Your parents dress you in your best new outfit – maybe a nice pink jumper with a unicorn on it.
They help you tie your new sneakers – that’s right, two loops and a knot.
Then they put a surgical mask snugly over your mouth and nose, adhere a clear plastic face shield from your forehead down and snap some latex gloves on your hands.
“Off to school, Honey!”
“Don’t forget your antibacterial soap and Clorox wipes!”
What do you suppose would be going through your mind?
Would you feel safe? Would you feel loved? Would you feel valued?
Or maybe they do care enough but have no other choice. They’re “essential workers” and have to go to a series of minimum wage jobs to keep you fed, clothed and sheltered.
How would you feel about the people who own those jobs? The society that prioritizes keeping those jobs going instead of paying your parents to stay home with you?
Isn’t it just a big game of Monopoly? Players keep rolling the dice and landing on each others’ properties and having to pay rent. Hoping this turn you’ll make it past GO and collect $200.
With the exception of food, there’s nothing you really need outside of your home. If your parents didn’t have to worry about rent or utilities, they wouldn’t have to work. Yes, they’d need to go out to get food but the government could pay them to do that, too.
After all, it’s just Monopoly money. It’s just decorated pieces of paper. It has no inherent value… not like human lives.
I mean we’re living through a pandemic here. Leaving the house means exposure to the virus, and the longer you have to go out, the more people you’re exposed to, the greater the chances that you’ll get sick and/or bring the thing back home with you.
How would you feel about the school board members who compromise and say you only have to be put at risk for half the day or just so many days a week? Would that make it all better?
How would you feel when time-after-time the grown ups show you exactly how they feel about you, how little you actually matter, how much everything else is worth and how little they really care about you?
How would you feel if you were a little school kid getting ready for her first day of class this morning?
Would you feel safe, valued, loved?
What lesson would you take from everything happening all around you?
Some people are very worried that you won’t learn anything much this school year.
I’m afraid you’ll learn far too much.
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On the other hand, they don’t want to be sued by children, families or staff who get sick or die as a result of reckless reopening plans.
The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is behind a push at both the state and federal level for temporary, limited liability protections in case students or staff become infected with Covid-19.
The organization is asking state legislatures and US Congress to pass bills including such protections.
At the same time, the organization is pushing state governors and the President to pass the plan through executive orders.
None of which should fill residents with confidence.
After all, would you want to eat at a restaurant where the chef refuses responsibility if diners get sick?
Would you want to fly on an airline that doesn’t guarantee you’ll make it to your destination in one piece?
In Pennsylvania, this has lead to discussions of the reopening guidelines issued by Gov. Wolf.
“I keep hearing the expression, ‘We are simply giving guidance or recommendations,” state Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-Chester, said. “In the end, is it not true that what you say is a recommendation, ends up being a mandate because school districts are afraid of being sued and taxpayers losing millions of dollars?”
Dinniman – who I often agree with – seems to be saying that districts should be free to ignore safety guidelines. And they are.
But doing so should come with a price.
The guidelines – which are too lenient in my opinion – at least set up some benchmarks.
However, these guidelines miss a vital component of epidemiology. One week’s worth of data is insufficient to get an accurate picture of viral spread. Covid-19 symptoms take up to two weeks to show up.
You could have low numbers this week and decide to reopen school buildings to a hybrid model, but then next week have a surge. And those people would have been sick when you reopened – you just didn’t know because it took another week for their symptoms to develop.
We are acting like spoiled children who want to do what they want and refuse to be held accountable for their actions.
Sadly it is our children who will most often pay the price for adult recklessness.
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So it’s back to school time, and – let me tell you – am I ready to return to the classroom! Actually, I’m just bursting to pop onto campuses for the FIRSTtime this year.
When I came to these shores way back in March, some spoil sports decided to shut down the schools before I could really get in there.
You locked up your kids tight at home and did this distance learning thing online instead.
That really sucked. All I had was full grown bodies to infect.
I mean I wanted some nice young things to cuddle up to and bust my viral proteins through their ACE2 receptors. You know what I mean?
Kids are great! They’re not as fanatical about washing their hands as adults; if they get a runny nose, they wipe the mess on the back of their fingers; and they touch EVERYTHING!
Right now in most places I’m swirling around in aerosol plumes of nasal droplets in the occasional home, bar, and restaurant, but I’m kinda stuck.
There are only so many times I can infect the same people. And if they’re wearing masks properly and washing their hands, it’s just too much hassle.
If I really want to up my contagion game – and I do – I need someplace where I can mix with new hosts and then travel back to their cribs and just snuggle in.
No crowds at concerts or big sporting events – even the amusement parks and political rallies are drying up.
But now that you’re reopening schools, I can go exponential, baby!
Mark my words – September is going to be the season of the Coronavirus! We’re going to make the spring look like a mere dry run!
Second wave, third wave – and I have you to thank for it.
There are so many people out there I’m indebted to.
