How soon is it safe to re-open schools in Nashville? | Opinion – Tennessean
opinion
Keel Hunt Columnist
Published 6:44 PM EDT Jul 17, 2020
On the best of days, a school is a complicated place.
Consider the children, who come in a variety of sizes, behaviors, gifts, talents, and needs. The younger they are, the more most of them delight in crowding into each other’s faces.
Think of the educators, who lead the learning across all those differences. No wonder our best teachers, librarians, and principals are seen as heroes, if not saints.
Now, add into this mix the COVID-19 scourge that closed down our schools altogether in early March, and you have the most complex question of the summer: When and how can K-12 classes re-open – safely – so that education resumes and parents get back to work?
This is the knottiest problem of all, and all our U.S. communities are facing it right now – four months and two surges into this horrid, killing pandemic.
States and cities are struggling as national leadership is lacking
It is vital to us everyone, young and old, that in-person schooling resume safely on the earliest possible date. Child development cannot be paused for long, and most young parents need their youngsters in school again so Mom or Dad can get back to their own jobs.
But it’s one thing for politicians, standing on their flag-festooned rostrums, to declare our schools should fully re-open at once. It’s a different puzzle altogether for teachers and families, for superintendents and school boards, to know how to accomplish that task.
With COVID cases spiking so rapidly, some states and cities are now reversing their new plans to re-open school in August.
► ‘Insane and irresponsible’: Tennessee doctors, teachers question reopening schools
And nowhere is the brokenness of Washington more visible than on this issue. President Trump and his education secretary have vowed to cut federal funding from school districts that don’t fully re-open on schedule. That’s empty bluster, and none of it helps.
In this persistent vacuum of national leadership, states and cities have been scrambling for smart guidance, sufficient testing, and scarce supplies – while waiting for an elusive COVID vaccine.
Only those deluded citizens who insist the pandemic is “just a hoax” are unconcerned now. All the rest worry that schools may yet be unsafe for kids, and they hang onto every word uttered by school officials, hoping for reassurance.
Questions remain about how schools will safely re-open
In all the remarks and documents published so far by Metro Nashville Public Schools, some questions remain. Like these:
- Real Distancing: How will elementary school classrooms of busy children actually look and work? How will middle and high schools differ in their functional arrangements for the fall?
In one document that MNPS posted online, this caution: “Due to classroom configurations, 6 feet of distance between desks will not often be feasible, but desks will be spaced as much as possible and facing in one direction.”
- Remote Instruction: Will our hard learnings of last spring around “online lessons” be remedied now? Almost a third of Nashville students’ homes don’t have essential equipment.
Mayor John Cooper’s welcome announcement of new computer purchases for students was encouraging – that is, until the more recent news that the MNPS procurement of them will fall short because of the explosion in U.S. demand.
- Outside the Box: How much creativity are MNPS leaders bringing in their thinking for what our schools need?
Because school architecture is fixed, some U.S. school districts are arranging for students to attend on alternating days, or re-deploying the school day – all to afford kids more separation and breathing room.
Will we see that kind of boldness in Nashville? If not, why not?
Parents are asking good questions now, and they deserve good answers.
None of this is going to be easy.
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Keel Hunt is a columnist for USA TODAY Network Tennessee and the author of two books on Tennessee politics. Read more at www.KeelHunt.com.
Published 6:44 PM EDT Jul 17, 2020
