‘Back to school’ includes listening to student needs

Back to school: That phrase characterizing the start of the school year in September will have a new and special meaning this year.

If all continues to go well, students in Pennsylvania will return to classes with a normalcy that ended abruptly in March of 2020 and has not yet returned.

Of course many students in this region are already back in classes as this school year comes to a close, but others are still on hybrid schedules or working through online learning. It has only been in the past two months that vaccination against COVID-19 became widespread among teachers and school staff and only in the past few weeks that older students are eligible for the vaccine. Shots have not yet been approved for children under age 12.

The growing success of the vaccination effort has most people confident that in-person learning can resume for everyone come September.

The president of Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union last Monday called in-person instruction a “top priority” now that many teachers and older children have been vaccinated.

“As more students are vaccinated over the summer, we believe that in-person instruction is achievable in a way that keeps everyone safe,” said Rich Askey, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which represents 178,000 active and retired educators, health care workers and others.

The closing of schools and effects on children and families have been among the most controversial and difficult results of public health mandated shutdowns that began as the pandemic gained steam in March of 2020.

The struggles to keep children on track with learning faced obstacles that included teacher and parent safety concerns, lack of access to internet and computers in rural and low-income communities, and a steep adjustment for teachers and students alike to maintain learning outside the physical classroom.

The ramifications to families — both for parents who had to work at home with kids in tow and those who had to work outside the home — were monumentally disruptive to the cultures of the workplace and to education.

Now, as schools prepare for a universal reopening, there is also somewhat of a reset occurring to take an accounting of the past year and lessons learned. One thing the pandemic has brought to the surface is greater awareness of the cracks in public education, whether it be funding inequity or the fact that the “normal” doesn’t work for everybody.

“We need to have the conversation: ‘what does education look like next year?’” said Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez in March of this year during a school board discussion on how some students benefitted from online learning.

Edutopia, the magazine of George Lucas Educational Foundation, published an article shortly after the lockdowns began and observed that “a handful of students — shy kids, hyperactive kids, highly creative kids — are suddenly doing better with remote learning than they were doing in the physical classroom.”

And in the debate on whether public school cyber programs can deliver education better and without sacrificing tax dollars to cyber charters — highlighted again last week by Gov. Tom Wolf and area superintendents — public schools have become more competitive with insights and investment in technology gained as a pandemic necessity.

The back to school mantra for the fall may not mean back into the classroom for everyone, and it may involve extra effort to identify needs and make up what was lost. Getting back to normal will require the same traits that getting through the un-normal required — listening to all parties involved and discovering ways to improve the total learning experience.

This is not a time to debate or dwell on unmasking, vaccine reluctance or past mistakes. This is the time to look forward and embrace the discoveries. That is the job for every parent, teacher, administrator and board member: Listen, accept, be open to change. The goal is to teach our children well.