First of all, I’ve gotta acknowledge all the anti-science folks. If it weren’t for you guys, more playas might actually be taking precautions against me.
And the libertarian crowd! Wow! You guys are working overtime! No one can tell you to put human lives before a stunted adolescent definition of absolute freedom!
But of course, the first prize has to go to President Trump! He’s the trifecta! Science denial, me first, class warfare zealot! Not only did he disband the government’s pandemic task force, but he advised people to drink bleach – I mean BLEACH!– as a remedy to infection!
Sir, you truly deserve the title “honorary pathogen.” If we ever meet, I’m not sure if I’d infect you or you’d infect me.
Of course, it’s the everyday folks who really make the most difference.
The anti-maskers, the people holding house parties and cook outs, the families throwing care to the wind and going to amusement parks, the people who recklessly eat at crowded restaurants… and school board members opening up their buildings…
School directors, I would be no where without you.
Your steadfast determination to keep school buildings open despite any niggling facts or science or news… I just can’t tell you how much it means to me.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re opening up for full days or half days or alternate days. You’re giving me the chance to shine. I won’t forget it.
Where else in the animal kingdom would potential hosts try to shop their way out of an epidemic? I’ll tell ya, bats don’t act this way. Believe me. I know.
And, hey, that’s fine with me. If black lives don’t matter to you, I’ll take ‘em! I’ll burrow into the mucous membranes of anyone’s throat. It all kinda tastes like chicken.
Once your classrooms are splattered with respiratory droplets from ill-fitting, shared or discarded masks, once your hallways are infested with my slime and contagion, once your athletic fields and band rooms and teachers lounges are dripping with my love – just know this: I won’t ever forget you.
You have been truly great. Really.
Infectiously yours,
Coronavirus
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For a moment there, I thought things might go differently.
With Covid-19 cases exponentially more numerous today than they were when schools closed in March, last night McKeesport Area School Directors voted whether to reopen buildings to half day in-person classes.
And it really looked like they might decide against it.
For about 10 seconds.
The first vote was from Jim Brown, and it was a “No.”
He has made no secret that he champions in-person reopening. Since no residents came before the board to praise the plan – either at tonight’s meeting or last week’s work session – he read aloud a letter he said he received from someone advocating for it.
But when the time came to vote, Donato stopped. He paused.
And for a moment things looked like they might come out right.
Then he voted in favor of the reopening plan.
The final vote was 7-2 in favor with Brown and Mindy Sturgess voting against.
Donato, Joseph Lopretto, Tom Filotei, Ivan Hampton, Steven Kondrosky, Jim Poston and Diane Elias voted in favor of it.
I was there at the meeting in my hometown western Pennsylvania district, one of four people who signed up to speak.
Also last week school directors didn’t enforce any time limit on public comments. This week, Donato started the meeting with a warning that anyone who spoke for more than 3 minutes would be stopped.
In both cases, there were only a handful of people who signed up to speak. And no one spoke at great length.
The first speaker tonight went over her time but was allowed to finish. The next was brief.
Then it came to me.
I knew my comments asking to start the school year remotely wouldn’t fit in a 3 minute time frame, but I was not about to be silenced.
I made my comments (which I reproduce in full below) and when the timer went off, I kept going.
Superintendent Dr. Mark Holtzman said, “Mr. Singer, your time is up.”
I responded, “I’m sorry. I thought my duly elected representatives would want to hear what I had to say. I’ll continue…”
When I was again challenged, it was Sturgess who came to my defense.
She was fearless the entire meeting with questions and comments about the reopening plan and how she thought it was ill considered.
When she spoke up asking for me to be allowed to finish, Lopretto became visibly upset.
“Mindy, why don’t you just take the president’s seat!?” he said.
Lopretto got into an argument with her about it, which ended when he gave up and allowed me to finish.
It’s surprising that even after such antagonism, board members like Donato later seemed to almost reconsider their votes when the time came.
If anything I said seemed to get through to them, it may have been how I concluded:
“If I’m wrong about this, maybe kids will get a slightly less effective academic experience than they would otherwise. But if you vote for in-person classes and you’re wrong, kids will get sick, teachers will get sick, family members will get sick and many will die.
I can live with the consequences of my decision.
Please consider all these things carefully before casting your vote. There are many lives depending on it.”
In the end, we lost.
The district will reopen to in-person classes.
Frankly, before the meeting I had thought it a lost cause.
But now that it’s over, I think if just a few more parents had come to the meeting and spoken against the plan, we might have won.
If the teachers union had been clearer about educators’ concerns and not allowed the superintendent to rhapsodize on the bravery of district employees putting their lives on the line for students, we might have won.
However, the parents I talked to were too frightened of speaking out, too scared of reprisals against their children, and too certain that they wouldn’t be heard anyway.
The teachers I talked to complained about their comments to administration being gas lit and pushed aside. Fear or reprisal, silencing and the good ol’ boys network.
To be honest, it was not easy to sign up to speak at all.
