President Joe Biden says he wants most schools from kindergarten through eighth grade to reopen in late April, but even if that happens, millions of students are likely to leave out, many of them minorities in urban areas. .
“We will see children falling further and further behind, especially low-income black students,” said Shavar Jeffries, president of Democrats for Education Reform. “There is potentially a level of generational damage that students have suffered from being out of school for so long.”
Like some other education officials and advocates, Jeffries said powerful teacher unions are hampering student returns. The unions insist that they are acting to protect teachers and students and their families.
In a call Thursday night with teacher unions, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s leading infectious disease specialist, said that the reopening of K-8 classrooms at the national level may not be possible in time. of Biden. He cited concerns about new variants of the virus that allow it to spread more quickly and may be more resistant to vaccines.
Biden is asking $ 130 billion for schools to address the concerns of unions and school officials as part of a broader coronavirus aid package that faces an uncertain fate in Congress. If their goal of reopening is reached, millions of students will still have to continue learning at home, possibly for the rest of the school year.
California was an epicenter of the infection in the first half of January, and public health officials say many of the state’s districts are in areas where transmission remains too high to be reopened. But a state group called Open Schools California is pushing for the reopening as soon as public health standards are met.
“I think the data will prove that the most disadvantaged children will be low-income children, black and brown children, children with special education, learning differences, homelessness and foster youth,” said Megan Bacigalupi, a mother of students in public schools from Oakland and one of the organizers.
It is difficult to calculate exactly how many schools are open in person now, due to the size and diffuse nature of the country’s school system – and because the district approach changes frequently.
In early January, about a third of students in a sample of 1,200 U.S. school districts were in schools where classes were taught exclusively online since last March – many of them in cities. Last week, more than half of the students were enrolled in schools where face-to-face learning was at least an option, according to Burbio, a data service that tracks school opening policies.
For the first time since schools closed in March, Atlanta began returning younger and special education students to face-to-face learning last week. Other districts that plan to reopen in early March include Clark County, Nevada, which includes Las Vegas; Kansas City, Missouri; Boston and Ohio’s great school systems.
Younger students in New York City already have the option of attending school in person. Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Friday that he expects elementary and high school students to return somehow later this school year.
Jeffries recognizes that there are reasons why it is more difficult to open schools in cities: they are more densely populated, which means that the virus can spread faster; more people depend on public transport, a potential hot spot for contamination; and more parents have frontline jobs that can expose them to the virus and, in turn, to their children.
But he said the biggest obstacle to reopening schools in the city is political. “Teachers’ unions tend to doggedly oppose going back to school,” said Jeffries.
In Chicago, only pre-childhood students have attended school so far. This week, the Chicago Teachers Union voted to teach online just in a confrontation with the district about plans to bring students to school starting February 1. The union has authorized a strike if school officials retaliate, but negotiations continue.
Claiborne Wade, 31, has three children in the Chicago Public Schools system, ages 10, 9 and 7. Wade believes the district is not yet ready to reopen schools and he favors distance learning for now.
Still, he said minority students in large urban districts have less resources for online learning. He saw students from wealthier schools buy a laptop, a tablet and even a table, while his children only had one laptop to work with. Having a laptop and a tablet helps because students can see the teacher on one screen and follow instructional materials on another, he said.
“This has been going on for years, even before the pandemic arrives,” he said. “We have always been at the base of the totem, receiving the resources we need.”
Public health officials say more and more that transmission of the virus in schools is low, provided that measures such as wearing masks and social distance are in place – even if teachers and other school staff have not received vaccines.
On January 21, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, declared: “There is no public health reason for school boards to keep students out of school. None.”
Last week, the president of the Maryland State Education Association, Cheryl Bost, wrote to Hogan, saying his statement “would be ridiculous if it weren’t so dangerous”. She said the coronavirus is not predictable and that the dangers increase with the spread of new mutations. The risk of infection increases when people stay at home for long periods.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said it could be safe to return to schools in the spring semester with rigorous testing programs and the option for students and educators to stay online if they wish.
“Teachers know how important classroom teaching is, but we have to make it safe. Testing and vaccination, as well as masking and detachment, are crucial, as are accommodations for educators at risk, ”she said in a statement last week.
Keith Benson, president of the Camden Education Association, which represents teachers in a New Jersey city with a long history of poverty, crime and high dropout rates, said conditions are different in and outside the city. The schools there plan to keep the buildings closed until at least April.
“What keeps someone safe in a suburban area is not the same thing that would keep people safe here,” said Benson, adding that while remote learning is not ideal, he believes that students will be able to achieve it eventually.
Dr. Lavanya Sithanandam, a pediatrician who practices in the suburbs of Maryland, Washington, said she has seen a record number of children and adolescents with mental health problems since online learning began in their area more than 10 months ago.
“At first, many doctors, including me, were very hesitant about the children’s return to school,” she said. “But as the data has evolved, many of us have realized that the reopening of schools is extremely important.”
Most of his patients are children from low-income minority families. She said that students who attend private schools, where classes are taught in person, tend to do better than their public school colleagues in terms of mental health.
“They did the basics of masking, distance, sometimes with the windows open. With that, they were able to minimize any outbreak, ”she said.
Second grade teacher Grace Lovelace Guishard also has three children enrolled in public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, a large and racially diverse district where classes must remain virtual until at least March 15, a schedule that will depend on spread of the virus.
She said that schools cannot take shortcuts in preparation for the reopening and believes that teachers should have the right to refuse to work if they believe conditions are unsafe. This also means ensuring that students like hers, many of whom come from Spanish-speaking families, are treated equally.
“Any school reopening plan should be focused on equality for all,” she said.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Sainz from Memphis and Kunzelman from College Park, Maryland. Also contributed by Associated Press writers Collin Binkley in Boston; Jennifer Peltz in New York; and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; and AP data journalist Larry Fenn in New York.