Reopening Schools: How and When?

By Jack Gerson

Wall Street Journal editorialists have bashed teacher unions for opposing school reopening. But actually, teacher unions are asking for safe reopening.

 

Let’s be clear: There's no doubt that protracted school closures are harmful to young people in numerous ways. But despite the propaganda from the WSJ (and a slightly more subtle campaign in the NY Times) it's not safe to reopen schools unless some basic but essential measures are in place.

 

●     Prioritize vaccinating teachers. This is a critical need, and will reduce infection and community spread.

●     Provide adequate ventilation in every classroom. Surely WSJ knows that good ventilation is essential to reducing risk of transmitting the virus. And hopefully it’s aware that a substantial number of classrooms are poorly ventilated, particularly in inner city schools (many have windows that don’t open; some have no windows at all; relatively few have air filtration systems that will be needed on cold or rainy days when windows can’t very well be opened.

●     Limit class size to enable six foot distancing. This will require dramatically reducing class size and / or a hybrid system where on any given day half of students attend in person while the other half attend remotely from home

●     Provide adequate support in every school: nurses, counselors, maintenance and janitorial capable of sanitizing buildings and grounds.

 

And most importantly: Don't reopen schools until the virus is well under control. Had the WSJ editorialists bothered to review the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on how low the rate of new cases needs to be for schools to reopen safely, they would have found that only about 4% of school districts meet these guidelines. A new surge underway in Europe from the spread of new, more transmissible and resistant variants has officials there closing schools, and should be ringing alarm bells here: What sense does it make to open schools now, when we may be only weeks away from another out of control surge.

 

As University of California San Francisco infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong told the San Francisco Chronicle today (3/4/21):

“We’ve seen this story over and over again in the Bay Area. We have a surge and then we have a honeymoon period of five to six weeks when everything opens back up, and then we have another surge. If you look back, that’s the pattern for California.”

 

It makes little sense to reopen schools now, only to be forced to close them again in April. Instead, school districts ought to use the next few months to make sure teachers can be vaccinated and that schools can provide the ventilation, social distancing, and staff support needed to ensure safe reopening once the virus is firmly and stably under control. And school districts, especially inner city school districts, must be provided with the funds to provide these essential conditions.