There was a link online to sign up last week, but I had great difficulty finding it, myself, just seven days later. And if you didn’t have your name down by 3 pm on the day before the meeting, you were told sign ups were closed.
These are not the actions of a school board that welcomes public comment.
If just a few more of us could have persevered, I think we could have changed directors’ minds.
But it was not to be.
All that’s left is to see after you and yours – and remember.
Remember the names of those who voted in favor of reopening. Write them down.
If the epidemic brings a tragedy down on McKeesport, we know who to blame.
MY COMMENTS:
“Thank you for allowing me to address this board for the second week in a row.
I am here again to ask you to reconsider administration’s school reopening plan. I think it is imperative physical classrooms remain closed and students begin the year with distance learning.
If it’s good enough for the rich kids in Mt. Lebanon, I think it’s good enough for McKeesport kids, too.
You have to face the facts.
In the last seven days, 311 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in Allegheny County. In the previous week it was 890 new cases.
That may fall under the bar of Gov. Wolf’s new guidelines for districts to mandate remote learning, but it comes awfully close to hopping over it. And it certainly puts online learning as a viable option for county districts.
McKeesport Area School District has been hit harder than most. According to the county Website, there have been 189 cases in McKeesport for a case rate of 95.8 per 10,000. There have been an additional 31 cases in White Oak for a case rate of 39.4 per 10,000.
That’s more than White Oak (0), North Versailles (2), Duquesne (2), West Mifflin (1), Glassport (0), Port Vue (0), Liberty (0), or Elizabeth Township (0).
Jefferson Hills and Baldwin come close with 5 deaths a piece. And Monroeville – which is much more populous than McKeesport – matches us with 7.
Last week, Dr. Mark Holtzman said “We’re very comfortable with the proposal that we’re making.” I don’t see how you can be comfortable with that kind of data.
To put that in context, out of more than 5 million people diagnosed with the virus in the US, approximately 338,000 are children.
And nearly a third of those cases have come as we’ve reopened schools and summer camps, as we’ve increasingly exposed kids to the virus.
Children typically had low infection rates because schools were closed in March and kids were quarantined before the virus had spread through most of the country.
Since June, there have been numerous outbreaks at summer schools. And with some schools now starting their academic year, outbreaks have been even more numerous.
The fact is – if we reopen schools to in-person classes, chances are good that kids will get sick. Staff will get sick. And they’ll bring it home to their families.
Last week, Dr. Holtzman told me I was welcome to utilize a virtual option for my daughter and that this personal parental choice is all that should matter.
I disagree for several reasons.
First, the virtual option on offer for parents at this time is not as effective as the online learning the district could provide if all classes were meeting remotely. As Dr. Holtzman outlined, if the buildings were closed, classroom teachers could conduct synchronous lessons online for all students. This would increase social interaction with real, live people and increase learning outcomes.
By contrast, the existent cyber program is asynchronous, do-at-your-own-pace and less socially interactive.
Obviously, in-person classes would be better academically. But (1) they put children at undue risk of death or permanent health problems as a result of complications from the virus, and (2) what is on offer is not traditional in-person schooling but rushed 20 minute classes behind face masks, plexiglass barriers and a cloud of well-earned fear and anxiety.
So if you insist on reopening the school buildings at this time, I will have to enroll my daughter in the cyber program.
However, a decision to have in-person classes will still affect me and my family.
There is Coronavirus in our community. If you have in-person classes – even on a half day basis – you would be inviting it into our schools where it could infect others and be brought back to their homes. You would effectively be increasing the amount of infection in our community – both in and out of the schools.
When I go to the local Giant Eagle to do my shopping, I would be more likely to become infected because of what you decide here tonight.
When I go to gas up my car, if I pick up take out, if I even go for a walk in my own neighborhood, I would be more likely to be exposed to a person infected with the Coronavirus and thus get sick, myself, because of your decision tonight.
Finally, let me speak for the staff because few others seem willing to do so.
The teachers, custodians, bus drivers, secretaries, support staff and others do not get to make a choice. They have to either accept the plan you’re voting on tonight or look for employment elsewhere. They have to decide whether to put – not just themselves – but their own children and families at risk just to continue receiving a paycheck.
They have done so much for us. They are the lifeblood of this district. Don’t they deserve more consideration than this?
I know administration has worked tirelessly on it. And that effort has not been wasted.
There will come a time to go to a hybrid reopening plan. But that time is not now.
When the spread has been contained, when everyone who wants to be tested can do so in a timely manner, when we can adequately contract trace infections, hopefully there will be a vaccine but even if not when Allegheny County has had close to zero new cases for two full weeks, then it will be time to start reopening buildings.
But let’s not jump the gun now. Let’s wait and see how things go. Wait until the new year and see what happens at other districts that are not so safety minded. At least wait 9-weeks.
If I’m wrong about this, maybe kids will get a slightly less effective academic experience than they would otherwise. But if you vote for in-person classes and you’re wrong, kids will get sick, teachers will get sick, family members will get sick and many will die.
