No simple answer to school question
Parents, teachers, students debate reopening classrooms
“Things aren’t really slowing down.
This is probably not the best time to have kids in school.”
Dr. Gladys Martin
A phone call with Dr. Gladys Martin and Dr. Stephen Kessler is punctuated with the excited yelps of their three sons, who are all between the ages of 2 and 8.
The past five months have been marked by chaos for the family: Their children haven’t been within 6 feet of anyone outside the nuclear family for months. They jump on the couch. They switch from activity to activity. The couple’s toddler now wants to mimic what the older boys do.
“Our house is a little bit of a tornado right now,” Martin said.
No one wants school to reopen more than Martin and Kessler, the father said. Both physicians have switched their work schedules so one can stay home during the day while the other is home in the evening.
It’s hard for the parents to explain to their 5-year-old and 7-year-old why they can’t play with their friends.
But neither parent believes it is safe for
Arizona schools to reopen.
“Seeing what the ICU situation is in the hospitals and just being overwhelmed and
not having enough staffing,” Martin said. “Things aren’t really slowing down. This is probably not the best time to have kids in school.”
Teachers are scared. Parents are exhausted. Students miss the classroom.
Everyone is overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed by the continuously shifting plans for reopening. Overwhelmed by the choices they need to make between in-person or virtual school. Overwhelmed by the fierce debate that’s made it to the national stage, and President Donald Trump’s insistence that schools should reopen.
For the parents, teachers and students interviewed by The Arizona Republic, the decision to reopen school buildings is complicated, and often colored by personal circumstance.
Some want schools to open. Others do not. It’s not political for them. It’s personal.
Most of all, they are clamoring for more clarity from the state.
Gov. Doug Ducey said in a news briefing Thursday that he would likely make an announcement on reopening schools this week.
“I know people want clarity around this,” Ducey said in the briefing.
The governor in June ordered schools to delay opening for in-person classes until Aug. 17. But groups of teachers, school board members, parents and students have increasingly called for that date to be pushed back as the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state climb.
Martin has joined a group of physicians in asking Gov. Doug Ducey to delay the start of in-person classes. Her perspective is informed by her experience as a doctor treating COVID-19 patients.
“It’s not only physically exhausting, but emotionally, knowing you could bring this infection back to your home,” she said.
Search “reopen Arizona schools” on change.org. Your computer screen will be populated with at least eight petitions calling for school buildings to stay closed or be opened. Some have thousands of signatures.
Many of the petitions started popping up around July 8, when President Donald Trump threatened to cut federal funding to schools if they did not reopen on time. Trump has since launched an all-out offensive with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to reopen schools.
On Thursday, the White House Press Secretary said, “Science should not stand in the way” of reopening schools.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that schools work to have students physically present on campuses. But the organization’s president also told NPR that a mandate to reopen school in-person where community spread is substantial would go against AAP recommendations.
And as cases declined in many hard-hit Eastern states, COVID-19 case numbers have risen by the thousands in Arizona. A teacher in Arizona, Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, died of COVID-19 and two of her colleagues also contracted the virus after the three taught virtual summer school in the same classroom.
Many have questioned the logic around reopening school in the state while it’s a hot spot for the virus.
Jennifer Todd’s three children have been home alone while she goes to work for months. Todd, an essential worker, is worried about their safety and their stress levels. Todd’s oldest daughter, 12, has had a “weight on her shoulders,” Todd said, helping her brothers and sisters with school.
“I get very stressed and then I get sad,” Todd said. “We’ve all had moments. The kids have had moments where they just break down and cry.”
When her kids were online learning at the end of the last school year, she would run home during her halfhour lunch break to help them with schoolwork. She can’t afford childcare. She has cameras around the house for security.
Todd wants school to reopen — Or at least, she said, she’d like to know what’s going to happen, so she could make arrangements for a more flexible homeschool program. The idea that thousands of kids have been home alone for months on end is alarming to her.
“I want to encourage and support my children. I keep giving them the same vague answers we all receive,” she said. “And it’s hard. It’s hard to not know if my kids are going to go to school.”
Laura Crandell is one of the people who started a petition: Her petition has nearly 5,000 signatures and asks the governor not to delay reopening school. Her daughter is supposed to start Kindergarten.
She wants to advocate for those who may not have the option of more expensive homeschooling to help kids catch up academically, or who can’t find childcare.
