As most educational institutions across the country are going to be starting a new academic year in the coming weeks, it is increasingly evident that varying constituencies are struggling to come up with a clear, uniform approach and response to reopening schools in the midst of a raging pandemic. The difficulty in nailing down a best way forward is apparent at all levels of education: graduate, undergraduate, secondary, and in primary grades. Granted it does no one any favors that the country is burdened by a “president” (“45”) who insisted the coronavirus was a hoax conjured up by the Democratic Party for the first three months of the virus arriving in America, and then spent the following three months blaming China and restricting access to personal protective equipment to states thus hamstringing their ability to fight the spread of COVID19 – and still repeating the virus that has killed 135,000 Americans, is a hoax. Adding to such rank incompetence, we also have a billionaire Secretary of Education who, in all kindness, is not the brightest bulb we’ve ever seen, and as evidenced by her latest television appearance, is prepared to return to our schools’ children and staff disregarding the certainty that sustained contact and close proximity will result in the further spread of the virus, and assuredly result in even more deaths. So here we are…
For even among those of us with even moderate cognitive function who are thinking about the best path forward, “good” solutions seem few and far between in this moment. For most Americans who are directly connected to schools either as parents, staff, or both, especially those with connections to urban public schools, the choices are that much more difficult to come by. Let’s identify and unpack the varying constituencies who are linked to urban public schools and illustrate why coming up with a viable solution that meets everyone’s concerns and lived reality will be difficult and likely going to be imperfect at best, and tragic at worst:
Students: Most would agree that quality, structured education for children is crucial for their future opportunities and that being physically in school offers many developmental benefits; cognitive, social, and emotional, and thus it would seem clear being physically in school would be best for children. I’ve even written about it here. When the tertiary advantages of being in school are added such as access to afterschool programming, extracurricular activities, interscholastic sports, meals, and primary medical care, while remaining cognizant of the well-documented technology divide between low-income students and their schools which negatively impacts remote learning, the case for students returning to school seems well-grounded and reasoned.
However, it is a fact that COVID19 has ravaged urban Black and Latino populations far more than affluent suburban America. Thus far, preliminary reporting on coronavirus spread indicates that though children are still susceptible to catching the coronavirus and spreading it, they are less likely to exhibit symptoms. (I would caution, the science on the long-term impact of coronavirus on children is still unknown at this point.) The idea that students will return to school, come into prolonged contact the germs all humans carry every day for seven hours, coupled with the highly contagious nature of COVID19, it seems plausible that encouraging a return to school now would result in a predictable spread among children’s parents and loved ones. Urban infections would rise, and so likely would COVID related illnesses and death.
School Staff and Teachers: Most educators and school employees joined the profession because they wanted to make a difference in the lives of the next generation. Likely, their teachers, school counselors, or other staff members, made a positive impact on their lives, or perhaps they fell in love with a content area while in school, and decided a way to contribute to society was through education. Serving in public education, staff knew they would not strike it rich, but could make a decent living, provide for their family, and pass on the gift of knowledge to children. For the deeply committed to their whether it be through teaching, counseling, role modeling, or mentoring, educating children is the noblest of professions.
That said, we are in the COVID19 era and school staff aren’t necessarily a young, youthful cohort but a “seasoned” bunch. Most teachers are between thirty and sixty-five years of age, and the older one is, the more likely they are to contract coronavirus and be symptomatic. When we considering the ailments that typically are associated with older age like high blood pressure, heart disease, the ramifications of being infected are increasingly deadly depending on one’s health background. Add to that, many staff members are at ages where they are either parenting themselves, or taking care of older relatives, and infecting family members becomes a genuine risk.
Though it is common to hear about the sacrifices teachers make for their students, giving selflessly of their time, knowledge, and sometimes dollars, with some going so far as adopting their students – literally adopting their student – school staff did not choose this profession to be risktakers or martyrs. Unfortunately given America’s adoration for AR-15’s and easy access to battlefield-like weaponry, some staff members have chosen to put their bodies and lives in harm’s way to protect their students during (far too many) school shootings, but that doesn’t justify politicians’ willfully putting school staff members’ lives at risk through forcing a premature, and ill-conceived full reopening of schools.