I can live with the consequences of my decision.
Please consider all these things carefully before casting your vote. There are many lives depending on it.”
DR. HOLTZMAN’S RESPONSE:
“Mr. Singer, I’d like to address you with a few of my own statistics. Allegheny County at this particular point anyone under the age of 40 the mortality rate is zero. Anyone under the age of 50 there’s been two fatalities due to Covid. Currently reference to CDC. There’s a current study on the CDC Website right now that clearly states that children or young adults under the age of 19 are five times more likely to die from the flu than Covid-19. These are statistics that go along with the statistics you’re sharing that are often one-sided when you think about those processes.
I think when you talk about coming to a meeting tonight, going to the grocery store, getting take out, we’re putting ourselves at risk every day. It’s an unfortunate scenario. It’s an unfortunate situation. Many people are having people at their homes, they’re going to Kennywood, they’re playing sports out in the community, and that risk of spread is just as big of a risk without a reward. So I think in our case we’re looking for an opportunity to educate children that need desperately positive adults in their life and the opportunity to be educated. We’re not taking a risk for no reward as many do as they go on vacation this summer and consider the spread differently.
So I would take those as part of your comments about some of the things you shared with us so that we’re both on the same page. There’s no easy answers to this solution. And many districts are doing different things based on their community and their community needs. We’re just trying to do what’s best for children.
I appreciate your comment. I appreciate your continuing to blog about me on social media. I’m not a social media person, but it’s something that you do regularly, and we’re here to do what’s best for your children, my children and all the children in the school district. So thank you.”
Moreover, his assertion that “children or young adults under the age of 19 are five times more likely to die from the flu than Covid-19” is misleading because children have been mostly quarantined since March and many who do get infected with Coronavirus are asymptomatic. That’s why there have been fewer reported cases until recently. Former Food and Drug Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said, “The reality is that flu last year infected 11.8 million kids. We have not infected anywhere near that number of kids with Covid, and we don’t want to find out what it might look like if we did… We really do want to prevent outbreaks in the school setting.”
(My comments are at 29 minutes left in the video.
Holtzman’s response comes at 20 minutes left.
The vote takes place at 10 minutes left.)
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At McKeesport Area School District (MASD), Dr. Mark Holtzman and administration propose unlocking the doors for half day in-person classes Mondays through Fridays.
Kids would be split into two groups – one attending in the mornings, the other in the afternoons. That way, with buildings at half capacity, there would be enough physical space for social distancing. The remainder of the time, kids would be learning online.
However, if you don’t approve, you can opt out.
Any parent who is uncomfortable with this plan could keep his or her children home and have them participate in the district’s existent cyber program.
The board hasn’t voted on the proposal yet. It won’t do so until Wednesday.
Which brings up the question – is parental choice enough?
Is the fact that I can choose for my daughter the only concern I should have?
Thankfully, no one is forcing me to subject my child to in-person classes. If I don’t think they’re safe, I can keep her away and still have access to an education for her through the Internet.
What else do I want?
Plenty.
First of all, the quality of education offered by the district cyber program is not the same as the district could provide if all students were enrolled in virtual classes.
Dr. Holtzman has outlined what that would look like if school buildings were shut down by the governor or the district were overcome with sick students, teachers and/or family.
Teachers would provide synchronous classes online through video platforms like Zoom. Students would get to interact virtually with each other and their teachers.
By contrast, the existent cyber program is asychronous. Students watch videos and do assignments at their own pace, but human contact and social interaction – even via the Internet – is much harder to come by.
Both cyber options are preferable because they avoid these problems. But one of them – the synchronous option with a dedicated class and a teacher behind the curriculum – is superior to the one being offered.
Is it selfish to want the better plan for my daughter?
Should I just be glad I have a choice at all? Should I put the individual good of my child aside for the good of others?
No. Because administration’s plan is not in the best interests of other children, either.
If we reopen schools to in-person classes, chances are good that kids will get sick.
Children typically had low infection rates because schools were closed in March and kids were quarantined before the virus had spread through most of the country.
If the virus is present in the community – as county health department data shows – opening the schools to students also opens them to Coronavirus.
But with the schools open, the virus will no longer be confined to just a few homes. It will come with kids to class and spread among students and staff before it’s brought to their homes as well.
That’s how epidemics work. Opening the schools will spread the virus throughout the entire community.
And that will affect me, too, regardless of whether I choose a cyber option for my daughter or not.
When I go to the local grocery store, gas up my car, even go for a walk – I will be more likely to come into contact with someone infected with the virus and get sick.
I can make the safe decision for my family but still suffer the consequences of the irresponsible decisions of others – especially school directors.
In fact, it doesn’t even have to be my own local school board. The decisions of school directors in neighboring districts affects me, too.
After all, in my part of the state, school districts are pretty small geographically – not nearly as large as most counties. There are 42 public districts in Allegheny County, alone. So it should be no surprise that I routinely travel through several different districts just running day-to-day errands.
