From The Confessional: Worries About Returning To School

Remember back in March when everything shut down and we couldn’t fathom the thought of online learning through the rest of the school year? Then it happened. Then we couldn’t imagine not going to pools or amusement parks or on vacation or sending our kids to camp all summer. Now we’re living it. And the next thing we’ll be faced with—that we can’t yet wrap our heads around but we’ll have to eventually—is continuing e-learning in the fall.

COVID is still here and spreading like wildfire. We know what will happen as it flies through the halls of schools, packed with sticky-fingered kids who likely won’t keep their masks on and will forget to social distance. We’re scared to send them back. We’re scared for their teachers. We’re not sure how we’ll manage more months of quarantine. We don’t know what to do.

Our confessional is full of worries from parents just like you—parents who know their kids need school. Who have to get back to work. But who know that COVID-19 debilitates families and ravages bodies once it takes hold. And who can realistically predict that a return to school in the fall is not going to go well.

Whether your family has someone who’s high-risk or not, we’ve learned that this virus does not discriminate. It also takes down people who are normally healthy and have no pre-existing conditions. None of us is truly immune.

It’s hard to be optimistic right now that this will end in anything but a catastrophe.

We don’t know what to do. We can’t afford to keep them home, but we cannot afford the risk to send them.

Expecting young children to social distance and wear masks is absurd. The teachers will probably spend more time reminding them to stay apart and keep their masks up than they will actually teaching.

And then there are the teachers, who once again, are tasked with the impossible. Will they receive frequent tests? Will they be somehow protected? Will districts cover their sick leave if they are unable to work for months?

This nightmare gives us no good options. There is no clear, safe path, but rather, huge risk no matter how you slice it—one one hand, you will likely expose your children to the virus. On the other, you continue to deprive them of social interaction, which they so desperately need. And parents all over America rely on the income they earn while their kids are in school.

We wish there was an answer, but that’s not how a pandemic works. All we can do is make the best choice for our families based on the information we have at the time. We must remember to offer extra grace and patience to parents continuing to monitor online learning while working full time from home. And, we must also offer extra grace and patience to their teachers—both online and in person—who continue to go above and beyond out of love and commitment for their students. Teachers who will risk everything to return to their classrooms in a few short weeks, despite our country still being in the throes of COVID-19.