School districts are moving too fast
Above all, let’s have good science carry the day with respect to reopening our schools. The CDC has refused to back off its recommendation that to reopen anything there must be 14 continuous days of declining COVID-19 cases. Bakersfield is currently experiencing its steepest rise ever in such cases.
It staggers the mind to think that our local school boards are even remotely thinking about reopening the doors to our precious children. We’re supposed to be their protectors, nurturers, and sustainers, not the agents of their illness and death.
Whatever protections and mitigations we put in place, children cannot control themselves well enough to observe and conform their conduct to them. Kids are restless, squirmy and squirrelly. They dash and dart around unheedful and unmindful of rules meant to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Put a million measures in place, our kids will rush pell-mell right over and through them. Caution them a million times a day, and they will forget them all as soon as their minds are tuned into a game of tetherball, dodgeball or soccer.
Kids are huggers, cuddlers, snugglers, hand holders and clingers by nature and will impulsively hug, cuddle, snuggle, hold hands and cling. Their immature brains drive such behaviors and do not have internal brain-brakes strong enough to stop instinct. Little brains are no match against nature. And when kids experience the stopping of hugging and clinging to their friends and teachers, a certain hurtful loss is felt that can have lasting effects. Teachers who are known huggers will have to stop. Kids who once were hugged will feel the bite of new distancing. Even when the reasons are fully explained, they will still feel loss. Kids love going to school primarily not for the learning but for their friendships and affection shown one to another. Lifelong friendships are forged on playgrounds and in shared school activities. Introduce 6-foot distancing, if that’s even possible in our classrooms, and those crucial emotional connections and attachments change.
Plans to go ahead with reopening schools make school classrooms, each and every one, petri dishes for the virus. The old and new iterations of the virus each have their individual characteristics with the newer being less deadly but more infectious. What’s the plan when an infection shows up in a classroom? Do we isolate the class and teacher for the required 14 days? Why did we bother to shut schools down at the first appearance of the virus when we now are reopening when it’s rampant and getting worse? Were we wrong then but right now? It seemed there was a logic for the initial shutdown, where did it go?
Many may say that the science of this pandemic has been wrong in the past, and since experts have changed their story several times over the last six months, they cannot be trusted. But, changing stories is the strength of science. When new data come in about something new, a stronger story emerges — up to date, more certain and better able to explain things. That’s what good science is all about. What’s the alternative: clinging to old stories that have long since ceased being able to explain the truth of things?
What’s going to happen when there’s an explosion of new COVID-19 cases?
❚❚ Whatever protections and mitigations we put in place, children cannot control themselves well enough to observe and conform their conduct to them. Kids are restless, squirmy and squirrelly. They dash and dart around unheedful and unmindful of rules meant to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Put a million measures in place, our kids will rush pell-mell right over and through them.
Will we have to shut down again and fight once more to drive the curve down to baseline, but from a higher peak? Remember, our numbers are rising now; any new explosion will be piled on top of already exploding numbers.
As stated above, the CDC has affirmed that the first gate to reopening anything is 14 consecutive days of declining numbers. Disregarding that gate, will local school districts subject themselves to potential lawsuits when this or that child dies from the virus contracted at school?
Lots of questions, no easy answers.