Obstacles to schools

Opening public schools this fall requires more than throwing wide the doors, ushering in the kids and ringing the bells. That may come as news to a particularly loud voice in the Oval Office, but every state and local official working on the problem knows it all too well.

Plans are all over, everywhere. Disjointed. Inconsistent. In the works.

We do have a few common denominators: Confusion. Apprehension. Fear.

Every authoritative pronouncement you hear about K-12 public education— no matter how confident and brave, no matter whether governmental or journalistic—has to be understood in the context of who is running the show, meaning local cities and counties.

Early summer yielded to optimism. We’re going to get through this. The fall will be better.

Now doubt rules again. Indecision is rampant.

Officials face two competing points of views. Families want the schools to reopen in the fall while teachers remain wary and resistant. Everyone is watching, thinking, taking soundings, trying to do the best thing.

The uncertainty may not soon change. History says so. The last great influenza epidemic struck America in the fall of 1918, took a heavy toll, and subsided. But it did not stop flaring: Ten years later, “Influenza Deaths Increasing” read the Danville Bee headline on Dec. 27, 1928, and, over the next three weeks, between 100,000 and 125,000 new cases were reported.

This business does not quit—not until a vaccine emerges.

To open schools without it means tackling a host of issues—logistics, location, transportation, social distancing and cleanliness, among many others— to the community’s satisfaction, and doing so in a matter of weeks, not months.

School officials are doing their best but it’s hard to believe they will be able to clear those hurdles in so fluid a situation. And if we cannot open the schools safely, with the public’s trust and confidence, it would be better to not rush things.