Scioto County Schools -- Reopening?

As the time nears for reopening public schools, Ohio educational officials and Scioto County superintendents face important decisions – How and in what manner should staff and children be safely reintroduced to their classrooms in the middle of a raging COVID-19 pandemic? Of course, no decision is foolproof and all answers to these difficult questions raise many public concerns.

What to do? We all know opening schools will benefit families beyond providing education, including by supplying child care, school services, meals, and other family supports. And, we all realize without in-person instruction, schools risk children falling behind academically and exacerbating educational inequities.

However …

Let's talk about some very real considerations that pose huge risks.

Some of the personnel and students in the school systems are immuno-compromised, or have a weakened immune system. For many schools social distancing seems nearly impossible, and even if children could be separated at distance desks, how about “hand-over-hand” learning required to work on lessons? Those at greatest risk for infection would surely have to stay at home and communicate with distance learning. Strain on teachers will increase.

How many students – especially young grade school pupils – don't know how to cough or sneeze into their arms? Also, if students are required to wash their hands and wear masks, how many are simply going to reject these safety standards over and over simply because of sensory issues? These are valid concerns as school must not only distance but also minimize contact with shared surfaces and increase regular surface cleaning. The goal for schools would be to drive as much of the risk down as they can – admittedly, a far from perfect strategy.

Another daunting task for person-to-person learning is limiting large gatherings of students, such as during assemblies, in the cafeteria, and overcrowding at school entrances. School lunches seem especially troubling as many Scioto schools feature lunch times of 30 minutes (or less). Children now barely have time to get their meals and eat.

Surely, staggering congregation times and rearranging public areas will be necessary. Some health experts say “cohorting,” when a group of 10 students or less stay with the same staff as much as possible, is a promising strategy for physical distancing. 

Also, we cannot forget the large numbers of Scioto students who have long commutes on buses. Will mask wearing and distancing be enforced? Safety would seem to demand significant modifications to the bus schedule. District leaders will have to consider how to put fewer students on buses at once, as well as how to adequately sanitize the buses and protect the drivers.

One important group of students in Scioto schools are those with disabilities. They may have more difficulty with the social and emotional aspects of transitioning out of and back into the school setting. Children with special healthcare needs have conditions that must be met on a case-to-case basis.

According to the American Federation of Teachers, as the number of children with special healthcare needs in public schools has increased, the facilities and conditions under which health-related procedures must be performed are still often woefully inadequate. Putting these students back into face-to-face settings will require careful planning and implementation.

(Randi Weingarten. “The Medically Fragile Child.” American Federation of Teachers. 2009.)

Most of the push to return to in-person instruction rests on the assumption that COVID-19 isn’t especially dangerous for children, and the benefits outweigh the risks. However, given how little time researchers have had to investigate the novel coronavirus and its recent mutation, the science in this area is not yet settled.

And, of course, there is the increased cost of returning to school. The National Academy of Sciences Engineering Medicine report “Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities” (2020) estimates the cost of implementing COVID-19 precautions will be very high, totaling approximately $1.8 million for a school district with eight school buildings and around 3,200 students.

These high costs could lead to funding shortfalls. The report concludes: “While the size of the funding shortfall will depend on how well-resourced a school district is, many districts will be unable to afford implementing the entire suite of mitigation measures, potentially leaving students and staff in those districts at greater risk of infection.”

Juliette Kayyem, former Department of Homeland Security official and author of Security Mom, says …

“Schools do not have a simple on-off switch. To reopen schools will not just take a lot of money. Classroom layouts, buildings, policies, schedules, extracurricular activities, teacher and staff assignments, and even curricula must all be altered to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission

“Stakeholders—including teachers’ unions, scared parents, and the colleges and universities that will someday enroll a portion of the 50 million students in the nation’s public K–12 schools—all have interests, some not easily avoided or ignored by a governor.”

(Juliette Kayyem. “Reopening Schools Was Just an Afterthought.” The Atlantic. July 06, 2020.)

Kayyem concludes: “The federal government and the states have no firm plans for restarting school in August and September because they had no such plans in February and March; public officials simply didn’t classify education as a crucial form of infrastructure in need of protection.”

Hopefully, at the end of this debate over Scioto County schools reopening, any error in judgment by those in charge will be on the side of safety. If we just trust our children and grandchildren to the odds of infection, we fail as caretakers. Local schools must address reopening in detail and they must do it now. The risks are enormous and public education should be held to all the new and necessary standards of safety – not one child should face an unnecessary risk.

“Reopening schools cannot be considered in isolation – what happens outside of schools is as important as what happens inside of schools. The most important step we can take to reopen schools this fall is to come together to reduce spread of the virus in our communities and statewide.”

– Lacy Fehrenbach, Washington DOH deputy secretary of health