Over these past few days, we have heard about many State's and Counties's approaches of re-entering the school year. Our school year starts on August 3rd here and just now, the school board informed us (still many details are missing) of how they plan to progress with re-opening the schools in the district this fall. The teachers and school administrators have received the same information this week as all the parents and cannot provide us with any more details than what the school board outlined in their presentation. Now we parents are to decide with the information we have on hand and what the CDC/ TN Government updates us daily with in relation to Covid cases in our area what the best/ safest way for our children is to start school again.
Let me preface that I totally understand and agree that not all children are safer at home: too many children suffer hunger, abuse and emotional disconnect. School would always be safer for these children than staying any minute longer home.
However, for the majority of students the parents have to make a decision whether schools are safe enough and risk exposure to a deadly virus in a State and County where infections rates/ death rates/ hospital admissions continue to rise daily to send their children on a hybrid schedule (meaning 2 days a weeks at school and the remainder virtually from home) or complete Virtual Learning from home for at least the first 9 weeks of the school year. We are to decide within a week of which option to chose. Furthermore, some people think both options are not working for them at all but rather advocate for full-time school schedule. It doesn't matter which approach we choose, we will not be able to satisfy everyone.
Do we want to keep our children away from others and social interaction, which the students have been lacking since March and is a big part of their emotional and physical well-being or keeping them away from massive daily exposure as students (and probably staff/ teachers - the school board is still deciding on that, which in my opinion shouldn't be a long debate since we have a mask mandate in place in this County) will not be required to wear masks at school. I know the mask issue with young children is a concern for many but clinically speaking, all studies prove that wearing a mask will reduce infection rate of Covid-19 drastically. My children for example had no issue wearing masks for 3 hours in the heat at the zoo. It is all a matter of how to prepare them and giving them times in between when it is safe to take off the mask and breathe freely. In addition to that, here are the concerns of a medical professional/ school nurse when children return to school:
Our principal posted a blog post this week about the importance on bringing children back to school and their social interactions with each other. However, the blog post missed a major point: of how the school would keep them safe and not at a greater exposure risk. I do understand that a principal wants the children back on campus and keep his and his employees' jobs, but then you also must provide us with what "risk management" steps you will take. As for the great track record, I have a different view on that: Given that 56 Kindergartners out of 96 were all out sick for several days in January due to the flu/ strep and many had it multiple times between January and March, the administrator never supported our call for a day of closing the school to deep clean, such as other districts did. Could this happen again when someone tests positive in the classroom? What are the measures then to prevent further spread? How would we be notified, etc? Unfortunately, TN is very politically guided and masks/ safety measures are often neglected because people rather support certain politicians/ agendas or trying to make a statement (mask wearing is one of them), which makes the decision of how to handle the re-opening of the schools an even bigger issue.
In addition, I was NOT impressed of how our school and the district handled the transition of at-home learning in the Spring. The teachers were told not to provide anything to the students as the district, finally, after a few weeks of sitting at home, offered some OPTIONAL learning supplements. Optional because they did not want to create any advantages/ disadvantages among students who have/have not internet/computer access at home. However, after talking with several parents of students in schools in the same district, some were provided with much more materials from their teachers with the backing of their principals and even offered daily zoom follow-ups etc. Ours only did a once weekly zoom call, which was pretty much show-and-tell. Luckily, we were prepared and used many of the workbooks and supplements I already had at home for the kids and also added some more online learning options to the mix. Because while we worked, we had to ensure that the children are stimulated and kept busy for 2-3 hours a day while during the other hours they played, went outside or we did something with them.
Thus, I'm nervous of signing my children up for the Virtual Learning Option as I do not know yet what it all encompasses except for 6.5 hours of structured session that are "subject to compulsory attendance requirements, formal grading and that parents will be responsible for monitoring student progress" (SCS Pathway to Re-entry). Grading and compulsory attendance requirements, I think are less important, especially given the fact that no child will spend 6.5 hours successfully in front of the computer. Here are the two options as outlined by the School Board:
As you can imagine, I have not much hope that this hybrid schedule or the Virtual Learning Option will work very well. Especially, since our Covid cases continue to rise and hospitals are running dangerously low on ICU beds. I fear that sending them back to school would increase the infection risk too much for our liking (no proper cleaning in between sessions/ no mask wearing/ not enough available substitute teachers, etc), especially since we believe that Elliot brought the virus home from school in March (after talking last week with another parent in his class who confirmed the same) and the fact that we have been thru it already and I know first hand how sick it made me. And then you are still left with virtual schooling 3 days a week...For the Virtual Learning Option, the approach looks not like it is very productive for an elementary school student either as there is no segregation of materials for children who are advanced or children who need more support in addition to the fact that the children would be taught by someone who is not from their school.
For us, we have decided to rather be safe than sorry and not risk any more exposure but to keep the children home longer and TRY the Virtual Learning Option. However, I'm also in the process of preparing for other homeschool options in case the virtual route ends up being a disaster. In the end, we all have to decide what works best for our family. As a parent, it feels like a struggle because whatever we choose, in the end we will worry if it was the right decision. Nothing this year has and will be "normal" and we take that and make the best of this situation.
PS: As other generations before us have done for months and years on end (think WW1 and WW2), children have adjusted to their circumstances and I believe that for 6-12 months without proper public schooling it would not create any long-term hurdles for them in life. This re-opening of schools is more so based on getting adults back to work if children can attend school. However, a lot of companies will continue with tele-work and employees will continue to be home and while it is not ideal to have the children home and work (believe me, we are doing it on a daily basis), everyone can agree that it does help reduce the spread of Covid-19.
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