How to Fix School For 2020-21 and at Least the Next One Hundred Years

For the past several weeks, finding the best way to operate schools during a pandemic has been at the forefront of a national discussion. Most people agree that it’s a nearly impossible problem to solve, which actually puts it on top of a pile of several other nearly impossible to solve problems education has been facing for generations. That’s okay though, because these problems are only nearly impossible to solve, and not literally impossible. I know this because I thought about them for a little bit this morning, and I think I’ve got everything figured out.

Now, full disclosure: These hypotheticals would cost a LOT of money. There’s no way around that. But didn’t the government just issue stimulus checks like they were Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons this past spring? I’d argue that with the size of our national economy, there’s money available to allocate if education is made a big enough priority (or, in other words, if it finally became the priority it already should be). 

So, let’s start with the easy part: How do we get through the 2020-21 school year? 

*Accept that 2020-21 is the Covid-19 Year and will be forever marked with an asterisk because of that, which — let’s face it — is already going to happen anyway. We’re in a pandemic. Don’t let the gravity of what that means diminish just because you’ve heard the word so many times in the past six months. There is no true sense of when this will end, or how much worse it will get before it gets any better. It’s a health crisis at a global level. We have to deal with it. So far, our country has come up with some spectacular ways of failing at that.

*Start the school year on October 1st. Go 10 weeks instead of 12 for each trimester this year, to allow for a built-in quarantine stretch between academic terms. Abbreviate the curriculum and eliminate the time used for baseline-establishing standardized testing. Use that extra month up front to give the active teachers time to plan out what needs to happen to make the rest of the year successful. I’m not saying the curricular specialists or the administrators wouldn’t have anything to add, but leaving thousands of teachers out of the planning loop is a waste of talent and creative energy and passion. Give us a rough outline to follow. Give us guiding standards. Then let us start doing the things we do better than anyone else ever could.

*Distance learning for everyone, period. The whole year. Let’s not worry about the time and energy that would need to go into trying to arrange a completely safe hybrid or full return. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot better than a whole bunch of funerals no one could physically attend. Plus it would take away all the stress related to wondering how each separate district is going to try accommodating their communities every time the Covid data changes a tenth of a percent. Remember — this is the year that’s getting the asterisk anyway. The school buildings could remain open to provide food service for families in need of assistance, and opportunities for students to meet in individual and mitigated settings with social workers, psychologists, speech pathologists, tutors, and whatever other professionals provide necessary services. But traditional classroom teaching? Nope. Just be sure you keep those devices charged. 

*Socialization worries? Overlooking the fact that socialization will be nothing at all like what people advocating for a hybrid model are hoping for, the districts can organize properly mitigated activities, perhaps weekly, for student and/or family participation depending on the course of the virus through their communities. Parents who are concerned about their kids seeing their friends can decide whether or not they’ll allow them to attend. Transportation would be provided to make sure everyone can get there. 

Okay, there we go — 2020-21, settled. Boom, we’re done. Nothing to it. Let’s move on, because we still have some work to do here. Now, when it comes to solving all the other problems school has:

*All teachers working with students through distance learning this year will be doing so with the maximum student-teacher ratio allowed for that grade level. This will allow hundreds of teachers to step away from their direct teaching responsibilities for the year, and instead begin working on reinventing the education model. They’ll be tasked with developing ways an equitable education can be delivered to each student. Covid-19 isn’t our only problem, folks. Systematic racism. Culturally imbedded sexism and gender biases. Fundamental disadvantages associated with poverty or language differences. The constant pursuit of eliminating the achievement gap. Varying opportunities available not just when comparing different school districts, but sometimes between schools in the same district. Schools have become the hubs of their communities, because they represent cross-sectioned samplings of the problems all of our communities face. Every person in education tries really hard to do the best they can, but too often getting through the school day is like swimming uphill. There must be things we could do better.

So what would a complete reinvention for something like this involve? As it happens, I have a few starting points in mind. 

*Keep classes capped at a maximum of twenty students. 

*Each grade level or department in each school should have its own administrative assistant, as well as its own paraprofessional to support instruction. (To be fair, I'm stealing this idea from a friend of mine who has advocated for it for at least a decade.)

