Nurse puts out fire set by looters.
Maybe we’ll have kids in elementary grades come to school while high school students stay home and do distance learning.
Maybe we’ll have kids come to school one day a week, with a quarter of them coming each day, leaving the fifth day for teacher planning, remote learning and such.
Maybe we’ll have kids come two days a week, half of them at a time, with that fifth day for other things.
Or maybe have half of them come for a week while the other half does distance learning — and then switch them the following week.
Or delay the start of the school year. Or have everyone stay home and do distance learning.
Or have everyone come to school, with rules for social distancing and hand washing and all that.
Who would ever consider such possibilities for schooling in America? The answer in this tumultuous time is: Lots of school districts, all over the country.
The specific and jaw-dropping list of options here was given to the Milwaukee School Board by Milwaukee Public Schools administrators several days ago. It’s labeled a “school reopening plan,” but it isn’t really a plan since nothing specific has been proposed. By the end of June there might be a plan, Superintendent Keith Posley told board members.
But the list was based in large part on what urban districts, as well as many smaller districts, are considering.
(By the way, that idea with elementary kids coming to school and high school kids staying home was new to me. The logic is that younger kids struggle more with remote learning than older kids do. And to achieve social distancing in a lot of cases will require using more classrooms, so much so that some younger kids might be assigned to classrooms in high school buildings not being used for high schoolers.)
So we reach the end of an unprecedented (and almost certainly, from an education standpoint, not very productive) school year with enormous uncertainty hanging over schools from coast to coast.
While a lot of the discussion is being driven by concern about spreading COVID-19, that isn’t the only problem. All triggered by the pandemic, here are a few other things to worry about:
Revenue. Simply put, a slump in the economy means a slump in tax collections, which most likely means cuts — and perhaps large ones — in money for schools. This is true nationwide and it’s certainly true in Wisconsin, where
kindergarten through 12th-grade education is the largest single item in the state budget.
Some fear that cuts will be drastic. A strong case can be made for that. In Wisconsin, a mitigating factor might be that action might not be taken before the school year starts and the impact may not be that big on the 2020-21 school year. But who knows? And what lies beyond next year if the economic downtown is long-lasting and strong?
Many school leaders across the U.S. seem to think the federal or state governments will bail them out if they are facing large cuts. But that’s far from certain on the federal level and hard to imagine in a state such as Wisconsin, with its polarized politics.
Costs. Many of the steps that are likely to come along with COVID-19 responses may be expensive. If you spread out students for social distancing, you are likely to need more classrooms, which may mean more teachers.
School cafeterias are likely to undergo big changes, including what food is offered and how it is offered, and this may be expensive. All that cleaning means more work and more costs.
And consider busing — if you put half as many kids on buses, you may need twice as many buses or a major overhaul of school assignments. (The possibility of putting more children in neighborhood schools was raised by Milwaukee school board members Tuesday.)
Overall, revenue may be cut just as expenses jump.
Learning. What impact will the abrupt closing of schools in March have on the status of each and every student’s learning, come the fall? What will be done to help students catch up? Will more effective ways be found to do distance or online learning than was the case in a large number of situations this spring?
The needs of students. This has been a tough period for large numbers of children when it comes to mental health and social-emotional needs. How will this be dealt with and (again) will resources be anywhere close to matching need?
Who will return? How many kids might be held out of school by parents concerned about health issues? Too early to tell, but there are parents nationwide who are expressing concern about sending their children back to brick-and-mortar schools. And some parents may be finding the home-schooling routine appealing.
What about teachers? A USA Today survey suggests a large number are considering not returning to work due to health worries. Will that really come to pass? How will hiring of new teachers be affected by working remotely? The “pipeline” to bring people into teaching already had problems. Will the problems be increased or decreased by all that is changing?
And these are just some of the known unknowns, as then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it in 2002.
But Marla Bronaugh, chief communications and school performance officer for MPS, completed the Rumsfeld quote when she told board members on Tuesday that there are also “the unknown unknowns.” Think about how those surprises have shaped the last several months, and then think how much still lies ahead as politicians, health officials, and school leaders everywhere try to figure out what comes next for American schools.