How - If - Schools Should and Can Reopen Has Taken on a New and More Urgent Reality

Sadly, we continue in a political climate bereft of national leadership or direction with regards to #COVID with governors' responses ranging from putting their state and citizens first to those trying to follow a party line. And the 'party line' has resulted in huge surges of #COVID infection and death rates.

This leaves individual states, regions and, especially now, school districts to make the best, largely individual decisions they can make. But school reopening will and must also be driven by whether parents, school staff AND students believe their school district has taken planning seriously and considered the multiple intersecting contingencies. It will be, above all, whether or not they feel safe.

Just one of the current tragedies is that a still spiraling pandemic and so very deep public health crisis has been allowed to become this politicized and 'anti-science.' Schools must not fall victim to these politics. To paraphrase a letter by a 5th grade teacher I recently read; schools are not to bolster the economy or to improve reelection chances; they do not provide babysitting or to move the country's politics forward.

Schools have the solemn mission of the education of our children while prioritizing their safety; health and welfare. With some schools struggling to make good this mission long before COVID, we have the opportunity to not only move to correct these long standing inequities but, first and foremost, to ensure the safety; health and welfare of ALL students; of ALL school staff.

Based on conversations I've had with teachers and building administrators, far too many school systems are not taking this planing period very seriously. Some are making decisions of a sort but from the top down often without not only their teachers but, even, building principals being kept out of the loop. That is a dual recipe for educational failure and the substantial compromise of student and staff safety.

From educational recovery to trauma informed practices and, above all, health and welfare; schools reopening more due to political pressures than educational and community outcomes are very likely to find themselves both empty and in even deeper chaos. 

I believe schools can and should begin deliberate, phased reopening with individual decisions connected to the realities present in states, regions and communities. 

Simply 'demanding' that schools fully reopen as of September is deadly nonsense. But there is a need for schools to again become available and viable in the current climate if with a wider range of resources and services in place. If with very differently structured school days and logistics from where things were last March. 

My article linked below makes specific recommendations as to the nature of these new resources, services, school day logistics and intersecting contingencies from which to make serious plans towards more deliberate and safe reopening for schools. 

Reopening Schools Will Require Authentic Change from Increased Instructional Efficiency to Trauma-Informed Educational Practices