The Impossible Decision Facing Parents When Schools Reopen
Education is now a literal life and death decision.
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing parents into an impossible decision this fall when schools reopen. They must choose between the following options.
- Send their kids to school, with in-person classrooms, allowing the parent(s) to go back to work once the majority of states fully reopen.
- Stay home with their kids to either attend classes virtually or homeschool them, probably resulting in at least one lost job.
Before we break down the options and see just how horrific either option is, I need to get something off my chest.
In so many ways, the federal government has proven to be an utter failure during this crisis. My rage at the complete lack of guidance from the feds seems to have no end.
I’m a Facility Manager, and if I don’t do my job right, people will die. And what did I get from my duly elected leaders to help prevent a fatal mistake?
Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
Nothing except a politically motivated attempt to prevent the release of reopening guidance provided by the CDC. Why? Because it actually included restrictions on churches, and Trump didn’t want to piss off his evangelical base.
Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!
Our leaders (and I use that term charitably) have been exposed for the sniveling weasels they are.
Their complete abdication of any semblance of authority during this entire pandemic is sickening, but their laissez-faire attitude that is going to result in our children being exposed (and possibly dying) en masse when the school year starts is downright criminal.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at what’s behind door #1.
Option 1 — Sending Kids Back to School
When the schools first shut down during the spring semester, many parents were able to take it in stride and treat it as just an elongated summer. Add in some Zoom classes during the day, and the kids would be just fine.
(This turned out to be a falsehood, but let’s keep with the pleasant fiction.)
The big problem now is that America is still smack dab in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic, and parents, along with their employers, expected their kids to actually be able to attend school for 9 months.
Lack of Real Data
But what does that look like? The fact is that no one really knows. The schools were shut down so early in the pandemic that there have been almost no real-life case studies of the impact that classrooms full of students would have for the virus transmission.
There have been a few isolated cases, described in this article.
NPR reported Wednesday that child care centers operated by the YMCA and New York City government during the pandemic had no outbreaks to speak of. No more than one case was seen in any single YMCA location, among the 40,000 children in its system, the organization told NPR. Both the Y and New York City implemented CDC guidelines.
In South Korea, meanwhile, where schools reopened in late May, children were separated by plastic dividers in cafeterias and classrooms, wore masks, and lined up 6 feet apart to receive temperature checks. But clusters of the virus quickly broke out after school reopenings, leading the government to close them again.
The CDC has provided guidelines for school reopenings, but there is no federal-level requirement. Individual school systems have begun releasing their own plans, and they are as varied as you might expect.
For instance, my home state of Indiana has released their IN-CLASS reopening documentation, but it is basically a 38-page list of suggestions.
Or there’s this gem from Kansas.
Recently, the governor issued an executive order requiring face masks for anyone in public or in their workplace. The goal was to stem the recent increase in COVID cases so schools could reopen in the coming months. However, there was some serious pushback, with many municipalities opting out of the order.
In Sedgwick County, home to Wichita, the state’s largest city, commissioners voted 3–2 Thursday to strongly recommend that people follow Kelly’s order but not make it a mandate. Commissioner Michael O’Donnell, a Republican, compared a mandate to required dress codes for women in “Middle Eastern countries.”
“I just inherently don’t believe that’s American,” O’Donnell said.
If this is any indication of the seriousness with which this pandemic is being taken, then parents are right to be terrified to send their kids to school.
It Might Work. It Might Not.
If the safety measures don’t prevent the spread of the virus, what then? Will children contract the virus, transmit it to everyone in the house, then die painfully?
Probably not.
Fewer than 1% of COVID-19 cases involve children and pediatric cases tend to be relatively mild, with a mortality rate of less than 1%.
But then again, the lack of real-life, real-time data makes any prediction pretty much useless. The other theory is that kids will mostly be asymptomatic carriers, akin to plague rats spreading the Black Death centuries ago.
Gary Wong, a researcher in pediatric respiratory medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said widespread school closures and a comparatively lower rate of testing for the new coronavirus among children could contribute to the low number of reported cases of Covid-19 among the group.
Wong added that, since plenty of other respiratory viruses can transmit between adults and children, it would be odd if the new coronavirus didn’t have some level of transmission between the groups, as well.
“I don’t believe this virus is an exception,” Wong said. “As long as there is community transmission in the adult population, reopening of schools will likely facilitate transmission, as respiratory viruses are known to circulate in schools and day cares.”
The bottom line is that we don’t have an answer. Reopening the schools could either be a big nothing burger, or it could trigger the second wave of coronavirus that the epidemiologists have been warning us about.
Which sends us to Door #2
Option 2 — Education at Home
Note: This option is confined to education at home via a virtual classroom, similar to the Zoom meetings experienced in the spring semester. Homeschooling is not included, but there are many things we will discuss that do apply.