Urban Parents: Economically, times are certainly less-than-ideal and tenuous for most people, but especially young, urban parents. To be sure, access to decent-paying jobs have been hard to come by for the past twenty years in capitalist America despite increasing working productivity and corporate profits, but with decreasing help from the federal government in terms of access to social services like food stamps, urban parents generally are in a comparatively worse economic position. There are not enough available good paying jobs allowing parents to work and comfortably provide for their family with one job, forcing many younger parents to work more than one low-paying hourly job. The fact that more parents have to work longer hours for less money, often demands that parents prioritize working over their child’s educational needs, and it’s likely this choice will emerge as urban schools are set to reopen.
But if parents need to work to make a living, how can they go to work if their child is stuck at home because their school hasn’t reopened? While some folks of means can reflexively respond, “find childcare”, it is enormously expensive even for people who earn a decent salary, but would put an added financial burden on most young urban parents. Indeed, for many parents, students attending school does provide a childcare as well as educative function for families and children. In these current times of schooling within a pandemic, however, many parents, if schools are reopened, will be forced to choose between protecting the safety of their child and of themselves. If schools reopen within this pandemic, parents would be able to return to work, earn a wage, and keep their lights on, or choose to keep their child and family safe by keeping their children at home. Increasingly, we’re seeing many urban parents are choosing to keep their children safe by keeping them home regardless of whether their school reopens or not.
District Administrators/Building Administrators: Unless you follow the mechanics of public education, the titles and popular conception of school administrators, can be misleading. Most people believe District administrators have more authority and autonomy in the reopening issue than they really do. More likely than not in this current scenario, District Leaders are essentially middle managers taking orders from above their station; from their state Department of Education, Governor, and state legislators. Simply, they have orders to follow and bosses to report to. In Florida for instance, Governor Ron DeSantis (a Trump fan) ordered the full reopening of all of their public schools, and not too long before, Governor Ned Lamont ordered a similar reopening of all public schools in Connecticut. Silenced and sidelined in the decision-making were individual superintendents and principals who are tasked with creating the safest approach to manage an obviously unsafe reality.
I’m sure given sufficient time and space, I could have unpacked each constituency’s concerns more thoroughly than above, but hopefully we can see why plans to reopen schools is exceedingly difficult to pin down where the solution addresses the concerns of all constituencies, especially within urban America. (Not digging into the conditions of urban schools from a facilities perspective was not an oversight, just for the purpose of this entry, I opted to focus on the human perspective.) From the perspective of a Black socialist educator, there are few American policy problems that are disconnected to race and economics, and in this return to school debate, I see both with economics being the most obvious. With 45 and US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin opting to give one trillion dollars to big corporations during the COVID crisis, and $700B to the Department of Defense over the past year, and in turn begrudgingly gave some Americans a paltry $1200 three months ago, demonstrates the disregard our federal government has for people when compared to corporate interests and our perpetual imperialistic war machine. Had 45 determined people’s economic needs mattered more, and given the citizens a financial bailout in the form of Andrew Yang-esque Universal Daily Income throughout the duration of a warranted coronavirus shutdown, economically desperate parents would not have to endanger their wellbeing and that of their families by working in dangerous conditions, and instead stay home with their child while schools were closed. If 45 decided to give less money to the Department of Defense and wealthy corporations, and instead redirected those public taxpayer dollars to schools, schools would have the resources to improve remote learning, ensure all students had access to vital technology while at home, and when ready, provide all schools with all necessary protective equipment to keep staff, students, and parents safe. But… Donald Trump.
So for now Districts, school staff, parents and students, are faced with no good options; a real life Scylla and Charybdis situation. There will be no “winners” or community of individuals emerging happy at the unveiling of their district’s approach to manage education within a pandemic, and non-existent federal leadership. This is, indeed, a perfect storm that hopefully we can all survive whenever, if ever, it may end.
