We must ensure we get this correct first time

Choosing the right time to reopen schools is a once-only decision that must consider everyone, writes

GOING to school is a central part of our society. We need to stop and think more deeply about how it affects so many aspects of society before we make decisions about school reopening.

It may be wise to step back a little and reflect on the fact that going to school is about much more than children and teachers in a school.

Reopening schools is a one-way door.

If we get it wrong the effects will be irreversible — defeating six months of self-sacrifice and doing more harm to our already battered economy.

We only have one chance to get this right. A ‘goodenough’ plan will not suffice. We can only have a best-inclass plan.

For many, the year runs from September to September. Classes resume, chestnuts fall, and life settles back into familiar patterns as nearly one million people, pupils and teachers begin school again.

BIG NUMBERS

Schools are such a familiar part of life everywhere, that it is unsurprising that many are unaware of the full scale of the activity at a national level.

More than 930,000 students will go back to school in September, in over 2,900 primary and over 700 post-primary schools, that employ over 40,000 primary and 20,000 post-primary teaching staff. These hundreds of thousands of children touch almost everyone in the State — through direct and extended families.

The payroll of the Department of Education and Skills is the biggest in the State, with an annual budget of over €11bn.

Decisions about whether and how to reopen schools have huge consequences for our health as well as for our economy.

We better get them right. The health implications of over 900,000 students and their parents suddenly beginning to once more meet, mix, and travel must surely be a concern for those public health specialists who are seeking to control Covid transmission within the community.

On the other hand, the economic implications of continued restrictions on the childcare arrangement of hundreds of thousands of people in our workforce must also be a concern.

There will be many voices clamouring for priority about each of these issues — teachers, health specialists and employers. The concerns of these groups — each expert in their own fields — may tempt us to consider this problem too narrowly.

This year, as we discuss the looming question of going back to school in an age of Covid, we need to think about the many parts of our lives that are affected by the school-going.

For a start, the school day involves much more than just sitting in a classroom.

Too much attention and planning appears to focus on this activity, which is only a part of the school day.

Long before classes begin, the movement of children to school creates significant challenges to social distancing, as students from a wide area (especially in the country) are taken to school by parents — who meet and socialise at the school gate.

The issue is equally important within the confines of a school bus in rural areas.

School pick-up and afterschool care involve different actors, often by extended family such as grandparents — who we know are most vulnerable to Covid. Each of these activities widen social contact networks.

This assessment becomes even more complex when different family members go to different schools or when different age groups in one family need to use creche, primary, or post-primary facilities.

No consideration is given here to the further complexity of sports, socialising or other afterschool activities.

The picture that emerges from school travel alone is one of large and wide networks of interconnectivity — ideal for a spreading virus and a nightmare for contact tracing. Surely this aspect of ‘back to school’ is as important a consideration as classroom teaching arrangements?

IMPACT ON LIVES

Then there is the matter of the impact on the working lives of parents. Most families are only too aware of the difficulty and complexity of trying to juggle school transport and after-school activities with employment and home-making. Imagine the increased complexity of this if different children in different schools of different ages are expected to attend at ‘staggered times’ within the day, odd/even days or weeks? What might work for pupils and teachers may be a complete failure for working parents.

The issues sketched out here only serve as a reminder about the complexity of the interactions and effects of school arrangements on the wider community.

In the search for solutions, the debate continues as if the issues around school-going are the same everywhere.

While it is clear to all that there are large differences in personal circumstances — less recognition is given to the wide range of types of schools. There are huge community schools — the size of small towns with more than 1,200 pupils — as well as tiny schools with fewer than 60 pupils. A one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely to emerge.

SOLUTIONS

These are the problems. What could solutions look like? We need to step back and look at the totality of childcare and school provision in our lives. We need to recognise the scale, complexity and diversity of circumstances. We need to ask the right questions — this is not solely a matter for teachers and sectors

— it is a whole-of-society issue that needs a whole-of-government response.

The two most likely ways that our plans could fail are first, if we focus only on pupils and teachers in classroom settings — forgetting to make plans that work for the whole of the school day and for the whole of the community — especially workers. The second route to failure will be attempts to impose a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution.

Successful planning, at a national level, will involve holistic and inclusive participation by and for representatives of teachers, parents and employers. Like all good planning it will be a gradual back and forth process — and not a Decide-Announce-Defend approach. This will need time.

National planning will need to leave space for local adaptation because of the very wide range of types of communities and schools involved. One plan may work for a small rural school that adjoins large playing fields, while the same plan will be an embarrassing failure if applied to an inner-city school that has a teeming playground.

Planning for this difference will also take time.

The most difficult planning will be for the smallest unit of society, the family — of which there are, in turn many types, each with different circumstances. We need to find a way to reach out and accommodate the specific needs of as many types of individual families as possible.

Successful planning will involve innovation and imagination to deal with new challenges. How will school travel and drop-off avoid excess close contact? How will after-school care without grandparents work? How can we minimise the mixing between different schools and different ages?

We need to do all of this very fast and very well because so much of our health and economy depends on getting it right. It will be a mistake if this planning remains within any single department. A successful plan will require contributions from actors in fields as diverse as employment, transport and local government. Like all good plans it will also need to be sufficiently loose-fitting and flexible to allow local adaptation by local communities, schools, teachers and parents. This will all take time.

OPPORTUNITY

Many of these ingredients for success will be challenging for our traditionally centrist systems of administration. Perhaps this is the time and the opportunity to trust ourselves more.

Over the last six months we, and our officials, have proven ourselves to be bright, careful and diligent. Perhaps this crisis is the time to allow ourselves to lean into these strengths by allowing and expecting our families and teachers to adapt national guidelines and principles to get the best fit to local circumstances.

Perhaps there is a plan; perhaps somewhere in the voluminous ‘Covid-19 response plan for safe reopening of schools’ there are overlooked sections on school buses; school dropoff and collection; mixing of students from different schools in one family; integration of staggered times into the lives of working families.

If there are not, we probably need to defer restarting until we have a real and holistic plan.

Better safe, than sorry.