Can some school districts teach others?

What would children do? It’s a provocative question. If we asked children to make a choice on virtual or in-person learning, how would that vote tilt? A year or two ago we surely would have predicted kids would have chosen staying home in a landslide.

Now, of course, they would make a more informed choice. They’ve now experienced school from both perspectives. Both have benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, both have disadvantages.

Many parents, of course, have already made such decisions depending on the policy in their town or district. Some elected to continue virtual learning in September out of caution. Others had little choice but to send their children back to the classroom given work needs.

As we heard on the campaign trail, there are plenty of state residents who believe Connecticut should simply return to pre-COVID practices. There are far more families who started the school year acknowledging a likelihood that the return of virtual learning was on the winter horizon.

Connecticut now stands at that fulcrum. While a spike in new cases of coronavirus has spurred Gov.

Ned Lamont to take a step back on phases to reopen the state, some school districts are being even more aggressive.

School officials in Shelton, Ansonia and Bridgeport aren’t waiting for Lamont to hold a news conference. Before the week had ended, all three districts declared a return to remote learning.

Shelton took the first step, shutting down classrooms through the end of the year. Bridgeport initially shifted to a new hybrid schedule, before tracing Shelton’s plan.

Ansonia went even further. Starting Monday, the town will maintain virtual learning through at least Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 18.

It wasn’t an uptick in ailing students or staff that inspired these dramatic policy revisions.

“Safely staffing buildings is becoming impossible,” Ansonia Schools Superintendent Joseph DiBacco said. “We have no subs, colleges have pulled back their interns. When a staff member needs to quarantine for 14 days and cannot test out of quarantine — that impacts my teaching staff dramatically.

The policy announcements inspired Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona and Acting Department of Health Commissioner Deidre Gifford to try to reassure other local school officials not to panic.

This is proof of the wisdom of allowing the decisions to be made locally. Every circumstance is different. It also suggests that, for better or worse, these districts may be canaries in the COVID coal mine.

They may simply be the first to close before the rest of the state returns to the practices of last spring. But if officials such as Cardona can draw lessons from these fellow educators, there might be a way to anticipate and provide support as staffing gaps emerge.

The goal must remain to try to keep Connecticut’s children in the classroom.

As any good student could tell the adults assigned to make the tough decisions, outcomes can only be improved with more knowledge and hard work.

Connecticut now stands at that fulcrum. While a spike in new cases of coronavirus cases has spurred Gov. Ned Lamont to take a step back on phases to reopen the state, some school districts are being even more aggressive.