US parents balance risk of sending kids to school
In-person lessons start again despite fears of COVID-19
DALLAS, Ga. — Putting your child on the bus for the first day of school is always a leap of faith for a parent. Now, on top of the usual worries about youngsters adjusting to new teachers and classmates, there’s COVID-19.
Rachel Adamus was feeling those emotions Monday as she got 7-year-old Paul ready for his first day of second grade and prepared 5-year-old Neva for the start of kindergarten.
With a new school year beginning this week in some states, Adamus struggled to balance her fears with her belief that her children need the socialization and instruction school provides, even as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 155,000 and cases are rising in numerous places.
As the bus pulled away from the curb in Adamus’ neighborhood northwest of Atlanta, the tears began to fall.
“We have kept them protected for so long,” said Adamus, who said her aunt died from COVID-19 in Alabama and her husband’s great uncle succumbed to the virus in a New Jersey nursing home. “They haven’t been to restaurants. We only go to parks if no one else is there. We don’t take them to the grocery store. And now they’re going to be in the classroom with however many kids for an entire day with a teacher.”
The Adamus children are among tens of thousands of students across the nation who resumed in-person school Monday for the first time since March.
Many schools resuming in-person instruction are also giving parents a stay-athome virtual option; Adamus, like many other parents, decided against that. Other schools are planning a hybrid approach, with youngsters alternating between in-person classes and online learning.
But a rise in COVID-19 cases in many states has prompted districts to scrap in-person classes at least for the start of the school year, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington.
President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have urged schools to reopen. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, warned Monday: “There may be some areas where the level of virus is so high that it would not be prudent to bring the children back to school.”
In Georgia’s Paulding County, both of Adamus’ children wore masks, though that is not mandatory for the 30,000 students in the county. Adamus said her son and daughter understand what’s happening at a basic level — that there are germs and they need to stay home.
Adamus lives near North Paulding High School, where the principal sent a letter over the weekend announcing a football player tested positive for the virus after attending practice. The Georgia High School Association, in a memo last week, said it has received reports of 655 positive tests since workouts for football and other sports started June 8.
In Indiana, where schools reopened last week, a student at GreenfieldCentral Junior High near Indianapolis tested positive on the first day back to class and was isolated in the school clinic.
“This really does not change our plans,” School Superintendent Harold Olin said. “We knew that we would have a positive case at some point in the fall. We simply did not think it would happen on Day One.”
Elsewhere in Indiana, Elwood Junior Senior High in the east-central part of the state suspended in-person classes two days into the school year after at least one staffer tested positive.
One student who wasn’t starting at North Paulding on Monday was Aliyah Williams.
Her mother, Erica Williams, said she is keeping the 14-year-old freshman home because two of her younger sons have cystic fibrosis and she can’t risk their being exposed. Williams said she thinks her daughter will be OK academically with online classes, which up to 30% of the district’s students have enrolled in.
But she is worried about Aliyah’s inability to see her friends.
“She’s a social butterfly. That’s a big part of her personality,” Williams said.
Aliyah has been participating in color guard with the school band, but Williams said she is now “conflicted” about that too, considering the football player’s positive test.
Many teachers are uneasy, dismayed that the Paulding district refused to mandate masks or push back the start date for in-person classes, as other Atlanta-area districts have done.
“I desperately want to return to face-to-face teaching, but not until it is safe,” Steven Hanft, a North Paulding High teacher, told the county school board last month.