the bistro off broadway

The views expressed on this page are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County News Online
text

Forbes
What Will It Take For Schools To Reopen?
Frederick Hess

The closure of schools due to COVID-19 has created a frenzy of activity as school systems scramble to feed students, give them work packets, get them online, and provide virtual resources. This is all necessary and appropriate, as school leaders struggle to deal with the immediate crisis.

It’s good that leaders have been focused on feeding kids, getting them online, and providing ... [+]

But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. While virtual schooling can play an important role in the education of many students, today’s efforts are a poor substitute for in-person schooling. School leaders will be the first to tell you this. There are a bunch of reasons why this is the case, including:

Most school systems lack the infrastructure, materials, or expertise to teach virtually. Indeed, the Center for Reinventing Public Education’s tracking of 82 school systems reported this week that “most districts are still not providing any instruction.”

Millions of children don’t have access to technology at home. For example, Clark County, Nevada, the nation’s fifth-largest district, estimates that 72,000 of its 320,000 students still lack connectivity, even after the district purchased 46,000 devices.

Vast numbers of teachers feel ill-equipped for the challenge. ClassTag noted this week that 57% of teachers say they don’t feel prepared to “facilitate remote learning” and just one in five said school leaders were providing guidance on how to proceed.

Children have a limited appetite for hours of computer-driven instruction. In an unsurprising finding, Kaplan has reported that 71% of parents worry that kids working remotely are “distracted from their schoolwork by social media apps and video games.”

And no matter how good the online instruction, there are myriad other concerns: Working parents feel squeezed, out-of-work parents have to worry about educating their kids while figuring out how to pay rent, millions of kids are stuck in unsafe home environments, and teens are showing a reluctance to abide by social distancing guidelines, which seem endless. And, of course, it’s tough for communities and local economies to regain anything like a normal rhythm until kids are physically attending school.

For all of these reasons, it’s imperative for schools to reopen as soon as is safely possible. Over the weekend, a team led by my AEI colleague, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, released the much-discussed “National Coronavirus Response: Roadmap to Reopening.” The report is worth reading in full, but the gist is that we need to maintain community isolation and social distancing until cases peak and we see sustained declines in new cases for 14 days.

At that point, Gottlieb and his colleagues suggest that it will be time to start gradually reopening schools and businesses, subject to various safeguards and provisions (relating to testing, hospital capacity, and such). In some places, this could mean a return to school in May. In other places, it will mean fall.

What school reopening looks like will depend in part on available testing and technology.

If schools could procure digital thermometers and implement ubiquitous testing— especially if they’re cheap and quick—they might be able to proceed with something like normal operations. In Singapore, for instance, a reliance on thermometers at school entrances and the use of classroom cameras to trace exposed students has allowed schools to stay open throughout the pandemic, with those who have been diagnosed with coronavirus quarantined and treated appropriately. Of course, such a response is only feasible when the outbreak is contained and testing is plentiful.

In many cases, schools will need to operate while still practicing some forms of social distancing. It goes without saying that schools are not designed for social distancing.

What might social distancing in schools involve? It may well require reducing the number of students in a school on a given day, either by having students attend on alternate days or by adopting a half-day model in which half the students attend in the morning and half in the afternoon. It would likely require closing gyms and having students eat lunch at their desks.

It would probably entail measures to do away with the crowded hallways that are such a routine part of middle and high school life. Schools could have middle and high school students stay in a single classroom for the day, much as they did in elementary school, with teachers rotating in and out.

Transportation would be a big issue. A 50% reduction in students could allow school buses to adopt a one-student-per-seat rule, which could broadly conform with softened social distancing protocols. But enforcing that norm would be a huge challenge for drivers. And none of that addresses the millions of children who rely upon urban mass-transit each day.

The challenges are daunting. Two shifts of students each day would place an unimaginable strain on school transport, and might well prove unworkable. There would be questions relating to contracts and job descriptions. Districts already struggling with ugly revenue projections and outlays related to virtual learning could face new costs. And, of course, schools would need to ensure that teachers and school staff feel safe. For instance, schools would have to account for the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of teachers, school administrators, bus drivers, janitors, and other staff across the land who are over age 55 or may have compromised immune systems.

But we need to recognize that attending school in some attenuated fashion, even just two or three days a week, would be hugely beneficial for students and families. It would reconnect children and given them safer, healthier outlets for interaction. It would anchor instruction, making online learning more useful. It would restore some normalcy, allow parents to start getting back to work, and help alleviate the pressures building in too many households.

Figuring this out will be extraordinarily difficult. But these are questions that state and system leaders need to be grappling with. It’s good that leaders have been focused on feeding kids, getting them online, and providing take-home packets. But we also need to be thinking hard about what comes next.


 
senior scribes

County News Online

is a Fundraiser for the Senior Scribes Scholarship Committee. All net profits go into a fund for Darke County Senior Scholarships
contact
Copyright © 2011 and design by cigs.kometweb.com