Months into a pandemic, decisions not easier
I admit my mind wandered occasionally while watching on Facebook more than four hours of testimony and discussion Tuesday night as Milwaukee School Board members considered whether to reopen Milwaukee Public Schools in person.
It was a pretty good discussion and much of the testimony from parents and students was quite moving. That goes both for those who urged returning to school in person because of what virtual learning and restrictive social settings are doing to kids and those who urged keeping MPS in the virtual mode it has been in since March because of the health risks of being in classrooms.
Feelings run high, needs are great, there is urgency, and these are tough times for just about everybody.
Nonetheless, as I watched, my focus sometimes moved beyond my computer screen to places such as:
Wood County, west of Stevens Point. Several days ago, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted a study involving 17 schools in Wisconsin’s Wood County, west of Stevens Point, that found that going to school in person did not lead to high rates of COVID-19 when good preventative practices are followed. In fact, COVID rates were lower among adults and kids in those schools than in the surrounding communities.
The CDC saw this as evidence that it was safe to have in-person schooling in careful circumstances.
The authors of the Wood County study cautioned that the results may not apply in other places, including in urban districts where, among many factors, buildings are older, limited space means social distancing is hard (at best) to achieve, and ventilation is not good. In short, what works in Wisconsin Rapids may not apply to MPS.
And the CDC emphasized the precautions that are required — masks, social distancing and so on. Overall, it urged opening schools and closing restaurants and bars.
Chicago. Such a heated battleground over reopening schools. The CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Janice Jackson, has pushed hard to get kids back into school because of what they’re losing when it comes to education.
The Chicago teachers union has been fighting that adamantly, saying it is unsafe to reopen until there is widespread availability of vaccine for teachers, along with frequent COVID testing.
A phased-in return to classrooms has been going poorly — a majority of parents have kept their kids home and school days have been canceled because not enough teachers were willing to show up.
What does this say about places such as MPS where the administration has not fought so hard to reopen and the teachers union has been strongly opposed?
Las Vegas. According to a New York Times story from several days ago, suicides among teens in Las Vegas have risen sharply and at least some cases are linked to the impact of being isolated at home and away from normal social life.
School officials are aiming to move up the timetable for reopening schools because of concerns about students’ mental health. This may be a particularly dramatic instance, but concern about the mental health of kids is high all across the country and certainly including in the Milwaukee area.
Several students and parents testified to the Milwaukee board members about how hard the last 10 months have been on kids, including indicators of depression.
Washington, D.C. President Joe Biden says he wants schools open across the country within 100 days of his inauguration. That would be the end of April. There wouldn’t be much time left in the school year at that point. But MPS would be right on the Biden schedule if it follows the plan endorsed by the board Tuesday. That plan calls for bringing elementary school kids back April 9, and middle school and high school kids back in the following two weeks.
Is it worth it to resume in-person schooling with just a few weeks to go in the school year? I’m not smart enough to answer that. Will it actually happen, either in Milwaukee or other places? That probably depends on what happens at my next mental destination:
All the places where vaccinations are being given. From neighborhood drug stores to hospitals, it’s happening, at last. It’s slower than anyone wants. But it’s happening.
Teachers in large numbers are demanding they get vaccinated before they go back to classrooms. It appears they will be given priority. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading expert, told an online session for teachers Thursday it was important “to get teachers vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can.”
It is reasonable to assume that the quicker teachers are offered the vaccine, the quicker schools will reopen.
MPS buildings that go back to the 1890s. The fact that all school buildings are not created equal was brought up several times during the MPS board session. Those old buildings have a special atmosphere, you might say. That goes for the classic school feeling they have, but also for the fact that they aren’t state-of-the-art facilities.
If keeping air quality high is important, a lot of MPS buildings, not only the oldest ones, are not great candidates.
MPS (under pressure from the state Department of Public Instruction) is planning to bring a few hundred special education students to school in person by Feb. 8.
Superintendent Keith Posley said three newer, better-ventilated buildings will be used for those students. (They have not been identified yet publicly.) But what about all those other buildings that will be needed if and when more kids return to classrooms?
It was clear before this school year started that just about everyone involved was caught in an intense rockand-a-hard-place situation, weighing health precautions against the educational and social needs of kids.
It’s months later and the ultimate stop on my mental wanderings remains that place where the rock is enormous, the hard place is very hard, and, no matter what path is chosen, navigating education for kids right now is difficult.
Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@ marquette.edu.