DeSantis, Trump missed chance to fully reopen schools
Maybe Gov. DeSantis realized how callous he sounded in comparing the reopening of public schools to the reopening of a
Home Depot or Walmart.
Whatever the reason, the governor pivoted Monday from his insistence that all students be back on campus next month. Parents, DeSantis said, should choose.
So where does that leave parents, teachers and school board members? Let’s review.
President Trump threatened last week to withhold money from districts that fail to reopen fully. On Sunday, however, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos babbled through two television interviews without confirming that Trump had such authority or would exercise it. Pressed to cite safety guidelines the department could offer local districts, DeVos retreated to talking points.
In Florida, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran last week issued an order that “all school boards and charter school governing boards must open brick and mortar schools at least five days per week for all students.” Appearing with DeSantis on Saturday, Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, affirmed that all districts, “must obey.”
Corcoran’s reopening order, though, is “subject to advice and orders” from the Florida Department of Health and local public health officials. Duval County, where Trump insists on giving an indoor speech, will ask for a waiver from Corcoran’s order because of the surge in new COVID-19 cases.
Republicans from Trump on down have sought to divide the country over the pandemic. Wear a mask and you want to shut down the economy. Oppose full school reopening and you sacrifice poor children who suffer most from distance learning.
In fact, every parent, teacher and school board member would like schools to fully reopen. Unlike most politicians, they understand public education. They also understand the challenges.
Consider just one scenario. A teacher tests positive. Will all the students be tested? Will they have to quarantine? How will they learn during that time? If they remain in school, which substitute teacher will want to work in that classroom?
An article this month in Science magazine quoted a Finnish pediatric infectious disease specialist as saying, “Outbreaks in schools are inevitable. But there is good news.” By changing the daily routine to promote safety, Otto Helve said, keeping schools open brings more benefits than risks.
Those benefits, however, occur only when local infection rates are low and contact tracing can stop new outbreaks. This is where Florida has failed its students, parents and teachers.
Covid Act Now is a collaboration that includes the medical departments of Georgetown and Stanford universities. Its website lists the COVID-19 risk level in states and counties, based on infection and positive test rates, hospital intensive care capacity and contact tracing capability.
As of Monday, Covid Act Now rated Florida’s risk as Critical — the highest level. Ten of the state’s 15 most populous counties had ratings of Critical. The other five were High.
Those counties include roughly 70 percent of the state’s population. To even consider a statewide, full school reopening in less than a month is ludicrous.
A competent Trump administration would have started planning how to reopen schools as soon as they closed four months ago. A competent DeSantis administration would have done the same thing.
Instead, Trump declared premature victory on May 11 when he said, “We have met the moment and we have prevailed.” About that time, DeSantis began reopening the state without issuing a statewide mask mandate to prevent the surge that inevitably has followed.
On Tuesday, Palm Beach County Health Director Alina Alonso told the county commission that most COVID-19 test results are coming back in nine to 12 days. Such a lag renders any contact tracing program “useless.”
DeSantis complained Monday about the slow pace of testing. Perhaps he should have focused on boosting testing capacity rather than buying one million doses of hydroxychloroquine after Trump touted it as a “game-changer” treatment. The state has 980,000 doses left.
The Council of Chief State School Officers estimates that it could cost between $158 billion and $256 billion nationwide to operate school campuses until a vaccine and treatment emerge. Florida school districts don’t need threats from Washington and Tallahassee. They need medical support and money, so they can worry about education.