MASD school directors can decide to keep buildings closed (and I hope they will) but if a district just one township or borough over decides differently, we will suffer the consequences in McKeesport, too.
Since I don’t live in more than one district, I don’t get a say in what school directors at neighboring districts decide. I just have a say in what happens in my tiny portion of the world. But the consequences are not nearly as respectful of our man-made borders.
For instance, I work as a teacher at a neighboring district. But since I do not live there, I am barred from speaking at the board meetings unless I am invited to speak as an employee of the district.
I can give a report as part of the safety commission if invited by administrators, but I can’t otherwise sign up to speak as an employee concerned about how district policies affects me, my students or their families.
I’m a believer in local control, but sometimes control can be too localized.
This is why you haven’t heard much from many educators. If they’re allowed to speak, they’re often afraid of how doing so will make them a target for reprisals. If they can get their union to back them, they can speak collectively that way, but otherwise, they have no pathway to being heard at all.
As a parent, I get a choice for my child in my district.
But what choice do teachers have – especially if they don’t live where they teach?
That concerns me even with my choices as a parent.
I’ve had some outstanding teachers. My daughter loves her teachers. Is it okay if I don’t want to see them get sick and their lives cut short? If I worry about my own chances of surviving the pandemic and the demands of my employer?
I think their lives matter. But as minorities and people subjected to systemic inequalities, they get less of a say in policy. Should decisions that disproportionately impact their health really be up to a committee? Doesn’t their right to life surpass the decisions making abilities of a handful of elected officials or even middle and upper class parents?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m thankful I have choices as a parent for how my daughter is educated.
School directors need to make reopening decisions that are in the best interests of everyone because we’re all in this together.
That’s what so many folks seem to be forgetting.
Yes, even from a completely selfish point of view, unsafe school reopening will affect each of us.
But epidemics spread through communities. Only communities can effectively combat them.
Dividing ourselves into smaller and smaller fiefdoms only empowers the virus. If we all try to fight Covid-19 individually, we will lose.
We have to understand that what’s good for our friends and neighbors is in our individual interest, too.
We have to care about our fellow human beings.
That’s why I will continue to fight these unsafe plans and ask school directors to reopen schools virtually.
That’s the path I’ve chosen.
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If we reopen schools, we invite COVID-19 into the classroom just as well as students.
So far as we know, the virus doesn’t care what your motivations are. It only infects as many people as it can leaving us to deal with the consequences.
Consider what the virus does to the human body.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), exposure to the virus can result in mild symptoms to severe illness up to two weeks later. These include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, nausea or vomiting and/or diarrhea.
People who are sick should stay home, monitor their symptoms and separate themselves from other members of the household.
You should seek immediate medical care if you experience trouble breathing, persistent pain or pressure in the chest, confusion, inability to stay awake and/or bluish lips or face.
Severe illness often requires hospitalization that attempts to relieve the most common complications. These are things like pneumonia, hypoxemic respiratory failure/ARDS, sepsis and septic shock, cardiomyopathy and arrhythmia, and acute kidney injury.
However, you also have to beware additional complications from prolonged hospitalization. These can include secondary bacterial infections, thromboembolism, gastrointestinal bleeding, and critical illness polyneuropathy/myopathy.
Managing blocked airways is a particular concern. This can be done in less severe cases with simple nasal cannula or oxygen rebreather masks. However, in more extreme cases, you may need continuous airway pressure provided through a machine or even invasive mechanical ventilation.
The chances of this happening to you or a loved one because your neighborhood school building was reopened and children were exposed to potentially sick classmates and staff is far from negligible.
These include inflammation of the heart, cardiovascular disease and strokes; lung inflammation including persistent shortness of breath; and neurological issues such as headaches, dizziness, trouble concentrating or recalling things and even hallucinations.
Teachers and classrooms provide necessary services way beyond simple education.
I’m talking about food, nutrition, healthcare, childcare, counseling, tutoring, socialization, self esteem, meeting special needs, protection from abuse and a whole lot more.
If we keep school buildings closed and go to distance learning as we did in March, many of these services will continue to be disrupted or completely severed.
While reopening school buildings is NOT a viable solution, there are other things we can do.
Food, nutrition and healthcare can all be met while conducting distance learning. In fact, most schools provided these services from March through June as classrooms across the country were closed.
Likewise, counseling, tutoring, socialization, and self esteem can be provided on-line. In most cases they won’t be as effective as they would be in a physical setting. However, given the precautions necessary to meet in-person – face masks, social distancing, etc. – they may be more effective screen-to-screen than they would be mask-to-mask.
Which brings me to the most difficult considerations – meeting special needs, protection from abuse, and childcare.
Special arrangements could be made for these students to come into the physical classroom on a part-time or full-time basis. This isn’t as safe as complete on-line learning, but if the numbers of students are small enough, precautions such a temperature screenings and social distancing were in place and exposure mitigated, this could be a viable option.
