By John Bailey, Education Next, July 2020
A consensus is growing among health officials that American schools, virtually all of which closed their doors this March, will be able to reopen in the fall. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in early June that “the idea of keeping schools closed in the fall because of safety concerns for children might be ‘a bit of a reach.’”
That’s good news: the sooner kids get back to school, the sooner K–12 educators can begin to address the student-learning losses that have surely resulted from the closures. Reopening the schools is also vital to reopening businesses as part of the economic recovery. But the prospect of restarting is likely a source of anxiety for educators, given the sheer number of decisions they need to make and their concerns about the health and safety of students, school employees, and the extended community. Fauci’s counterpart at the Centers for Disease Control, Robert Redfield, warns that we all need to be ready for a resurgence of the virus next winter that could “actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through” and force a second round of closures.
The school-reopening guidance offered by the CDC naturally focuses on public-health considerations, leaving it to educators to devise how to keep students and staff safe while also meeting students’ educational needs. Even if public officials deem it safe for schools to reopen, as seems likely, some parents will still hesitate to send their children back to school, and some educators—those whose age or health conditions place them at risk—may not be in a position to return. What’s more, school leaders may well be working with tighter budgets owing to the economic shutdowns as well as increased costs associated with accommodating the CDC measures.
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