PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE TIME OF COVID
Georgia Educators Have Sacrificed Enough
While Georgia schools (K-12) begin their academic year on August 11th, most school districts are still struggling to decide how they are going to open.
Will they use on-line learning only, in-class learning, or a hybrid of the two?
Many of the metro Atlanta districts sent out a questionnaire to parents earlier this summer asking which method they preferred. But that was prior to seeing an unprecedented spike in COVID-19 case numbers across the state.
Most districts and parents are tasked with making a critical decision with little guidance while resolving mixed and contradictory messages coming from the White House, the President himself, and highly respected public health officials.
As reported recently by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, many educators, on the national and local levels, feel their concerns about how to safely reopen schools are being ignored.
The President demanded that all schools open with students in attendance. Fortunately, that is not within his power. He also demanded that the CDC change its requirements for school openings because they were too “harsh.” Sadly, they recently did. Once again, politics trumps science. In an even further diminution of the CDC’s role, the administration has since changed protocols so that COVID-19 reporting data flows through the Department of Health and Human Services, a cabinet-level executive branch department of the U.S. federal government, before the CDC.
The CDC guidelines for safely re-opening school systems had been classified as follows:
Lowest Risk — Students and teachers engage in virtual-only classes, activities, and events.
More Risk — Small, in-person classes, activities, and events. Groups of children should stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups should not mix. Students remain at least 6 feet apart and do not share objects (e.g., hybrid virtual and in-person class structures, or staggered/rotated scheduling to accommodate smaller class sizes.”
Highest Risk — Full sized, in-person classes, activities, and events. Students are not spaced apart, share classroom materials or supplies, and mix between classes and activities.
Now, their guidelines fully support the complete re-opening of schools, citing only positive reasons while overlooking or downplaying the real risks of community spread. See
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/reopening-schools.html
The recent incident reported at a YMCA camp held near Lake Burton totally refutes their argument that “The best available evidence indicates that COVID-19 poses relatively low risks to school-aged children. Children appear to be at lower risk of contracting COVID-19 compared to adults.”
Tell that to the parents of the 51 children at the camp between the ages of 6 and 10 who tested positive, nearly 50% of those tested in that age group. This percentage was higher than older campers (44%) and significantly higher than the COVID-positive adults who comprised about one-third of the cases.
Reports have indicated that these guidelines were written by political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services, with little to no input from the scientists at the CDC. That would make sense since there is little scientific evidence to back up their claims.
Georgia's governor should take the advice of the medical experts in Georgia. If even one child or one teacher contracts COVID-19 because of contact with an infected person (who would likely be asymptomatic for several days before showing symptoms) that is one child or one teacher too many.
The New York Times reports that Georgia, while it still falls short of the national percentage of testing target (25 v 39), is showing a high rate of positivity in the tests it has conducted. For those in the back rows, this means the number of cases is going up not because of increased testing but because of the increased spread of the virus.
It would be sheer insanity to consider opening our schools to students under these circumstances but President Trump, who claims to have a “very, very large brain,” also claims, without any supporting medical data, that children have a “very strong immune system” so there should be no problem sending them back to school.
In addition, experts now realize that there is extremely low data on the transmissibility of COVID-19 in school-age children since all schools, both public and private, were physically shut down in March with a shift to distanced learning.
This still leaves unanswered the question of the danger that re-opening our schools poses, not only to our teachers but to administrative staff and maintenance workers. Some of whom have underlying conditions that pose serious health concerns were they to return to the classroom.
But the 9th District of Georgia does face an unfortunate situation. Due to the lack of access to broadband internet (an issue that I intend to address as soon as I am in Congress), therefore eliminating the ability of these children to participate in on-line learning, I propose two options:
- First, engage the Lowest Risk scenario and wait to re-open schools until the number of cases in their areas begins a consistent and sustained cycle of decline. This will most likely delay the opening of schools, but it is necessary for the safety of our children.
- Second, use these areas of declining cases to create education zones overlapping school districts where the More Risk scenario can be implemented. This is not an ideal solution, but if CDC guidelines are followed stringently, it might be a solution that works. Education zones could also help alleviate the shortage of classroom space. And, should there be an outbreak of COVID-19 in the schools or an increase in the number of cases in the education zones, schools must be shut down and the Lowest Risk scenario again placed into effect.
Meanwhile, educators would have an opportunity to create a model for in-home schooling for students without internet access. Don’t forget that in April we asked our teachers to develop a plan for online learning within a few days, and, as always, they came through for us.
We are living in the time of COVID and our response to this cross-generational hardship will come to define us. Our best hope is for a safe, effective vaccine but, at the earliest, one would not be available until sometime in early 2021 — if we are extremely fortunate.
In the meantime, for our safety, the safety of our children, and the safety of the elderly and medically fragile, we must make changes to our lives. This includes the way we work, the way we shop, the way we go to church, synagogue, or mosque, and the way our children attend school.
Yes, our children need social interaction. They need outdoor activities. They need to be able to play sports and have sleepovers with their friends. They need good nutrition and all the other positive benefits of the CDC argument for completely re-opening the schools. When they do get back to doing these things, it is incumbent upon all of us to ensure they are healthy and alive. Otherwise, what’s the point?
That is our responsibility to our children - and to all the dedicated educators who have already sacrificed enough.
