Thread by @DebbieIllinois

A public high-school teacher’s thoughts about school opening in the fall: #schoolsreopening @Lily_NEA

There is so much we don’t yet know about Covid-19. Our understanding of how it spreads and how best to treat it has evolved in the five months since it first appeared in the US

Like most educators, I chose to become a teacher because I believe that education is a vital part of children’s development. Through school, children learn how to read, write, calculate, hypothesize, create, and socialize.

Without education, many doors in a child’s future remain locked. Because of this, I have devoted my career to helping students unlock these doors in their lives.

This year, the pandemic came. Society wisely retreated to the safety of home. This frightening virus swirled around the world, killing and disabling people with abandon.

In the blink of an eye, educators rose to the challenge of remote learning by continuing to provide rigorous lessons and a semblance of structure for their students.

Meanwhile, politicians began to polarize the nation and politicize its response to the virus. Instead of uniting us in stopping the spread of Covid-19, some leaders minimized its virulence. “It’s no worse than the flu,” they proclaimed. “And besides, we need to open the economy.

Go shopping, travel, eat at restaurants.” As a result, many flocked to the beaches and crowded into bars once businesses began to open.

The effect was the continued spread of Covid-19. It moved from dense cities to rural communities.

Still, leaders encouraged us to patronize businesses. They also shunned using basic protection, such as face masks, because it would give the impression that we are afraid of this disease.

The truth is, we SHOULD be afraid of this disease. It has infected more than 3 million of our fellow citizens and killed more than 130,000. We don’t yet have any idea how many will be permanently disabled from it.

At the beginning of the pandemic, healthcare workers, delivery personnel, and grocery-store employees were deemed “essential workers” who needed to put the lives of others before their own.

Meatpacking plant workers were forced to toil in unsafe conditions for the “good of the country’s food supply.” Each faced an untenable choice: your job or your life.

It appears that schools are next.

Schools in some other countries have already opened. Many were quickly shuttered as the disease began to spread anew. Those that were able to remain open had previously tamped down the spread of the disease in their communities by mandating social-distancing and masks.

Some countries eliminated school buses. Others held classes outdoors.

In the US, the reality is sinking in that fall is around the corner; schools will be starting in a few short weeks. “Once our kids return to school, we can get back to normal,” we think.

The American Association of Pediatrics declared returning to school face-to-face to be essential. The President and Secretary of Education proclaimed that remote learning is not sufficient.

The Vice President said that children don’t seem to get the virus, or if they do, they don’t seem to have serious effects from it.

None of these officials mention the impact on the adults who deliver this instruction nor that those adults are at great risk of illness and death from the virus.

Additionally, since most children who are infected are asymptomatic, and to date we have only been testing symptomatic individuals, we really do not yet know the impact of this virus on children’s health.

Furthermore, we do not know if there will be long-term health consequences for asymptomatic individuals.

It is heartening for me to see the high value that our society places on the education of its children.

If we as a nation agree that schools are the cornerstone of our society, we should have dedicated the summer to extinguishing the embers of this virus, despite the challenges of doing so. But we didn’t.

We should have incentivized staying home this summer to stop the virus’s spread. But we didn’t. We should have immediately required universal mask wearing in public. But we didn’t.

We should have prohibited congregating on beaches and in bars. But we didn’t. We should have eliminated large indoor gatherings. But we didn’t. As a result, those embers of disease have now engulfed entire states.

It is impossible to change the past, but we have a chance to make better choices in the immediate future. Until the virus is better understood, contained, and treated, including widespread availability of rapid testing, it is simply too dangerous to open schools face-to-face.