As back-to-school time draws closer, the debate over sending kids back to school rages on. Although parents have their own set of questions they hope administrators answer soon, teachers have quite a growing list of concerns too. In fact, many of them have been compiled in a list that's getting shared far and wide across Facebook this week, as teachers demand answers before they agree to reenter school buildings.
The list itself has been shared countless times, and has been copied and pasted into new posts.
It's titled "Valid Questions for School Openings," and although the author behind it remains unknown, it's becoming quit clear just how many teachers feel the same way, based on the number of reposts it's getting. Because even though the desire for life to return to "normal" is strong, so is the need to regulate public health and safety. And when it comes to reopening schools, the logistics are, well, kind of a nightmare.
Many of the questions on the list are quite sobering. And yet, each of them needs to be answered.
"If a teacher tests positive for COVID-19 are they required to quarantine for 2-3 weeks? Is their sick leave covered, paid?" the first question asked.
What about the children those teachers come into contact with?
"If that teacher has 5 classes a day with 30 students each, do all 150 of those students need to then stay home and quarantine for 14 days?" the second question read.
If so, what happens next?
"Do all 150 of those students now have to get tested?" it continued. "Who pays for those tests? Are they happening at school? How are the parents being notified? Does everyone in each of those kids' families need to get tested? Who pays for that?"
Then there are all the other people the teacher comes into contact with — the ones that person may see at home or elsewhere in their personal lives.
"What if someone who lives in the same house as a teacher tests positive?" the next question posed. "Does that teacher now need to take 14 days off of work to quarantine? Is that time off covered? Paid?"
It doesn't take long to see the ripple effect just one positive test case would cause, and solving for it is easier said than done.
If a teacher is removed from the classroom because of a positive COVID-19 test, the post continued, that means a replacement would need to come in — but from where? You could hardly blame substitutes for bowing out of such a task, if it means putting themselves or their families at risk.
"What if a student in your kid's class tests positive? What if your kid tests positive? Does every other student and teacher they have been around quarantine?" it continued. "Do we all get notified who is infected and when? Or because of HIPAA regulations are parents and teachers just going to get mysterious 'may have been in contact' emails all year long?"
In addition, there is the issue of substitute teachers, who may teach in more than one building or district.
As the title suggests, all of these questions are valid.
They also highlight just how incredibly complex the reopening process is, which seems to be getting glossed over as we all engage in heated debates on Facebook.
There's also the mental health toll this all will take on our educators, who have already been put through the wringer this year.
"What is this stress going to do to our teachers? How does it affect their health and well-being?" the post asked. "How does it affect their ability to teach? How does it affect the quality of education they are able to provide? What is it going to do to our kids? What are the long-term effects of consistently being stressed out?"
And how will that stress trickle down to the students and spread throughout the faculty, as everyone tries their best to keep it together?
Last, but certainly not least, the post asks one final, probing question.
"How many more people are going to die, that otherwise would not have if we had stayed home longer?"
It's a reasonable question to ask, even if it sends a shiver down the spine.
"How will it affect students and faculty when the first teacher in their school dies/gets sick from this? The first parent of a student who brought it home? The first kid?" the post asked.
Unfortunately, we need to think about these things, because this is the reality of living in the US in 2020.
"30% of the teachers in the US are over 50," the post concluded. "About 16% of the total deaths in the US are people between the ages of 45-65. And some have underlying health conditions (blood pressure, a compromise immune system, etc.)."
All this considered, is sending kids and teachers back to school really worth it?
Not everyone's so sure.
"D— good questions," one woman wrote on Facebook.
"I'm worried," added another.
"I can't even get tested when I know I have been exposed!" someone else wrote. "Essential employees are only allowed to stay home if they are symptomatic and we have to use our PTO to cover the time off. Healthcare workers are expected to treat Covid-19 patients. It's a scary and exhausting time."
Teachers in Los Angeles protested against reopening just last week, arguing that bringing kids and teachers back to schools would be disastrous.
LA County remains one of the hardest-hit regions in California, with more than 347K cases so far and just over 7,200 deaths, making the risks of a spread in schools far greater.
On Monday, LA United and San Diego United, California's two largest school districts, announced formal plans not to reopen after all. Instead, they will return to remote learning next month.
Still, other coronavirus hot spots do not seem to be slowing down plans for schools to reopen.
Florida is reportedly on track to reopen schools in August, despite its recent surge in coronavirus cases. The state has been averaging about 10,000 new virus cases per day for the past week, and according to NPR, some experts say Floridians still haven't even seen the peak. So far, the Sunshine State has reported more than 290K cases and 4,408 deaths. (Yet despite all this, Gov. Ron DeSantis has still approved the reopening of many businesses, including Walt Disney World, which reopened July 11.)
In Arizona, administrators are pushing for in-person classes not to return until at least October.
The state has also seen a spike in COVID-19 cases in the six weeks, with more than 128K cases and 2,341 deaths. Last month, three Arizona teachers who decided to to co-teach a remote-learning class from the same room also contracted the coronavirus — resulting in one teacher dying.
"That we are even considering going back to school even in a month's time, it's irresponsible and it's scary," Kristel Foster, a school board member in Tucson, told KGUN this week. "What prompts me are hearing from teachers who don't know if they're going to come back."
Other states are trying to take a more flexible approach.
Texas, which has also seen an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases (285K confirmed cases, over 3,400 deaths.) Although Gov. Greg Abbott had been pushing for students to return to school in the fall, it was announced Tuesday that schools would be permitted to return with an online-only option.
In New York, where COVID-19 cases have dropped dramatically since their peak in April, schools will reopen based on the rate of infection in their area.
"We all want schools to open but it has to be safe," Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Monday. "In NY we will decide based on the data. Schools will reopen if a region is in Phase 4 & daily infection rate remains below 5% (14-day avg). Schools close if regional infection rate is greater than 9% (7-day avg) after August 1."
Not all school districts are proposing a five-day-a-week schedule, either.
Many districts, including New York City, the nation's largest school district, will only return with partial attendance. According to the New York Times, the district will only require students to return one to three days a week as part of a staggered schedule to promote social distancing. For the days they are not in school, kids will be required to continue remote learning.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, believes strongly that schools are not ready to reopen.
Speaking with CNBC host Kelly Evans last week, Weingarten admitted that most US teachers right now would consider their remote learning experiences so far to be a "failure" in terms of whether kids are getting the quality education they need from home. That is why, she says, an federation poll found that many teachers do want to return to school — but only if it's done safely. And right now, they just don't feel safe.
She also thinks there's "no way" schools can safely reopen this fall without more federal funding.
"There's no way that you're going to have full-time schools for all the kids and all the teachers the way we used to have it," Weingarten told John Catsimatidis on his AM 770 WABC radio show over the weekend. "Once we have a vaccine, I hope we can get back to that."
According to the New York Post, the School Superintendent Association estimated it would cost about $1.8 million per school district to stick to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines laid out for schools.
"And in doing this, not only is there a [need] for retrofitting, for ventilation systems, but also for buying the d—ed masks for the cleaning equipment, for the nurses that we're going to need," Weingarten explained. "That's why we've been pushing really hard … To get the [federal] money that states need… to re-open schools."
However, whether that money will actually come — and in time for many schools to reopen — remains to be seen.
