Key to school door

President Donald Trump has seized upon a new campaign battle cry to reopen the schools this fall, not with distance learning but in person. Trump’s call reflects a genuine need, felt by parents, teachers and students, to get back to the classroom. In any calculus of recovery, schools must be a priority.

But it is important that reopening be done smartly, avoiding Trump’s previous bungling and leadership bankruptcy.

All over the country this week, teachers, parents, students and administrators are wrestling with the methods of how to accomplish this, knowing the stakes are high. Students have already lost months of work; many parents need to return to jobs; a host of effects flow from canceled classes, including mental health troubles.

Reopening will also require major new resources that states and localities do not have. Ninety percent of school funding is local, and the governments are struggling under crushing pandemic burdens and tax revenue falloff. Some other estimates are that schools nationwide will need an additional $200 billion to safely reopen. Where is this coming from? A fresh economic stimulus package does not seem imminent from Washington.

Some schools are trying to cope with it all by creating hybrid plans, sharing in-classroom time with online instruction, to which Trump sniffs, “I think it’s an easy way out.” To make matters worse, Trump on Wednesday threatened schools in a tweet, “May cut off funding if not open!” How is that going to help? Trump also ominously insisted he would press the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the public health experts—to loosen guidance for school reopenings. He knows better?

Another huge issue that must be faced is the vulnerability of adults. As the group Resolve to Save Lives pointed out, younger people are less prone to get seriously ill, and may not transmit the virus as much as adults. But the viral load in infected children has been shown to be similar to adults. Schoolchildren do not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a web of adult contacts, from parents to teachers, who may be more prone to infection and illness. Nearly a third of public school teachers are 50 or older. It is not a simple matter to just wave a magic wand and declare schools must open.