*The number of social workers staffed at any building should increase by at least five times, because that many are needed. Really. They are. Additionally, Character Education, or whatever it would be called, would be raised to the level of any other academic discipline. Too many members of our society clearly have things to learn about getting along with other people.

*Speaking of curriculum, it would be reimagined from the ground up. The days of trying to accommodate specific numbers of minutes spent on each subject daily while using prepackaged curriculum plans as gospel truth would be over. Curriculum packages would be starting points. One of the biggest jobs those teacher Think Tanks during the Covid year would be reimagining curriculum in ways that would (a) address state standards and (b) efficiently integrate different disciplines into the same learning opportunities.

*All specialists would have adequate space and materials to work with. Media centers would be updated with current fiction and non-fiction titles each academic term.

*Get rid of the agrarian calendar. Instead of giving students a summer break (because it’s not really like a lot of them need to spend their summer helping to work the family farm anymore), give them four three-week breaks between academic periods spread out during the year. This will go far in eliminating the dreaded “summer slide” and the reteaching time needed at the start each new year to make up for it. I know, I'm not crazy about giving up summer breaks either, but we're doing bold thinking here.

*Extend the school day by an hour (and increase staff pay accordingly). Use that extra hour to give the students more time to eat their meals, more time to read, and more time to meet with the psychologists, social workers, and health professionals they need to see. And on the subject of health professionals, each school health office should be staffed full-time by one doctor, one nurse, one dentist, one psychologist, and at least one paraprofessional.

*Each school should be staffed by a minimum number of licensed substitute teachers, ready to step in and take over a classroom when the emergencies happen, because they do. Exactly how many people would be staffed in these positions would depend on the size of the building. If these teachers are not needed as substitutes, they would be available for classroom support or tutoring during their work hours.

*Finally: No more Flamin’ Hot Cheetos for snacks. Those are just wrong.

Okay, so — I think we all know this list barely scratches the surface about what could be done differently to make schools more effective. But I don’t really know if the original premise is that far out of line: This school year isn’t going to be any kind of normal. No solution will be great. We’re all just imperfect human beings moving into this great unknown, hoping we’ll be able to do our best with the unprecedented situation we find ourselves facing. But if there ever was a time to re-evaluate the way we do things, why not take advantage of a time when we kind of have to do that already anyway? It doesn’t hurt to dream. Procedures begin as plans, and plans start as ideas. Without an idea, there's no first step.

Pandemic Narrative Part 13: Stability Threats and Opening Schools

I had my first education course in my junior year — Intro to Elementary Education, predictably enough. Starting it was a big transition, signaling that I had dispensed of all my generals and was finally starting to work on my major. I don’t remember a lot of specifics about the class, but I do remember one point our professor made early on — the generalization that a lot of people went into education because they wanted a life of security. 

His point, essentially: “Your jobs will be more secure than most, because society will always need schools. You’ll have unions to protect you. You likely won’t be rich beyond your wildest dreams, but you probably won’t have to live paycheck to paycheck, either. Your work schedules will closely align with the schedules your children will have. All of these things will provide you with a fairly reliable sense of security that will enhance your quality of life.” At first it seemed like he might have been taking a shot at us for following a safe and easy route with the directions we were choosing for our young lives, but it was really more of a read on what he assumed we valued, and even a compliment for picking a career that could likely provide us with the kind of life we hoped to have. (Of course at twenty years old, we still had no idea how infrequently “easy” was ever going to figure into our professional responsibilities.)

Our education system is an absolute bedrock of social order. The amount of time, thought, capital, energy, and emotion invested into just its peripheries says a great deal about our collective priorities. Football games played on autumn Friday nights are such dominant community events that the results merit coverage on more than one local television station. Video cameras seem to spontaneously generate whenever a few dozen second graders climb up on risers in a gymnasium to sing about the United States while playing rudimentary percussion instruments. Which high school people attended sometimes becomes so ingrained with their identity that they’ll wear it as a badge of honor throughout adulthood. Several aspects of our economy are arranged around, if not defined by, the school schedule. How many families organize their lives by the school year instead of the calendar year?

We crave stability. We want to know our vehicles will get us where we want to go, and get us back home afterward. We want to know our loved ones are alive and healthy and happy and safe. We want to trust our paychecks will show up in time for us to pay our bills. We want to be able to rely on knowing Fridays are something to look forward to while Mondays are test of endurance. When fundamental stability is threatened or diminished, people have a hard time accepting it. 

