Kids need to be back in school full time, and with the accelerated pace of the COVID vaccination program, that looks like a realistic goal in the current school year.
But confusion about which protocols are essential to safety and which ones could be safely set aside threaten what could be an important return to in-person learning.
Most Maine schools started the academic year in September in a hybrid model, where half of a school’s students come to in-person class two days a week, while the other half participate remotely. Then the groups switch, and the home learners come to class in person while the other group continues from home.
That schedule doesn’t work well for teachers, who have to teach two different groups of students at the same time, students who report feeling bored and isolated, or their families, who have to juggle daycare and a complicated weekly schedule. But in most Maine school buildings, the hybrid schedule is the only way to maintain a required 3 feet of space between students and 6 feet between students and teachers.
The social distancing guidelines come to Maine school districts through the state Center for Disease Control and originate with the federal CDC. As long as that’s the guidance, full-time, in-person school for everyone is not possible.
That is frustrating, especially since public health officials question whether the 3-foot rule is even necessary. Last week, in response to a question from Sen. Susan Collins, Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told the Senate Health Committee that now that school employees have been approved for vaccination, schools could open safely full-time by following some basic rules.
Jha said schools need to require mask wearing, ventilate indoor spaces, and introduce testing programs that would identify and contain potential outbreaks. If schools can do all three, he said, they should be able to open. And Jha called attention to what he left out:
“I did not mention 3 feet vs. 6 feet. I did not mention deep cleaning of surfaces. I think there is a lot that’s gotten us distracted … We can keep teachers safe, we can keep kids safe and we can open schools. And we have the ability to do all of this now, not six months or a year from now,” Jha said.
A year ago, we didn’t know much about the novel coronavirus, Sars CoV-2, except that it was extremely contagious and, in some cases, deadly.
The first emergency order closed all restaurants, bars and retail stores, except for curbside service and carryout. The orders also closed school buildings, sending students home to learn remotely through hastily assembled online programs.
Twelve months since the first case was diagnosed in Maine, we know a lot more. Early fears about catching COVID by touching surfaces don’t appear to have been warranted. Early debates about the efficacy of universal mask wearing wasted valuable time when we needed to arrest the spread of the virus.
And when it comes to school, we’ve learned that there is no substitute for showing up. No matter how creative teachers get with their online offerings, some students will fall behind and some will fall out of the system completely. The loss of social interaction with their peers, favorite activities and a personal connection with teachers has turned this into a lost year for too many, one that will be difficult to make up.
There is not much time left. If the Biden administration is going to achieve its goal of reopening most schools before the end of this academic year, the CDC should revise the distancing requirement now.
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