The same goes for protection from abuse. Some students live in unsafe home environments. It is observation by responsible adults who are mandated reporters like teachers that reduce the likelihood these children will be mistreated and provide a solution when abuse is reported. However, noticing the telltale signs of such mistreatment or even communicating with a teacher privately outside of the hearing of an adult in the home is more difficult on-line.
Special arrangements could be made for students who have already been identified as at risk. They could meet with counselors and psychologists in the school every week or so. Safety precautions would be necessary but the risk could be reduced enough to make it worth taking.
The biggest problem is probably the most widespread – childcare.
Having children at home to do their schoolwork on-line puts additional pressure on parents.
In short, the economy requires some kind of daycare for these children.
Many European countries that have best managed the Coronavirus have paid workers to stay home. This allows them to take care of their own children and reduce their own exposure to the virus.
However, our government has almost completely abrogated its responsibilities to working class people.
Parents with similar age children can create childcare networks where the same families take turns watching each others’ children. This reduces exposure to some degree.
Childcare centers also have been kept open in many communities to meet this need. However,there have been massive outbreaks at such centersacross the country that would only be worsened if we rely on them more. Any sane country would close them just as it closed schools.
Until our lawmakers get off their butts and do their jobs, we will have no good solution to this problem.
Reopening school buildings to serve as childcare centers certainly won’t solve anything except put a premium on respirators, coffins and graveyard plots.
We need to make it possible for parents to stay home with their children.
And we need to do it now.
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As the summer whittles down, my district has yet to release its reopening plan. Meanwhile, no communication from administrators or school directors, no public meetings, nothing.
The Sword of Damocles dangles over my head and the rope that keeps it in place looks more frayed with every pendulum swing.
For a person like me with at least two pre-existing conditions, an assignment in the school building during a global pandemic could be a death sentence.
Teaching has taken a huge toll on my body. I have heart disease and Crohn’s Disease. Not to mention that I’m certainly not getting any younger.
That’s at least twice the average risk of getting COVID-19 if my employer decides to assign me back in the building.
And it’s something my doctors made a point of mentioning.
From the middle of June to the middle of August, teachers like me try to take care of all our personal needs before the hectic classroom schedule begins.
That means renewing clearances, financial planning, medical visits, etc.
So when I went to a routine cardiologist appointment, I was somewhat taken aback as the doctor told me, “Remember, you can’t get sick.”
“I’m sorry? What?” I said.
He had just given me a clean bill of health.
“Remember, you can’t get sick. You simply cannot afford it,” he said.
Then he went on to complain about living in a country that put economics before science.
I heard much the same from my gastroenterologist.
They were both furious at how the pandemic is being handled but had no more advice on how I could protect myself.
“If they want you to go back to work, what else can you do?” one asked me.
Teaching has been one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve ever had. Every day I get to help kids become the people they want to be. I get to introduce them to a world of reading where voices long past get to speak to each of them individually. I get to show them how to participate in a conversation that’s been raging for millennia.
After 17 years in the classroom, years of helping kids learn how to read and write, years of listening to their needs and worries, years of helping them overcome their anxieties and fears, years of advice, counsel and friendship – is this all I’m worth to the community?
I chaperoned field trips with school directors and their children, I’ve taught board members kids and sat across from the adults at parent-teacher meetings regaling them with tales of mischief and academic triumphs. Will they now callously decide that I need to put my life at risk or else step down?
How many times did I joke and laugh with administrators, how many times did I try my best to do what they asked, how many times did I go above and beyond – and now have they no qualms about making my wife a widow and forcing my daughter to navigate the rest of her childhood without her daddy?
It doesn’t have to be this way.
A sane society wouldn’t reopen school buildings when Coronavirus cases are spiking. A rational country wouldn’t politicize safety precautions, undermine scientists and disparage facts. It would pay people to stay home, suspend rent payments, provide everyone with personal protective equipment (PPE) and universal healthcare.
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The $660 billion federal initiative was intended to help businesses keep employees on the payroll and off unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The loans will be forgiven if businesses meet certain conditions such as retaining or rehiring employees.
Pennsylvania got $523 million to distribute to both authentic public schools and charters. However, of the two, only charters were eligible for additional PPP funds.
Since Imagine writes the Environmental Charter’s operating budget, the management company ends up paying itself for a number of services.
After the school gets funding from state, federal and community taxes (this year including bailouts from PPP and the CARES act), it pays 12 percent back to Imagine. This came to $406,000 in 2009, according to an independent financial audit.
The school also pays Imagine on a $250,000 loan that the charter operating company took out to launch the program. Payments come out to about $2,500 per month over 20 years with an interest rate of 10.524 percent.
The charter also pays Imagine rent on its building which was purchased in 2006 by Schoolhouse Finance – Imagine’s real estate arm – for $3 million.
Like the Environmental Charter, this so-called nonprofit hires a management company. In this case, it’s the infamous K12 Incorporated – a nationwide cyber charter network with a record of academic failure and financial shenanigans.
