School plans bring nothing but doubts

There is no right answer on reopening schools in the fall. Gov. Ned Lamont’s announcement last month that schoolchildren could be returning full time for in- person learning this year has raised as many questions as it answered. But none of the alternatives are satisfying, either.

There are multiple issues at play, and even people without children should care how this works out. From an economic standpoint, the main problem is child care, because there is no way to have anything close to a functioning economy if parents of young children need to stay home and supervise them for long stretches. This is partly a result of an unprecedented pandemic, but it’s also a general societal failure. There has never been an appropriate emphasis on affordable, available child care in this country, and now we’re paying a price.

According to a recent New York Times survey that asked why young adults are having fewer children than they might have wanted, most of the top reasons concerned money (“child care is too expensive,” “financial instability,” etc.) As with so much else, the message to parents on child care comes down to, “Figure it out for yourself.”

Now the pandemic has upended whatever arrangements people might have made. Parents spent months balancing whatever work they could do from home with keeping their kids engaged with home- schooling. It worked out fine in some cases, not at all in others. With the school year over, parents are now dealing full time with antsy, energetic children with no real understanding of what it is safe to do. Have friends over? Keep everyone outside? Stay away altogether? To the extent that socializing is possible, the guidelines on what is safe remain unclear, and work requirements haven’t ended.

The prospect of reopening schools, then, sounds like a godsend. Finally, a chance to return to something like normality. But as soon as the plan was announced, the questions started.

How are children going to socially distance? A classroom is not built for 6 feet of space between students and between teacher and pupils. How are we to expect the youngest children ( or any of them, really) to keep a mask on all day?

The governor promised more details, which arrived in late June, but a lot will be left up to individual school districts to figure out. The guidelines and requirements from the state Department of Education are certainly well meaning, but some of them read as though they are written by people with little familiarity with an actual classroom. ( For instance, “Install floor markings to illustrate social/ physical distancing,” as if that would do it.)

Then there is the cost. A recent report showed that adhering to federal pandemic guidelines could cost school districts an additional $ 490 per student compared to a typical year, accounting for space requirements and the need to purchase protective equipment, plus hiring additional custodial staff and nurses. That adds up to millions of dollars that school districts simply don’t have, and could be prohibitive for the entire endeavor.

And looming over everything is the question of how much danger we’re really talking about, since children are, it appears, unlikely to get sick or die from the coronavirus. It’s also unclear how likely children are to asymptomatically pass the virus on to more vulnerable people elsewhere, so nothing about the question is simple.

School districts are going to need a bailout. Parents require extra help to get by. Workers and businesses will need continued assistance. But with a Congress that is spending its time debating whether additional unemployment benefits have the effect of benefiting freeloaders, none of it is likely to come to pass.

There is no good answer on schools, just like there’s no good answer on reopening the economy. As well as Connecticut has seemed to be doing in the past few weeks, there is nothing stopping a resurgence other than everyone’s continued common sense in the face of the threat. A false step — doing too much too soon — could turn everything around quickly.

And so we’re left again in a form of stasis as the summer winds on, with parents not sure whether the coming of school should be a cause for celebration or something to dread. It’s yet another occasion when anything resembling leadership on the national level would be welcome. But that appears to be too much to ask.