This.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a statement requiring all Florida Pubic Schools to reopen, compared reopening public schools to reopening Walmart and Home Depot. “We spent months saying that there were certain things that were essential. That included fast-food restaurants. It included Walmart. It included Home Depot” (CNN).
DeSantis, a strong ally of Donald Trump, made the statement after Trump said he would consider putting pressure on governors to reopen schools this fall. Florida is currently experiencing a severe COVID-19 outbreak. “I’m confident if you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, if you can do these things, we absolutely can do the schools. I want our kids to be able to minimize this education gap that I think has developed,” he said (The Hill).
Florida teachers are suing, citing several factors; the state is in the midst of a surge in the pandemic and neither the state nor the federal government has put up the money to provide even minimal safety for students and adults.
Last Friday Missouri Governor Mike Parson, said that coronavirus would infect children and we all just have to put up with it. “If they do get COVID-19, which they will,” Parson said, “they’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.” (CNN).
A new study out of South Korea suggests that while young children (10 and younger) tend to transmit the virus less well than adults, those 10 to 19 years old spread the virus in ways very similar to adults. Of the study, The New York Times wrote:The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.“‘I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,’ said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.”
Rhode Island Governor Gina M. Raimondo said that the science around the coronavirus outbreak will guide her decisions to reopen public schools. “As part of her Trump-like doctrine to return to schools, she ordered all of the school districts to develop “their own” plan for returning to the classroom. This chaotic approach of asking beaten down administrators and faculty to develop their own plans with little support has been an exercise in futility and frustration” (Boston Globe).
Raimondo forced each of the school districts in her state to spend the summer to create multiple instruction plans — plans that most colleges cannot implement. Instead of providing templates and customizable plans for schools to use, 30 plus districts each created at least three different plans — “now we have nearly 100 plans” (GoLocalProv.com).
Raimondo said, “We’re going to do the hard work, the painstakingly difficult work of readying our schools, our buses, our communities, to where you’ll be safer in school” (GoLocalProv.com).
Late this week the CDC released guidelines for the safe re-opening of schools. Director Dr. Robert Redfield said, “It is critically important for our public health to open schools this fall” (CNN.com). The new guidelines favor opening schools, saying children are less likely than adults to spread it and suffer from being out of school. But the CDC also recommends local officials should consider closing schools or keeping them closed.
“Communities can support schools staying open by implementing strategies that decrease a community’s level of transmission. However, if community transmission levels cannot be decreased, school closure is an important consideration. Plans for virtual learning should be in place in the event of a school closure” (CNN.com).
The CDC also said, “It is important to consider community transmission risk as schools reopen. Evidence from schools internationally suggests that school re-openings are safe in communities with low transmission rates” (CNN.com).
Florida, Missouri, Rhode Island.
These are my reflections for today.
7/24/20
Follow me on Facebook
William Frantz Public School: A Story of Race, Resistance, Resiliency, and Recovery in New Orleans Connie Schaffer, Meg White, and Martha Graham Viator (August 2020 release) Peter Lang Publishing.
Reflections in Education 