In 2016, the company reached a $168.5 million settlement with the state of California. The state claimed K12 had reported incorrect student attendance records and otherwise lied about its academic programs. The company ended up settling with the state for $2.5 million with an additional $6 million to cover the state’s investigation and K12 voided $160 million in credits it had given to the affiliated schools to cover the cost of their contracts.
Hill House offers a blended model with in-person teachers and virtual classes somewhat different than most K12 schools.
Penn Hills School Board – a duly elected body, not government appointees – outlined criticisms of the charter that do not put the entrepreneurial venture in a positive light.
Penn Hills School Board said the charter had failed to produce current student rosters, failed in record management, failed to accurately maintain student tuition payments, improperly billed the school district for special education students, failed to maintain and develop Individual Education Plans (IEPs), had poor academic growth and is under a Department of Education Corrective Action Plan setting forth 31 areas of needed improvement.
Finally, the charter school sucks away necessary funding from the authentic public school. The Penn Hills School District paid Imagine about $3 million in 2014-15. Costs increased to $12 million a year and continue to rise.
Nina Rees, executive director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has spoken out of both sides of her mouth on the issue. She has insisted that charter schools be regarded as public schools and eligible for emergency aid – all the while advising charter schools also to apply for federal rescue funds for small businesses devastated by the pandemic.
Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Network for Public Education, did not mince words.
“Once again, the charter sector, through the lobbying efforts of Nina Rees…worked behind the scenes to gain fiscal advantage for the privately operated schools they claim are public schools.”
“Charters claim to be ‘public schools’ when that’s where the money is,” she said. “But when the money is available for small businesses, they claim to be small businesses.”
Charters go where the money is.
We get the privilege of paying the tab.
If it were up to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, we wouldn’t even know about it.
ProPublica has put all the information into an easy to use search engine. Just enter a zip code and it will display all the businesses located there that received PPP loans.
This includes high tuition private prep schools like Sewickley Academy and Shady Side Academy both of which got $2 – $5 million, Winchester Thurston School which got $1 million – $2 million, and the charter schools listed above.
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There is no middle ground here – nor should there be.
Even if schools try to execute some hybrid model where kids only attend classes in-person two or three days a week and go on-line for the remainder of the time, when they are in the school building everyone will be wearing masks.
Imagine trying to get a message across to a classroom of middle school children with a piece of fabric hiding half of your face, obscuring your expressions and garbling your words.
I’m not saying it’s insurmountable, but it’s not indistinguishable from classroom teaching at the beginning of last school year, either.
Many of my students come into my class with trust issues. They’ve been let down by adults and authority figures. They aren’t about to put in their best work for just anyone. They have to know the teacher can be trusted and cares about them as individual people.
How are you supposed to generate trust when students can only see your eyes?
These do not make for good teaching. On Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, only physiological necessities like food and water take precedence. Without a sense of safety, it is difficult to impossible for students to achieve their full potentials.
Unfortunately, facial coverings aren’t the only problem. Consider physical proximity.
As a teacher, I rarely sit when students are in the room.
During a 40 minute class, I probably lap the space as many times going from desk to desk observing students progress, answering questions, reading work, making suggestions, etc. This will be much more difficult with the threat of Coronavirus in the room.
How can I closely observe my students from a minimum of 6 feet away?
I would suspect this will be even more profound with kids with special needs. Just because they’re in the classroom with the teacher does not mean the teacher will be able to serve them as well as under normal circumstances. This is bound to lead to increased frustration and acting out.
The most common diagnosis my middle school students have is ADHD. The most common adaptation I’m told to make to help them overcome this is to repeatedly prompt them back on task. And you don’t want to do this in a way that will draw attention to the issue. I often walk up to students and ask questions privately, or point to something on their papers.
This will not be easy when trying to avoid their physical space. Any verbal queues would be loud enough to be heard by the rest of the class.
Nor does this allow for students to work together on group projects. They can’t push their desks together and work on assignments cooperatively in the physical classroom. In fact, in the time of COVID, these kinds of projects may actually be better served on-line.
Finally, imagine the difficulty of getting children to comply with social distancing mandates.
Moreover, children are mischievous. Some may try to purposefully cough on their classmates just to get a reaction. Others could intentionally take off their masks to annoy classmates. As every teacher knows, some kids will do anything for attention. Even negative attention.
In-person teaching could easily degenerate into a game of trying to get kids to obey the rules with little to no actual instruction going on.
Are administrators and school boards really prepared to suspend students for endangering their classmates? Are parents willing to accept such punishments?
When a student gets sick, do we quarantine for two weeks all the other students who came into contact with him? When a teacher gets sick, who teaches her classes while she is in isolation? And do we keep her students home, too?
Before we can reopen schools to in-person instruction, there are a host of problems we have to solve.