So what happens when a previously unknown and potentially lethal virus becomes a variable in the equation? Where does it leave us when the stability we’ve come to appreciate and base our lives around is torn to shreds? Which of our priorities are revealed to be more luxury than necessity?

Well, the virus is here, so things are going to be different now. Being able to rely on the stability schools have provided throughout our lives is, in the best case scenario, temporarily on hold. Institutions we once felt we could rely on when situations became dire might end up losing some of our trust. Sometimes that’s fair, sometimes it’s scapegoating. Sometimes the truth will be on a spectrum somewhere between those two points. 

Speaking of truth, there aren’t many truths greater than the facts, so here’s what we’re looking at as far as our worldwide pandemic goes. As of the day I’m writing this: 

*More than 18.6 million people worldwide have been infected by Covid-19. The United States has 4.9 million, or more than one fourth, of those cases. 

*Over 702,000 people have died from the virus. The United States has seen 160,420 of those deaths. That number was closer to a still horrifying 36,000 less than four months ago.

*The state where I live has seen 1,670 deaths. Of those, 938 of them have occurred in the two counties where the schools of the district in which I teach call home.

*The most recent testing positivity rate in my state is 5.1%. Anything higher than 5% is an “indicator of concern.” That rate has been trending upward in recent weeks. 

This is what our world is now. 

The school district where I teach recently announced they’ve decided to open the year in a hybrid model, meaning the kids will be learning at school for part of the week, and at home for the rest. I can’t be much more specific than that, because there’s still a lot about what this model will look like that we, the staff, don’t know yet. If this hybrid plan actually comes to fruition, a degree of risk for students, staff, and families undoubtably comes with it. I’m personally hoping that while our district leadership engages in this thankless and nearly impossible decision-making process, they still might change their minds and give distance learning a hard second look.

This pandemic has made me acutely aware of the privilege I carry. My life is far from perfect, but compared to so many others I have to admit how unbelievably fortunate I am. I have that secure job I was able to pursue in college, and it’s given me a nice and stable life I try not to take for granted.

Acknowledging that, as I think about exactly what it will look like when the new school year begins, I can’t say I’m feeling particularly secure. I’ve said this before, and it’s still true so I’m going to say it again: I have already figuratively given my life to education. I’d prefer not do it literally as well.

The Challenges of Opening Schools

One of my biggest gripes about teaching has always been how so much of the general public thinks they understand what goes into it: “Well hey, I went to school! I did the worksheets and used the flash cards and watched the filmstrips! I saw what those teachers did all day!” And so on. I think this past spring brought an awakening to a lot of people when they took on distance learning for their children, and perhaps speculated what it would be like to do that with twenty-nine other kids at the same time.

But now it’s summer. It seems much of that perspective, and the grateful sentiment that came with it, has evaporated. The stir-crazy feelings of sheltering at home became too much for some. States began opening with the virus still in circulation. People were irresponsibly encouraged to go back out and act like things were normal. Some decided the risk was worth taking, just so they could “feel like it’s summer.” Ignoring social distancing guidelines and refusing to wear masks became a divisive political issue. Anyone with a passing awareness of how COVID-19 has been progressing knows these decisions have only made both the spread of the virus and the negativity of the social climate even worse.

Which brings us up to now, when planning for a return to school in the coming weeks has emerged as the newest national argument. Now, I wouldn't claim to be an expert on education, but I know a few things about it. I’m about to begin my 29th year in the elementary classroom. I’ve earned a masters degree and an additional sixty credits beyond that. I’ve taught in four different grades, I’ve held building leadership positions, I’ve worked under more extra service agreements than I would want to take the time to tally. I’ve tutored students at home when they were too sick or injured to attend school. I’ve written curriculum. I’ve delivered professional development, more than once. Heck, I’ve even won an award. Because of all this, I think it’s fair to say I know as much as anyone about what would need to be considered for schools to open safely during these times. I’m not claiming to present any solutions here, but only sharing my insights with some of the issues I’ve been thinking about.

