School is light at end of long, dark tunnel

“Pay attention!” I ordered. “I can’t watch you all the time!”

In the 11 months since my sons had last attended school in person, I’d grown tired of the sound of my shouty exasperation — and so had they. Nagging, nagging, always nagging Didi and Gege to focus and finish their work online.

“We can’t always sit on top of you like gargoyles,” I told them once. All of us laughed, picturing me glowering at them like a stone grotesque on the Notre Dame.

Before the pandemic hit, the boys typically finished assignments in class, under the tutelage of professionals and surrounded by their peers. Back in school now, they’re getting more work done on their own and we’re sleeping better at night.

It’s been a long road; many parents I know are still eager for a safe return to school. This month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the first federal guidelines for how K12 schools can return to classrooms. But schools, teachers, public officials and parents had been debating the subject for months already.

I’ve checked in with friends and family in places where schools have partially or fully reopened to see how they fared. For those with children in elementary school, it’s gone smoothly for the most part. It varies by locale and grade level, though: A high school student back full time in the Midwest has been contacttraced five times, forced to stay home for 10 days with each notification — which has been extremely disruptive. Fortunately, he’s never come down with COVID19.

In our school district in the suburban East Bay, my head spun every time a new plan was unveiled, only to be scrapped because of rapidly changing conditions and information. The sheer amount of effort that has gone into planning is mindboggling, and I’m grateful to the teachers, administrators and parents who worked so hard to develop and execute the reopening.

It’s inspiring, but also disturbing, when I consider how uneven the rollout has been across the country. Unless officials at all levels take action, unless funding materializes, unless testing and vaccines ramp up, the poorest and most vulnerable will get left behind again.

A part of me steeled myself for the possibility that our school wouldn’t reopen at all this year; hope for the best, expect the worst.

Until recently, the brutal winter surge in coronavirus cases kept many public schools closed. As more schools reopen, discussions continue throughout the state. In our district, we watched the county’s adjusted case rate float downward until suddenly, about two weeks ago, it was go time! (Younger elementary school students were the first to return, then fourth and fifthgraders the following week.)

Just as suddenly, I was stressing out, wondering how my boys would deal with the transition to hybrid education. They had been assigned a new teacher in an afternoon cohort; some students and teachers have remained in distance learning, by choice. New air filters have been installed; doors and windows remain open during class; they wear masks, and there’s no recess or snacks allowed, only bottled liquids.

We’re fortunate to have jobs with enough flexibility to get them to and from school, but hybrid schedules without available or affordable child care before or after class put a strain on families — another of the many in the past year.

The first day of school 2.0 was anticlimactic. As we pulled in front of the school, I passed them their masks. At the curb, after they hopped out and rushed away, I had to call out, “Wait, let me take a picture!”

Didi’s eyes are closed in the photo, and Gege’s almost out of the frame, but it was the best we could manage right now — just like school itself.

We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, even if that light keeps receding.

“I call it the light at the end of the Chunnel,” a neighbor joked, referring to the 31mile rail tunnel between England and France.

We’re chug, chug, chugging along, hopeful for our destination.

Unless officials at all levels take action, unless funding materializes ... the poorest and most vulnerable will get left behind again.