The Goal and Perspectives Needed to Fully Reopen Our Schools

“It should be a national priority to get our kids back into school and keep them in school.” — Joe Biden

Indeed, getting kids back in school should be a top national priority. Listening to a New York Times podcast discussion of the school reopening challenges our country faces, it appears that we are further away from achieving the goal of school reopening on two important levels. First, the goal isn’t fully defined — targeting a return to school for preK-8 students (and even then not necessarily a return to 5-days per week for this group of students this year) is only an intermediate goal. The goal we need to define a solution for is 5-days per week return to school for preK-12 students. And getting to this ultimate goal will require that we realize a second important requirement— an alignment of perspectives amongst every stakeholder as to what conditions must be in place to enable a full return to school for every preK-12 student.

The Ultimate Goal

Beginning with a stepping stone goal to bring preK-8 aged students back into classrooms for partial weekly schedules is an admirable starting point, particularly given the changing and uncertain reality of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the roadmap we need to define must extend to high school students, and it therefore must define what it will take ultimately for every preK-12 student to return to school five days per week. While many of my edtech colleagues believe in the power of “anytime, anywhere” distance learning technologies, these tools should be viewed as enhancements to the power of in person, socially-driven learning that every student needs in order to thrive.

Further, until we’re willing to point to this goal as our north star, we’ll continue to inefficiently stitch together component parts of what will enable schools to open in piecemeal fashion. What we really need to craft is a comprehensive roadmap that defines what is needed for “pre-K12x5” so we collectively can commit to prioritizing the investments required to safely get to that reality before the end of this school year.

Aligned Perspectives

The varied perspectives that exist amongst all stakeholders close to the school reopening challenge represent the biggest obstacle to a full return to school for students. What teachers are feeling right now isn’t fully understood or appreciated by politicians, and vice versa. The same can be said for how well (or not) we’re bringing together the perspectives as well from parents, students, and every other voice being heard around this issue right now. Working together to understand and align perspectives across every stakeholder group connected to preK-12 public education represents the surest path forward to define a comprehensive roadmap that will allow us to fully reopen schools for every student. Understanding the perspective of each stakeholder, and how these perspectives might need to evolve, is critical:

Students

As the aforementioned NYT podcast purports: “Remote learning is not working for kids. It is subpar compared to in-school learning. It is hurting kids academically, emotionally, in terms of their mental health. And it’s hurting disadvantaged children the most.” Does anyone argue with this? Perhaps the most significant element that might be falling on deaf ears is the impact that distance learning is having on high school students. It’s wrong to assume that because these students are older they understand and easily process what’s happening, and that therefore they easily shift into “resiliency” mode as they just keep motoring through their school year on Zoom. Do we really want to wait a couple years to see the high school graduation and college matriculation rates plummet to realize we should have been prioritizing high school kids returning to school along side preK-8 students? [Note: I have a child who is a high school senior.]

Teachers

Let’s again start with a poignant quote from the NYT podcast: “So we’ve never really achieved, as a country, the first thing that the teachers and their unions wanted, which was community control of the coronavirus.” No we haven’t. Most of the discussion our media has surfaced around teachers and school reopening has unfortunately turned this perspective into a political fight between teacher unions and city leaders. The simple reality is that unless any of us are being asked to step into a classroom with 20, 25, 30, or more students, we don’t really understand that psychology, and no CDC (or other) study will fully assuage a classroom teacher’s concerns right now. What will make full school reopening feel tenable for every teacher is if we can allow them to be vaccinated. What does it take nationally for this to happen as quickly as possible? [Note: I have a sister teaching middle school through this pandemic, and have the honor to help serve millions of teachers via Remind.com]

Administrators

One important perspective to include — and clarify during this challenging time — is that of district and school administrators. The education administrators that I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with in my role as CEO of Remind unequivocally prioritize the health and safety of their teacher colleagues and by extension their students. It’s a false narrative to say during this crisis that administrators and teachers are somehow at opposite ends of a spectrum when it comes to school reopening plans. In fact, we’ve seen through our work how communication has deepened between teachers and administrators during this time, and how teacher-administrator collaboration has been heightened to support the challenges being felt by students (at every grade level) and parents. [Note: I’ve had dozens of conversations with district and school administrators over the last several years.]

Parents

What about the perspective of parents? Start with our educators — teachers and administrators — many of whom are parents themselves. They have been doing the same juggling that every non-educator parent has had to do over the last eleven months, so they understand firsthand the challenges kids are experiencing with distance learning. Non-educator parents have dealt with the same struggles — trying to ensure their kids stay connected to learning in an environment where the social-emotional learning elements have largely been limited to video sessions, text messaging, and social media engagement. And while reports continue to surface around lower coronavirus incident adn transmission rates for kids (especially younger ones), what we clearly don’t fully understand are two important variables: a) the transmission rates that would exist in classrooms with unvaccinated teachers, and b) the long-term effects on children who asymptomatically carry the virus. These two elements further complicate the calculus that every parent must weigh in light of the evolving definition of school reopening plans. [Note: As mentioned above, I’m a parent of a high school student — a student who has been on campus for all of 5 days thus far during the 2020–21 school year.]

Everyone Else

And what about everyone else? We’re talking about the range of other personas who are involved in solving the school reopening problem, or who opine from outside the arena filled with teachers, students, parents, and administrators. I’m speaking here of a list (certainly not comprehensive) that includes politicians (federal, state, and local), public health officials (again, federal, state, and local), journalists, and any other pundit who feels qualified to offer their perspective. Unfortunately, many of those voicing their “expert” opinion of what school reopening should look like are not experts in any meaningful sense of how that word should be applied here. They are folks whose work has been largely uninterrupted by the pandemic (they have high-speed broadband access and ample space to work uninterrupted in their home), and if anything they are likely coming at the school reopening issue either from the perspective as a concerned parent or as a public servant seeking an expedient, short term solution to school reopening that doesn’t require construction of a plan that would define a full and complete reopening of our public schools.

To these individuals I ask that you step out of your professional role or title, and empathetically step into the role first as a teacher, then as an administrator, in an effort to align your perspective to the realities that public educators are facing right now.

The Path Forward

The NYT podcast’s most poignant (but not very instructive) line might be: “But it’s a risk-benefit calculus that is constantly being readjusted as more evidence comes to light.” So, where do we go from here?

First, let’s commit to the most important goal. The goal has to be not just partially reopening our schools, but fully reopening them — bringing all students back into school five days a week. Until we’re back to that level of educational and social-emotional experience for all grades (not just elementary and middle school aged kids), we’re going to remain in some level of hybrid distance learning environment for which we do not know (but might guess as to) the impact on learning outcomes for students one, five, or a decade from now.

Then, let’s align every perspective not just around this goal, but what the roadmap looks like — and what the requisite investments are — in order for every student to step into fully reopened public school system across the U.S. before the 2020–21 school year ends. If this means vaccinating every educator, then let’s commit to vaccinating every educator. If this means investing another $130 billion to support the reopening plans put forth by educators that in turn make parents feel that their kids will be in the safest possible classrooms and buildings, let’s commit to investing this additional $130 billion. And if this means stepping into the shoes of a teacher, an administrator, and/or a parent whose kid is struggling the most from distance learning, then let’s take the time to step into those shoes. By doing these things — and so many other important things — we can actually create a path that brings us back to preK-12x5 education as soon as possible.