Safest for students

HISD has a lesson for all our Texas leaders: Let local districts decide how to open schools.

There is no perfect way to reopen schools in the middle of a pandemic, but bringing students back for the new academic year needn’t mean turning a blind eye to the dangers posed by COVID-19.

Houston ISD Interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan made that abundantly clear Wednesday, when she released a back-to-school plan that should serve as a model for other districts and state officials.

Under the HISD timeline, the start of the upcoming school year has been pushed back to Sept. 8 and classes for the district’s 200,000-plus students would remain online-only for the first six weeks. After that, families have the option of choosing all-virtual learning or face-to-face instruction starting Oct. 19 — and they will be allowed to change their minds at the beginning of every six-week grading cycle.

Morever, Lathan stressed that even these plans are subject to further revision as conditions related to the pandemic evolve. New orders by public health officials or Gov. Greg Abbott could also prompt revisions, she told a group of parent-teacher organization leaders.

We salute Lathan and HISD officials for acknowledging the obvious: The surge in coronavirus cases has made it too risky to open schools for on-campus learning in August. They were wise to announce plans for reopening that disregarded the unwise Texas Education Agency guidelines issued July 7, which stated school districts must provide on-campus classes five days a week within three weeks of the day schools reopen for the 2020-21 academic year or risk losing state funding.

Lathan thanked Abbott for his comments on Tuesday signaling that state officials were considering giving districts more flexibility. Abbott indicated TEA Commissioner Mike Morath would be revising the state’s guidance, but provided no details.

New guidance from TEA is expected by week’s end, and it’s time for Abbott and Morath to follow HISD’s lead and give local school officials throughout Texas the power to do what is needed to protect their staff and students.

The TEA guidance thus far flies against common sense and good public health. What is right for a small district in a community where COVID-19 cases are low would not be right for Houston, where coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are reaching record levels.

Instead of mandating a one-size-fits-all approach, state education officials must listen to local leaders and teachers unions who are pleading for more autonomy as they plan for the next school year.

The Texas School Alliance and the Texas Urban Council of Superintendents, both of which include HISD, have urged Abbott to allow districts more flexibility, including the ability to offer online-only learning for at least the first six- or nineweek grading period or longer, if health conditions warrant.

There is a lot of pressure on schools to reopen, and that’s understandable. And districts are a long way from making in-home instruction anywhere near as effective as the learning accomplished in a classroom.

But we must be clear-eyed about what is at stake — the health of our children and the well-being, even the lives, of those who teach them.

A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis estimates that nearly 1.5 million teachers in the United States are at high risk of serious illness from coronavirus.

Requiring them to be on campus before it’s safe could force many veteran teachers like Fernando Castro, who teaches second grade at HISD’s Poe Elementary and is still paying bills from a virus that last year landed him in the hospital for four days, into retiring or leaving the profession.

Castro is wrestling with whether to risk returning to the classroom or retire from a job he has loved for 28 years.

Daniel Santos, who has taught social studies at Navarro Middle School campus since 2006, worries about going back to a building with overcrowded classrooms, poor ventilation and windows that are sealed shut — the perfect breeding ground for the coronavirus to spread.

Some of Santos’ fellow teachers are planning for the upcoming school year by drafting wills and shopping for life insurance. Think about that.

Teachers are not expendable. Their safety must be considered.

There is much else to cheer in HISD’s plans. Lathan acknowledged that up to 35 percent of its students live in households with no internet access. Since all students will begin the school year studying at home, that is an urgent barrier to providing the uninterrupted learning she said remains a top goal for the district. She said HISD is trying to close the digital gap by purchasing 35,000 additional laptops or similar devices as well as providing mobile internet service to 6,000 homes. That’s encouraging.

As is the district’s plan to reconfigure classrooms to ensure physical distancing and capping class size to one teacher for every 10 students once in-person learning begins. There are also requirements for daily screenings, face coverings and use of PPE.

The HISD plan is not ideal. Remote learning has its limitations, as demonstrated by this spring’s abrupt transition to online classes, when Houston-area districts lost contact with thousands of students.

But the district’s measured approach to reopening shows that HISD leaders are being guided by science and public health warnings, not politics or public pressure. We hope Abbott and state education officials are paying attention and will give all Texas districts the freedom to do the same.