We can reopen if we treat grades differently

OUR GOVERNOR’S approach to reopening our schools is frustrating and built on a fallacy. All schools are being treated as if they are the same, and they are not. There are tremendous differences between elementary schools, where students spend all day in the same classroom with the same classmates and teacher, and secondary schools, where students change classrooms and teachers six times a day during passing periods.

I am in favor of opening all schools as originally scheduled, but I realize that won’t happen in the current climate. I suggest we start with elementary schools and then, when no serious problems arise, add middle and high schools with very different protocols.

The governor must declare education to be an essential service, which it is, and teachers as essential workers, which they are, and order the opening of all elementary schools, to include after-school programs . ...

Elementary students would not wear masks or practice social distancing – let them be children unhindered by adult paranoia. Adults would be tested weekly, have a temperature check before the start of each school day, wear masks, and practice social distancing. In the unlikely event that a problem arises in a school, deal with that problem in that school without extrapolating it to all other schools.

Here are some reasons for this approach. First, elementary students are very social people who thrive on structure. For many, school is the only place where they can experience these. Second, distance learning for elementaryage children is totally ineffective and is essentially a waste of time.

Third, if every school published a detailed plan to protect everyone, then the decision to attend or not attend will belong to parents, which is where it ought to be.

Fourth, special education students who have an (Individualized Educational Plan) requiring professional interventions are not getting them. They are not advancing; most have experienced significant regression. Fifth, if the elementary schools are open, thousands of parents would be able to return to the workforce.

DAVID R. ANSELL Major, US Army (Ret) and retired high school and middle school teacher, Albuquerque