Open schools as soon as it’s safe

The implications of closed schools will be felt for a generation.

Without a doubt, scores of students, from early grades to high school seniors, have fallen behind and it will take years to catch up.

Consider that in Santa Cruz County alone, 40,000 children and young people attend public schools, and the current goal is to have perhaps 1,000 of these – mostly kids with educational and emotional/mental health challenges — within limited in-person learning groups in coming months.

And there’s a slim chance of local schools reopening for all students, even on a “hybrid” model of staggered attendance days, before April. Santa Cruz County as of this writing is still in the purple tier of state restrictions but could shortly move into more severe stay-athome mandates.

As parents grow increasingly frantic and stressed trying to ensure their children are keeping up with remote learning, the pressure builds on educators to provide answers.

Research shows that few infections are occurring within schools and that safety protocols can prove highly effective in preventing transmission of the virus.

But for all that, it’s just not time to reopen schools in the county and state. Not yet. Not with COVID-19 levels still raging and getting worse. But that doesn’t mean schools in the county and state should not be planning their reopening as soon as infection rates and hospitalizations start to drop and as soon as the vaccines start making a difference.

Educators can take the lead from the California State University system, which announced last week that its 23 campuses, with nearly 500,000 students, will reopen for in-person learning in fall 2021.

Why announce this with the pandemic not close to being under control? Because college enrollment is falling nationally, down an estimated 22% this fall among students enrolling immediately after high school.

No one wants to lose a generation of students who could see their futures compromised by the pandemic. But many high school seniors are finding it difficult to finish graduation requirements necessary to move onto college, say educators.

Dr. Faris Sabbah, Santa

Cruz County Superintendent of Schools, told the Sentinel Editorial Board last week that looking at attendance records, he remains “very concerned” about student engagement the longer schools remain mostly closed. He said he is getting a lot of pushback from parents who want in-person learning to resume, and from school staff, including teachers, who remain wary about personal safety if schools do resume.

Sabbah said it’s possible schools don’t fully reopen this school year, and that with the current spike the likelihood of Santa Cruz County moving into a less restrictive COVID-19 tier could take months.

In the early days of the pandemic, there were few cries to quickly reopen schools. Teachers were nervous and epidemiologists could offer little solace about containing the coronavirus. The popular opinion seemed to be that allowing students back into classrooms was a surefire move to superspread the virus.

But most scientists and public health officials now know that children in public schools are less likely to experience outbreaks of COVID-19 or to transmit the virus. Teachers and other school employees don’t appear to have been infected at school at any higher rate than out in the greater community.

The question that now needs to be asked is not “when will it be completely safe to reopen”? That won’t be answerable this school year.

Better to ask, “Why not reopen — but how can risks be effectively reduced”?

We’re almost to January, with more than half the school year remaining. It’s time for the state and Gov. Gavin Newsom to not just keep schools closed, but to come up with an effective plan to reopen them.

Yes, there remain serious funding issues about how to keep classrooms safe. And the problem of how to play catch up with students who have fallen seriously behind remain unresolved.

But remote learning is just that – remote. Keeping schools closed until it’s perfectly safe for everyone is dangerous to the kids who are falling behind and to the parents who can’t work staying home with them.