In early July, a union rep texted me wondering what I thought about returning to school in the fall. She felt that most teachers in our city were not interested in returning to classrooms in the fall but would prefer Distance Learning exclusively for the semester, up through December. She made some good points – that this was the safest way to avoid contagion, that once announced, this model would allow for consistency and structure through the fall, and that any hybrid model would include the risk of contagion and possible future shutdown. I thought and thought before replying and then thought some more. Inside her question was a political football. Somehow, the federal government – Trump – had already taken the position of full school reopening and I found myself almost automatically shifting to the opposite view.
At this point in the Summer of the Pandemic, I was unsure and uncertain, just as I am now. I had created a huge to-do list that was limping along:: I’d be writing everyday, probably at least a 1000 words, maybe more; the backyard, especially the dusty, uneven area we call the Back 40, well, that will get some attention! The garage won’t look the same, not after I’ve cleaned it out. What else? Well, I’d be reconnecting with friends by phone, writing letters probably. I’d also be running every couple of days, maybe everyday. I’d build up gradually, do a mile the first time out and grow from there. I’d volunteer!
Then the summer actually started. I did OK at first. I ran that mile, even got up to almost three miles. I made some calls to friends. I wrote a letter. I volunteered a few times. But all the while I kept following the pandemic. I spent a lot of time on a site called Worldometers that tracked daily new infections, new deaths, and probabilities for the future. I could see what was happening in my home country of Jamaica, in England where I was born, across the US state by state and sometimes county by county. And I couldn’t shut the numbers out. We just don’t know what tomorrow will bring so how do we plan for it? Where are we now? How many infections? Deaths? Vaccines? How do we reopen schools in uncertainty?
So I thought about what my union rep had said. What do I think about return to school? Like almost everything in life, answering the question depends on whether I’m focused on the individual (me) or the group (the students, the school, the parents).
For me: I’m a 55 year old educator in generally good health at the moment. But I have some risk too. In 2012, I had an autoimmune response called AutoImmune Hemolytic Anemia (AIHA). After a short morning workout, I started urinating blood. My body had begun tackling a perceived virus and was breaking down red blood cells, sending the waste into my urine. I went on healthy doses of prednisone to halt the response. After a month of treatment, the immune response stopped, but the doctors couldn’t say if it would return.
And I have only one kidney. Almost thirty years ago, when dialysis was getting to be too much of a burden for my dad, I donated a kidney. He perked up almost immediately after surgery and lived ten more fulfilling years.
So would getting COVID be a problem for me? Maybe. No one knows how his or her body will react to a virus, this virus in particular. Stories across the world of young, healthy folks getting very sick, sometimes fatally, make us all wary. So in terms of me alone, I agreed with much of what my union rep had said. I was at risk, if not just for myself than for my family. My wife, Cynthia, and our two almost adult children, our 6 month old puppy, and the six chickens we are raising for eggs depend a little bit on me being around.
But I couldn’t get to the point of agreeing that this proposal – all Distance Learning in the fall, until December – was the best option we had. If Covid-19 continues to spread at current rates, the case for in-person instruction gets more and more difficult to make, in K12 and the university system. But what are we going to do about the kids, particularly students in low-income families who won’t have access to tutors or possibly the over-the-shoulder parent who pushes them along.
There are two fundamental problems at the center of the discussions about return to school:
Problem 1: Many parents can’t figure out how they’ll manage their work lives with their children schooling at home. Assuming social distancing and cleanliness practices are in place, many of them wonder if school could resume in the fall in some fashion. They point to schools in Europe (Politico: School reopenings in Europe – June 11, 2020; NBC News: Update on European School Reopenings – July 9, 2020) that have reopened with various models. Many of these same parents are also apprehensive about the rise in Covid, particularly in Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona.
Problem 2: Teachers like me are at significant risk in a return to the classroom. USA Today/Ipsos polled both parents and teachers May 18-21 and found that 59 percent of parents were likely to pursue at-home learning options, like online classes or home schooling. An update of the poll released July 25th found similar numbers. 55% of Americans oppose reopening schools in the fall, but the question is now political, not scientific. 78% of polled Democrats oppose school reopening while 79% of polled Republicans favor opening schools.
Almost one-fifth of teachers said they likely would not go back to work in the fall if schools reopen. 30% of America’s teachers are 50 or older, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Only very foolish districts would force teachers back to classrooms where chances of Covid contagion and possible death are potentials. Teacher unions across the country have advocated for Distance Learning as the exclusive form of instruction, as has my home district. Large districts like LA, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sacramento will start the school year in distance learning with various future hybrid models proposed. Texas schools are struggling with how they will reopen. In Houston, the state’s largest district, students will spend the first 6 weeks in distance learning exclusively, a significant shift from the governor’s first order. In Florida, the teacher’s union is suing Governor DeSantis’s administration over return to the classroom. On July 23rd, Arizona dropped plans to restart schools on August 17th based on increasing virus cases.
These examples of those in government who do not teach or run schools trying to legislate how we will return to school leaves school staff sidelined and confused. Christina Curfman’s story and her decision to retire at 55 echo the thoughts of many teachers across the country thinking about returning to teach in person in the fall. How do teachers interact with students in person in an effective manner and prevent the spread of COVID? Others have suggested that the chance of transmission is extremely low. A British epidemiologist claims that “no teacher” has caught Coronavirus from a student “anywhere in the world.” There is simply tremendous uncertainty.
A paper posted to the CDC website as part of updated guidance titled “The Importance of Reopening America’s Schools This Fall” (July 23. 2020) argues that school closures particularly affect students from low-income families who are “far less likely to have access to private instruction and care and far more likely to rely on key school-supported resources like food programs, special education services, counseling, and after-school programs to meet basic developmental needs.” The paper focuses on students and their relative risk of contracting COVID. A teacher might note that there is not much attention given in the guidance to teacher safety and health, though K-12 Schools administrators are provided a template and guidance for keeping the school site as safe as possible. And there are thousands of opinion pieces online about what to do, including this opinion by Erin Bromage of the University of Massachusetts that appreciate the nuances of return to school.
The only thing certain at this point (late July) is that we don’t know what next week will look like.
CDC Guidance for Re-opening schools – May 19, 2020
CDC Guidance for Re-Opening Schools – July 23, 2020
American Prospect: We Need to Reopen Schools in America, But How? June 8, 2020
Politico: School reopenings in Europe – June 11, 2020
NBC News: Update on European School Reopenings – July 9, 2020
Forbes (Peter Greene): Want Schools Open in the Fall, then pay for it. – July 7, 2020
NEXT TIME: Examining the Pros and Cons of an “upside-down” flipped classroom for COVID-era teaching.
David Stirrat 