As the days dwindle toward Labor Day, teachers, students and parents are looking forward to the familiar ring of school bells and yellow buses. Everyone involved in public education wants to get things back to something resembling normalcy amid this historic pandemic.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, have both voiced support for a full reopening. “We know that being in school is best for our kids,” Raimondo said last week.
But this is a complicated issue with many moving parts. And as we get closer to opening day, teachers are beginning to revolt. The union representing Boston teachers disclosed last Friday that a survey of members said they support remote-only instruction. Two thirds of the teachers said they are at high-risk for Covid 19 or live with someone who is.
It isn’t only teachers who fear the risks. Boston school nurses, bus drivers and other education workers thronged City Hall for a sit-in protesting reopening. They cited cramped offices without windows, poor ventilation in schools and an array of other safety issues.
Teachers in Rhode Island have so far favored negotiation over confrontation. Yet, Bob Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association-Rhode Island union, says, “there is no way we’re doing a full reopening.” Walsh says teachers want the politicians to rely on health and safety guided by science and medicine.
Let’s be honest — an in-person return is fraught with anxiety and risk. There is no vaccine and no reliable treatment. Up to thirty percent of current COVID-19 tests are falsely negative.
Just think about practical questions. So we take students’ temperatures at a bus stop. What happens to the kids who have fever? We can’t just leave them lingering by the side of the road.
And what happens when they get on the bus? Do we have plans for socially distancing? If so, how many extra buses would be required to enforce distancing?
New England has an older population. Many teachers are in high-risk groups. This includes anyone who is elderly or has asthma, heart disease, diabetes or obesity. Plus, anyone who has ever been treated for cancer or has a compromised immune system.
Does anyone know how many children go home every day to be cared for by grandparents, who are in the most vulnerable group?
Rhode Island’s education commissioner Angelica Infante-Green has called planning for an in-person return a “nightmare.” Well, perhaps education bureaucrats should have spent more time this summer figuring out how to make distance learning better than planning for an all-out return.
We all want schools to reopen. But how many parents want their kids to be guinea pigs in an experiment with scant medical oversight?
There is already a horrible harbinger. One of the first districts in the country to reopen last week was in Indiana, where on the first day back a student who sat in classes and walked the halls was found to have the virus. That sent administrators scrambling.
What’s sacrosanct about reopening in September? Perhaps we take a deep breath and start remotely and reopen classes in phases.
On Saturday, Rhode Island Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse sent a strongly worded letter urging the Trump Administration to reject slashing aid to districts that open remotely. The last thing our children need is to become pawns in the never-ending culture wars that have so divided our country.
