PRESS EDITORIAL: Students pay a price for adults’ nonchalance in pandemic

Think of the kids.

That was the plea of an editorial in the May 6, 2020 issue of Ozaukee Press.

We repeat it: Think of the children, adolescents and teenagers who need to go back to school during a raging pandemic.

Closing schools when the coronavirus struck in spring was necessary, but the impact on the students and their families ranks with the other appalling consequences of the Covid-19 disaster.

Schools have to reopen, and they will, but that has only become even more daunting as the fall semester gets closer. Too many American adults did not think of the kids when they rejected the disciplines needed to control the spread of the virus.

Early on in the planning for the reopening of schools, the assumption was that the community spread of the virus would be under control by fall. Undone in part by the widespread rejection of social distancing and mask wearing, that hope is now forlorn, as infection rates explode in a number of states and are on the rise in Wisconsin, including Ozaukee County, which is among the counties whose risk factor is rated high.

So that is the dangerous environment in which local school officials have to restart classroom education. There is no playbook for this; school administrators and school boards have to make it up as they go along. They are getting no help from national leaders. President Trump’s insistence that all schools reopen full time only complicates their mission, because one imperious presidential demand does not fit all school districts.

The Northern Ozaukee School District is planning for a full five-day-a-week reopening. Perhaps that will work in a district with a relatively small student population like NOSD.

But it would be difficult if not impossible to accomplish without unacceptable risk to students, their families and the community in a school district the size of Port Washington-Saukville, which has 2,600 students.

Port-Saukville is taking the right approach in working on a blend of state Department of Public Instruction guidelines that may include a staggered schedule in one form or another. Students will likely still spend some school days at home and still need supplementary online teaching.

Managing bus transportation with perhaps half-empty buses, sanitizing school buildings on a strict schedule, convincing parents and teachers that schools are safe and adapting facilities for some form of social distancing are necessary complications in trying to provide what everyone wants—children back in school to learn in a structured educational and social atmosphere and parents back at work to support their families and the economy.

No one should expect schools to get back to normal operation for many months, and we hope parents will encourage or at least tolerate a cautious reopening, however difficult this may be for all concerned.

In demanding the opposite of that, President Trump threatened to cut off federal funding for schools that do not reopen on a full-time basis. Fortunately, it’s an empty threat, because Congress, not the president, controls federal aid to education. Still, federal funding is relevant to the school reopening issue. School districts face enormous costs in trying to reopen safely, while tax revenue is expected to decline. The School Superintendents Association estimates that protective measures will cost a school district the size of Port-Saukville about $1.5 million.

 Instead of sending mandates to local school boards, the president should be asking Congress to send financial aid to cover the school costs imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. The Heroes Act would do just that, but Trump opposes passage.

Think of the kids . . . and send money.