With the online learning curriculum that was forced onto families for the last few months of the spring semester already under our belt, some people feel comfortable that this is a viable option. It definitely protects against the spread of the coronavirus, but is it the best option?
Consider the following.
Parents Will Have to Quit Their Jobs
For most kids, especially those 12 and under, at least one parent will need to stay home during the school day. Unless that adult has an extremely flexible work schedule, this will probably mean that they will not continue their job (if they even have a job at this point).
In just over 60% of two-parent households with children, both parents have jobs. Losing half your income to stay home with little Johnny is going to be a hard pill to swallow. Compounding the issue is that health insurance is overwhelmingly tied to employment.
My wife and I are facing this exact situation. I make about $20,000 more, but her job provides the (excellent) health insurance. So, who quits?
Then, what if one parent quits, then the other parent loses their job due to the severe recession we’re still going through? Now we’re down to zero income, and everyone’s screwed.
And that’s with two parents working.
What happens with single parent households, which accounts for 1/3 of all kids? There is not other income to fall back on, so those kids will be forced to attend school.
Kids Will Fall Behind
As mentioned earlier, the success of Zoom classes was grossly overstated in the first weeks. As time went on, fewer and fewer kids attended, and those who did attend did not receive the education that was planned for the rest of the year.
And that’s okay if this was just a one-off during last school year, and we could make up the gap this fall. But that’s not the case.
And long-term distance learning is going to result in widening the education gaps, both racial and wealth, and have a profound impact on a large portion of sooner-than-we-would-like working adults.
Take Atlanta as a case study.
Thousands of metro Atlanta students have fallen behind in math and English after the coronavirus forced schools to move to remote learning, a new study found.
The report estimates that out of roughly 600,000 students in eight metro districts, about 21,000 fewer students are now on track for their grade level in English and 29,000 fewer students are on track in math.
The learning loss stems from the nine weeks this spring when school buildings closed, requiring students to learn through online lessons or take-home work packets. Participation in virtual classes at some schools lagged. Not all students — especially those from low-income families — had computers or internet access.
And here is an overview of US students in general, when it comes to remote learning.
“The impact of this COVID-19 crisis is going to be felt most profoundly by the students who are already most vulnerable,” John B. King Jr., president and CEO of the Education Trust and the former U.S. Secretary of Education, told me. These include children with disabilities and children who rely on schools for essential services such as counseling and crisis support, as well as low-income students who may rely on schools for meals and shelter.
Children’s Mental Health Will Plummet
On top of losing half of a family’s paycheck and missing out on a standard education, kids of parents who choose remote learning this fall will experience some pretty shocking mental health problems.
Here is what researchers have to say when talking about New York City students.
Now, as the coronavirus isolates families in their homes, young people face an onslaught of circumstances that damage mental health. At best, they are cut off from friends, routines, school counselors, and the sense that life is orderly or predictable. Thousands have lost a parent or grandparent to the virus. Many are home with parents who’ve been laid off, or who risk their health at work because they can’t afford to miss a paycheck. Domestic violence has become more common — as, almost certainly, has child abuse. Parents drowning in their own addictions are cut off from help, and likely pulling their children under. Thousands of families have been or soon will be pushed into poverty — a fact that, in and of itself, increases a child’s risk for mental health disorders.
“It feels like we’re seeing a pressure cooker,” says Dr. Christopher Lucas, who is the vice chair for intensive services at SUNY Upstate, and who sees most of the young people who come through the hospital’s ER with psychiatric problems. “Many of the resources that kids use to cope aren’t available. And there’s a knock-on effect, with parents under their own stressors. Things come to a head.”
So, with remote learning, you have protected your child from the coronavirus, but at what cost? Your family’s income? Your child’s mental health?
Some outcomes of remote learning might be worse than the mild case that children seem to get with the coronavirus.
Conclusion
The uncertainty of this pandemic and recession is enough to make a single, childless adult curl up in the fetal position and cry.
Add to that the responsibility for another human life over whom you have complete control, and you’ll see why parents are going out of their minds with worry this summer.
- Do they send their kids to school and risk infection and death?
- Do they keep their kids at home and risk permanently falling behind?
- Is there a high-risk person in the home?
- Can they economically afford either option?
- Do they have the right technology?
- Will their school system actually implement correct safety guidelines?
- Will other parents and/or children follow those guidelines?
- What if they lose their job?
- What if their kid gets sick?
- What if their kid infects another adult?
- Will their employer provide a flexible schedule?
And we haven’t even talked about daycare for the under school-age crowd.
It’s enough to give an aspirin a headache. And it’s happening in millions of households across the country and around the world.
Parents are making an impossible choice between protecting their kids from possible infection and protecting their kids from possible poverty.
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