Let’s face facts, parents: Schools aren’t likely to open for in-person classes this fall, and if they do, it won’t be for long.
We can daydream a return to normalcy, and teachers and administrators can make good-faith efforts to plot out weeks of “half in-person study/half virtual study” all they want. But that won’t bend reality or stem the tide of the coronavirus pandemic, and it won’t improve the Trump administration’s abject failure to mirror other wealthy nations’ success and get COVID-19 under control.
Believe me, I want my kids back in school as much as the next parent, but the writing is on the wall. And it seems we might be wise to read it and act accordingly rather than pursuing a fantasy of packed lunch bags and morning rushes to the school bus stop.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are insisting schools reopen, even threatening to pull funding from ones that don’t comply with this made-up federal edict. It’s an interesting twist. The administration made clear it had no interest in creating a federal response to a deadly pandemic, dumping responsibility on individual states. Now that same administration wants to take charge and force states to open schools when a vast majority of parents remain somewhere between uncertain and afraid.
Address key questions
School districts across the country will make their own decisions based on the state of the virus spread and the comfort level of parents. But the smart money is on virtual classes, so why not direct our energy toward making that work better?
Here are key questions that should be addressed, based on the understandably slapdash online schooling experience we had in the spring:
• How can online classes be made more rigorous and come closer to mirroring the education time students would have if they were physically in school?
• How can students who are struggling, or students who aren’t sufficiently challenged, be helped? What are the best resources and structures for everything from online tutoring to out-of-district online classes that would help push students in new directions?
• What can be done to help parents unable to work remotely? Are there ways to connect parents whose children can’t be home alone and set up safe locations for their children to come together and learn? This is a huge issue and needs to be addressed on a federal, state and local level.
• How do we help maintain the mental health of children in a virtual learning environment? Kids feel disconnected, some are scared, some are depressed. Can we find ways to bring them together in safe and socially distanced settings that would allow them to interact and at least get some of the social elements they’re missing out on?
Questions like these deserve our attention, much more than seeking ways to bring kids back into crowded hallways and poorly ventilated classrooms.
This is temporary. It’s unclear how much our lives will be permanently changed by the coronavirus, but circumstances will undoubtedly get better and bring us back to something resembling normal.
Preparing for what’s most likely to happen this fall isn’t surrendering to the virus. It’s being pragmatic. It’s making sure we don’t throw good money after bad.
And it’s the best thing we can do for our kids, and ourselves.
Rex Huppke is a columnist for the Chicago Times. rhuppke@chicagotribune.com
