I am not a scientist or an epidemiologist. I’m a school superintendent, a father and a pragmatist. I’m also an advocate for Vancouver’s children, families and community. And I believe it is time to get our students back to schools, our families back to work and our businesses back to operation. We can do all three this fall in a safe and sensible manner.
Now that the curve of disease spread has been flattened in our state, the prudent path to a new normal requires a simultaneous reopening of business and return to school aligned with Gov. Jay Inslee’s Safe Start Washington: A Phased Approach to Recovery Plan. Eligibility for reopening schools should be considered on a county-by-county basis.
Businesses cannot reopen fully if employees don’t have the flexibility to return to their jobs. Our working families rely on public schools, before- and after-school programs and extended-day child care. Compounding the problem is a reduction of more than 40 percent of pre-COVID-19 child care spaces in the county. Lack of access to those services disproportionately impacts families living in poverty. Viewed through an equity lens, it also has an outsized effect on communities of color.
Families need public schools open so that they may return to work. Businesses and other organizations need public schools open so that their employees may return to work. A coordinated effort is the only way we can restart our economy and mitigate the loss of financial stability.
I also know that remote learning has been difficult for underprivileged families. It has complicated access to our school meals, instructional assistance for struggling learners, and social and emotional support for children coping with stress and uncertainty. Prolonged sequestration at home has been linked to higher rates of child abuse. Clark County has experienced a decrease of nearly 50 percent in reports to Child Protective Services as the ability of caring adults to watch for signs of abuse has diminished during the statewide closure.
Learning loss for K-12 students has been even greater for those in poverty. Even under normal conditions, poverty-affected students have come to school with lower academic skills compared to their more advantaged peers, and now those gaps surely have grown.
Remote learning falls short
Children have three universal needs: to feel safe and secure, to feel loved and a sense of belonging and to feel competent and capable. Those needs are met best through human interaction with peers and loving adults. We have an obligation to educate the whole child, and remote learning simply cannot deliver the same experience that our teachers, support staff, principals, volunteers and community partners can provide in school.
To expedite the process of reopening public schools, decisions should be based on local data and capabilities rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Significant variability in the remote learning capacity of individual districts also exists across the region and the state. Green Mountain School District is limited due to their rural geography and lack of broadband connectivity for some of their students and families. Even Wi-Fi hot spots need a signal.
Vancouver Public Schools is preparing for additional precautionary measures including personal protective equipment; safety shields in public-facing interaction areas; wellness checks as necessary; increased hand sanitizer dispensers in school entryways, classrooms and large common spaces; and interior sanitizing systems for schools and buses.
We also are working on rapid response protocols for single-school closure and reopening in the event of a COVID-19 positive case, which includes contact tracing, testing, sanitizing and remote learning while closed. Some families may prefer to continue with remote learning in the fall. We are exploring a possible expansion of our existing online learning program that could accommodate families who want to exercise that choice.
I encourage our elected officials and other policymakers to align the reopening of business with reopening of public schools and conduct the review and approval process on a county-by-county basis.
Given the practical reality that COVID-19 will be present in our lives for the foreseeable future, we must learn to manage it while meeting the educational and economic needs of our children, families and communities.
Steve Webb has served as the superintendent of Vancouver Public Schools since 2008.
