Start online if necessary, but for children’s sake, Texas schools must reopen ASAP
The news that emerged Wednesday from state election officials was probably inevitable: Texas schools will be allowed to keep schools closed for much of the fall and still receive state funding, if local health officials demand it.
With the coronavirus rampant and talk of new shutdown orders rising, the demand for in-person attendance in just about a month was not going to stand. Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency appear to be giving school districts flexibility to start with, and that’s the right approach.
That said, every decision maker needs to have a singular goal in mind: Getting children back into classrooms as soon as safely possible.
School district and state education leaders have no options to reopen schools that will please every parent, teacher, administrator and staffer. There are too many variables. And in recent days, teacher groups have raised the volume on educators’ understandable concerns about the risk of returning to school.
But missing school is incredibly bad for kids, for their education, their social development and their emotional and mental well-being.
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Schools are making every effort to improve distance learning, with better technology, more structure for instruction and more connections with teachers. Most will no doubt be vastly better than the online systems officials had to scramble to create in March, when schools had to close suddenly.
But no one should pretend that any online system can be better than in-person education. And the pressure on parents to fill the gaps is too much for many families, especially single-parent households.
Then, there’s the loss of social development. Children need to be around their peers, and the more time that’s lost, the more damage done. The longer kids aren’t in school, the more that many will be at risk of depression and anxiety.
Consider, too, the services that schools provide that families may not be able to replicate elsewhere. Special-needs students get personalized help. Many students, particularly in districts such as Fort Worth, get nutrition their families may otherwise struggle to provide.
And many parents, too, need a break and an opportunity to get back to work knowing their kids are well cared for. A Gallup poll last month found that few parents relished the idea of full-time virtual learning. While that might be shifting as COVID-19 spikes in Texas and elsewhere, parents understand that school is the linchpin to so much in our lives and communities.
In Fort Worth, a majority of parents responding to the district’s survey expressed a preference for in-person school. The district is still tracking toward an Aug. 17 start, with families able to choose between attending school and virtual learning. But the Fort Worth school system has been among those advocating for flexibility from the state, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see the district start the year online-only.
If that date holds, though, parents have just weeks until their Aug. 3 deadline to choose in-person or online schooling. And teachers have less than a month before they’d be required to be in school buildings to prepare for the year.
The virus risks for children are low, but for teachers, the safety concern around returning to work is understandable. Right now, Fort Worth plans to require teachers to work from school, even if in an empty classroom while teaching online. Ideally, districts would find a way to accommodate those who wish to teach from home.
Each will have to evaluate his or her personal risk tolerance, and some will no doubt end up leaving the profession. It’s a shame to lose good teachers, and we all yearn for the day when all can go to work and school without any risk of falling ill or bringing the virus home to loved ones.
But until then, we have to balance risks. If the virus is raging and the first day of in-person school must wait, we trust local districts to make that call. But let’s not pretend there aren’t trade-offs, ones that fall most upon children. Their needs should be the priority, so as soon as possible, they should be back in the classroom.