Full reopening of schools in fall should be priority

The last year has been filled with disruption.

The students and staff within the Chico Unified School District have finally fallen into a routine as the a.m./p.m. schedule has been in place since October. It’s been the most consistent aspect of life for these students and teachers.

Instead of causing another disruption and opening up full-time for the remainder of the school year, the focus should be on revamping and equipping the schools to handle a full-time, in-person schedule in the fall. Creating a safe environment for teachers and students to thrive in should be the priority.

There are only a few weeks left of the school year. Uprooting nearly 1,000 kids to a new teacher to keep class sizes small isn’t worth the disruption and it’s not fair to those kids who would have to be reassigned.

Youth mental health is at the forefront of the debate about whether or not to fully reopen schools. No one is discounting that kids are feeling isolated and uncertain about the current landscape. But sending them back to school full time for a few weeks isn’t going to make the mental health problem simply disappear.

It’s a temporary bandaid on a problem that goes much deeper.

Delegating resources and funds to school counselors and encouraging kids to be comfortable with counseling need to be more of a norm within the school system. Suicides among teens have been on the rise for the past decade so there was clearly a problem before the pandemic. The pandemic magnified that.

The school district must do everything it can to put students who are in need of help in front of counselors face-to-face, even if it means meeting outside with masks on.

Sports are happening and some clubs are also meeting, allowing students more time to socialize and engage with each other. Those extracurricular events will make the partial school day not feel so lackluster.

Yes, COVID-19 cases are in a downward trend in Butte County, but they aren’t completely gone. We’ve been in a situation like this before where things were looking good, businesses were opening up and cases shot up, causing another round of shutdowns and closures. We have vaccines now, but we also need continued wise behavior.

Based on the district’s COVID-19 protocols, a full-time, in-person model right now will likely lead to more quarantines of students. Right now, students who have been exposed to a positive case for more than 15 minutes are sent out to quarantine for 10 days. Up the class sizes and putting kids within four feet of one another will only lead to even more quarantines if a positive case comes up in a classroom.

Can we expect kids to keep their masks on for almost seven hours a day when many full-grown adults can’t keep their masks on during a 30-minute trip to the grocery store? Keeping a mask on for two hours is more reasonable and makes the most sense for students.

Launching a recall of four of the five school board members, an effort that’s been made by the Chico Parents for In-Person Learning group, is another disruption added to the fold. Two of the members — Kathleen Kaiser and Eileen Robinson — have served on the school board for multiple terms. They’ve made the decisions that helped mold the school environment that existed prepandemic, the environment this parent group is urging to return to. Their accomplishments and proven track record shouldn’t be forgotten because of one decision. Trustees Tom Lando and newly elected Caitlin Dalby, both teachers, have also provided a much-needed teachers’ perspective to the board.

Disruptions are the last thing students need right now. An unprepared, full reopening of schools could potentially increase cases and put a full-time, in-person model in danger of not happening in the fall.