immigrant and low-income households may have jobs that lack the flexibility to stay home with children doing virtual learning. But COVID-19 has run rampant through low-income families, multi-generational households, and communities of color for just this same reason. The impacts of disease and death are often amplified in families living with economic and other types of insecurity, and we will not do these families any favors by putting their children at greater risk of contracting the virus.

“When we say that the entire U.S. economy depends on kids being in school buildings. The obvious truth is that if parents must work outside the home, their children must be supervised. But when we speak as if in-person school is the only solution to this problem, we reveal a profound lack of creativity and narrowness of thinking. If our government and employers have an interest in maximizing labor force participation and economic productivity — and they do — then they must take the lead in solving the problem of what to do with the children. During normal times, public school is the solution. These are not normal times, and our normal solution is unsafe, so we need an alternative. Perhaps employers could be incentivized to offer parents maximum flexibility. Schools could help families form small ‘pods’ to share supervision while limiting their exposure. Teachers could support virtual learning by meeting in person weekly with very small groups. Or maybe the federal government could offer schools and families something like the billions (trillions?) of dollars it paid out to major corporations at the beginning of this crisis, seemingly without a second thought. Bottom line: the economy is not going to come roaring back to life if we provide the virus with a previously untapped population of 56 million hosts who mostly don’t understand personal space.

”When we compare ourselves to Denmark (or almost any other country). Yes, Denmark and lots of other countries have begun sending their children back to school without evidence of an increase in virus transmission. But these countries have largely controlled community spread of COVID-19; we have not. Why should we think our infection rates will behave like other countries’ when we have completely different baseline data? We are, as we’ve always said, exceptional.

“When we suggest that this is an easy call. This is a devastating decision for anyone in the position to make it. Suffering is sure to follow any choice, no matter how thoughtful. I have no decision-making power, but as an educator, I have spent countless hours envisioning the geographical space of my classroom, mentally marking off 6 feet here and there, thinking about what kind of personal forcefield I might be able to MacGyver that would allow me to crouch down next to a student, look them in the eye, have a real conversation. Prefigured on empty spaces, it seemed like it could work. But then the faces of my students filled the hallways of my imagination, shouting, laughing, pushing, hugging, breathing, because that’s what they need, and that’s what they’ll do if we put them all back together. They’re human. We’re human. The acceptable number of deaths is zero” (Des Moines Register).

-Andrea Ward is a teacher in central Iowa.