“The people that are in a good financial situation are going to be able to make every accommodation for their children,” she said. “The people that don’t have that financial security are going to bear the brunt of the decision to not have an option to go to school.”
But for some parents, the health concerns outweigh the struggle of keeping kids home.
Kessler and Martin both said it’s been a challenge keeping all three kids occupied and learning through the pandemic. And the parents have barely seen each other with their alternating work schedules.
Staying isolated is hard for their kids, too, Martin said.
“All they want to do is play with their friends, go to soccer practice and have their same routine back,” she said.
But there’s not enough data to support the assertion that kids don’t spread the virus, Martin said. And because the virus has spread around the community like wildfire in recent weeks, reopening school would put teachers and other adults at risk, she said.
“The health concerns should trump any other concerns at this point,” Kessler said.
Sylvia Torres faces a maddening dilemma in considering returning back to school: Risk her life or risk losing her health insurance.
Torres is immunocompromised, and worries about returning to teach preschool for the next school year in the Queen Creek Unified School District.
The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster: First, she was told she’d have to return this month because preschool would start earlier than all other grades. Then, the district changed its plan and decided to have preschool teachers back on campus at the same time as other teachers.
But she’s still concerned about class sizes as the virus spreads — any room filled with more than ten people scares her.
“There is no clear picture of how this district is going to keep their teachers safe,” she said.
Derek Born, another petition starter, is demanding “science-based school reopening criteria” from the governor. His petition has more than 5,300 signatures. Born is a Coconino High School English teacher in Flagstaff. He doesn’t enjoy online school nearly as much as in-person.
But Ducey and the state have not taken the right steps to contain the spread of COVID-19, he said, rendering in-person school dangerous.
“It’s been so frustrating to watch this all unfold,” he said.
The governor has given “lip service” to the idea of reopening safely, but hasn’t provided any criteria for reopening, Born said.
Ducey and Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman have left decisions about what classes will look like when schools reopen up to the individual districts and schools.
New York’s governor, in comparison, said last week that schools could reopen if the regional daily infection rate is 5% or lower on average for 14 days.
In some areas of Arizona, that might be the case.
The zip codes that surround the eastern Arizona town of Eagar have seen about 50 cases total, according to data from the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Stephen Pena, a math teacher at Round Valley High School in Eagar, said the low case numbers mean circumstances are different for him than for metro Phoenix teachers. Schools in Eagar should open, he said.
He made the best of distance learning, but nothing beats in-person. And students struggled with technology issues: Some didn’t have internet. Some shared a computer with multiple siblings.
“It’s hard on kids,” he said. “It’s hard on parents who don’t have enough technology in the home.”
When his district reopens, he’s going to be cautious: He will wear a mask and disinfect high-touch surfaces.
But to Pena, it’s time to reopen. He supports Ducey for not mandating every school in the state stay closed until October.
“He’s giving districts a choice of what best fits them and their community,” he said.
Joshua Hansen misses school and friends. There, it’s easier for the Gilbert Perry High School senior to concentrate, without the lure of social media. Questions are easily answered at school.
He knows COVID-19 is a real threat, but he thinks that with precautions he can keep himself and his family safe. He’s OK waiting until school leaders decide to reopen school. Hansen plans to wear eye protection and a mask to school, and wants to be especially careful because some members of his family are immunocompromised.
“It’s nerve-wracking thinking ‘What if I catch COVID?’ and then there’s obviously that aspect of getting my family contaminated, too,” he said.
Hansen is also in a rigorous science, technology, engineering and math program at Perry High. He worries about falling behind his peers in school if he doesn’t show up.
But some students are taking a harder line on reopening. They’ve called on Ducey to show more leadership in keeping schools closed in a video posted on Thursday. In the video, they say they do not want to see more teachers die.
Sophia Hammer, one of the students in the video, and a senior at Gilbert Classical Academy, is frustrated by online school. The distance learning her school offers doesn’t offer all the classes she would have taken in person, she said.
But she doesn’t think it’s safe to come back. Instead, she wants the state to come up with a more streamlined plan for all Arizona schools, so everyone is on the same page. Everything she’s heard so far about reopening has been confusing.
The state needs to help students struggling mentally, too, she said.
“I know a lot of students have it hard at home. Sometimes for them school is an outlet,” she said. “They have no outlet for mental health support.”