We have to figure out how to get kids to and from school without crowding them together on buses. We have to arrange classes and move students safely from point A to point B within the building. We have to figure out how to safely feed them – since no one can wear a mask while they eat. We have to figure out how to adequately ventilate buildings that were in need of repair for decades prior to the crisis.
As we’ve seen, the push for in-person schooling isn’t justified by academic concerns.
Though under normal circumstances face-to-face learning is worlds better than on-line learning, that is not what we’ll be doing if we reopen schools this year.
Lawmakers and policymakers don’t want to put forward the funding necessary to reduce the risks. Teachers fear they’ll be laid off if they speak out against unsafe working conditions. Parents fear they won’t be able to return to their own jobs if they have to stay home to take care of their children.
These issues can all be solved by good government. Our lawmakers need to follow the lead of nearly every other country that has lowered infection rates. We need federal relief checks so people can pay their bills without having to risk their lives working through a pandemic. We need personal protective equipment (PPE), protection from evictions, and universal healthcare so that we can weather the storm.
You don’t close schools when there are only thousands of cases and then reopen them when there are millions.
One thing to recommend on-line learning at the present time is that we know it can be done. We already tried it last school year. There were certainly major problems but we have a good idea what they are and can make changes to at least attempt to solve them.
We can do a better job ensuring all students have access to computers, devices and the Internet. We can make expectations clear and achievable and increase project based assignments. We can habituate participation, increase interactivity and offer multiple chances to do the work.
But we will not have face-to-face instruction this year. It will be mask-to-mask or screen-to-screen.
That cannot be emphasized enough.
None of the possible solutions does a perfect job overcoming the problems.
There are not enough adequate virus screenings to tell who has the disease. Nor can we screen those who have it and keep them quarantined from the rest. Nor do we have adequate PPE to reduce infection. Nor does any vaccine appear to be forthcoming.
With the exception of the last point, many other developed countries have done much better with these things and so are in a better position to reopen schools.
But we have to face facts. The United States is not in the same position. In fact, we’ve made wearing a mask a political statement instead of what it is – a public health concern.
Until we solve these issues, there will be no perfect solution for schools. We just have to choose the best of several imperfect options.
I hope we can do that for our children, families and communities.
I hope that the death cult of capitalism doesn’t require teachers to jump on the pyre of economic growth.
We all deserve better.
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“When an individual commits an act of gross recklessness without regard to the probability that death to another is likely to result, that individual exhibits the state of mind required to uphold a conviction of manslaughter even if the individual did not intend for death to ensue.”
Lawmakers and school administrators better pay heed to this and similar nationwide decisions.
Along with fellow Republican Senator John Cornyn, McConnell proposed new liability laws protecting schools and businesses from Coronavirus-related lawsuits.
“Can you image the nightmare that could unfold this fall when K-12 kids are still at home, when colleges and universities are still not open? That is a scenario that would only be further aggravated in the absence of some kind of liability protection that reassures school administrators that they can actually open up again… Without it, frankly that’s just not going to happen as soon as it should have.”
The Kentucky Senator went on Fox News in late April saying that such legal protections would be necessary for Republicans to even consider any new Coronavirus relief bills.
According to those who were either on the call or were knowledgeable about the conversation, the college presidents said they needed to know their institutions would not get sued if people got sick – which they thought was almost a certainty.
One way the federal government can help “is to have some kind of liability protection,” said University of Texas at El Paso president Heather Wilson, who was on the call. Wilson is a former Republican congresswoman from New Mexico.
Big business is also calling for liability protection. Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been asking to be freed during the pandemic from being held liable if workers, customers or others get sick on their property. Notably, a lawyer for Texas Christian University told senators such a situation is “foreseeable, perhaps inevitable.”
Is it our responsibility to make sure customers, workers, students and teachers are safe from the virus? Or is it our responsibility to make sure businesses and schools aren’t sued for taking chances with our lives?
But that requires a vast expansion of our testing ability through coordinated federal action.
The problem is our lawmakers don’t care enough to do this.
Nor are they willing to provide us with federal relief checks, personal protective equipment (PPE), protection from evictions, and universal healthcare so that were can weather the storm.
Children, in particular, are less susceptible to COVID-19 than older people.
And while it’s true that young people have shown fewer symptoms and include the lowest numbers of deaths, this virus has been around barely more than a year. We simply don’t know much about it and its long term effects.
Researchers found few children 5-9 (the youngest included in the study) who had contracted the disease but those ages 10-19 were as likely to contract it as people ages 20-49 – and more likely than adults older than that.
And anyone who gambles with our lives needs to be held liable.
Anyone who demands we place our heads against the barrel of a loaded gun as a prerequisite to jump start the economy, needs to be held responsible for that decision.
In effect, we don’t know how many chambers are loaded, but we know there are bullets in the gun.
There are too many hidden factors to be able to say for sure what our chances are exactly. And in the presence of such ignorance, we should assume the worst.
That’s exactly what decision makers are doing by trying to protect themselves from responsibility.
We should take that as seriously as a loaded gun put to our temples.
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