Full disclosure: I absolutely believe schools should return to distance learning this fall. I’m hoping to live long enough to see at least another Thanksgiving, and another birthday, and not have to worry about who will take care of my dog if I die. I’ve already given my life to education, metaphorically. I’d rather not do it literally as well.

So, breaking the issues into categories, here are some of things that would need to be considered:

School Atmosphere:

As a teacher, my top priority has always been that each student feels safe when they’re in my classroom. Coming back to a school with social distancing mandates where everyone is wearing masks and everything about the familiar routine of the school day has been reimagined will not make them feel safe, even if that’s the intent. It’s going to feel at least slightly dystopian. Even if they have enough time to get used to their new school normal before the first round of distance learning inevitably begins, they’ll never be completely at ease, which will make it harder to learn. They won’t have the chance to be themselves. Plus, since I’m calling this category “atmosphere,” let’s also briefly acknowledge how the current air circulation systems in even the newest school buildings likely aren’t engineered to prevent the spread of a virus we didn’t even know existed a year ago.

Long Term Goals and Standards:

One common refrain these days is how we don’t want the kids to fall behind. My question: Fall behind what? What’s more important here? To preserve the social order of the agrarian calendar education has traditionally followed for over a century, or to keep people alive? 

Grade level standards don’t even align between all of the states. Content isn’t delivered with the same fidelity between districts, or even buildings, or classrooms. All teachers try, but we have different approaches, different strengths, and different weaknesses. Here’s a thought experiment for you: What would happen if all three school options — full open, hybrid open, or distance learning — were all set aside because the pandemic raged undeniably out of control, and every citizen of the United States was completely on board with closing schools for an entire academic year? Would anyone technically be behind anyone else, or would they all still be at the same level as others their age? Would kids learn less if they ultimately graduated at nineteen instead of eighteen for a generation? Wouldn’t such an event be a perfect chance for schools to look at alternative schedules, and even working through the summer as several locations around the country already are? Maybe once we were safely to the other side, all kids would take a placement test to determine which grade they should be in as things start back up. What really could be a better reason to enact such a drastic step then a lethal virus spreading through the population? I’m not advocating this plan, but just pointing out there is no hard deadline on when learning ends, or any one educational model that has to be followed.

Student Behavior:

I work in elementary, but this is true for all K-12 students: They’re kids, and they will not always do what’s expected of them. It’s their nature. They are still learning about the world. They are never as well-behaved as the kids you might see in a back-to-school commercial, trying to get parents to buy new shoes and backpacks with choreographed dances and singing Kidz Bop knock-offs of old Whitesnake songs. How many kindergarteners would wear masks all day long without playing with them, or trading with their friends, or getting frustrated enough to throw them away? How many fifth graders will find creative things to do with their masks to get a laugh? Which students will refuse to wear their mask as a willful act of defiance? I mean, come on. You’ve probably seen some of the videos circulating online of the tantrums adults are throwing if a cashier politely asks them to mask up. Swearing, throwing things, intentionally spitting and coughing on people? Again, these are ADULTS. Now think about the seven-year-old who has yet to learn self-control, or the twelve-year-old carrying so much emotional trauma they don’t have the skills to process how they feel. How will they react when they reach breaking points?

Supporting Student Needs: 

People tend to think of school as primarily what happens in the classroom. We have speech students. We have English Language Learners. We have students receiving reading and math support. We have social workers, psychologists, and clinical therapists. How will all of that be managed? Most, if not all, schools will have students dealing with homelessness, or poverty, or enduring more kinds of abuse and neglect than you care to imagine. There have been several years when I’ve seen kids spending their first day of summer vacation riding their bikes in the school parking lot, because it lets them be near the place they feel safest. I’d argue these are the kids who need to be in school more than anyone else. Right now, a lot of these service providers are lucky to have a semi-private table to use, which they use several times each day, and will have to repeatedly disinfect. How will social distancing work with that?

Socializing: 

One of the most common reasons people say they want kids back in a normal school environment is so they can be with other kids. Yes, this is a powerful reason. The most common thing I heard on video chats with my students in the spring was how they were bored and wanted to see their friends. However, keep in mind: In this vaguely dystopian hybrid education model, even socializing is going to look different. How many kids would be allowed to sit at a cafeteria table? They’d likely all sit on one side, if they went to the cafeteria at all. How many would have “bathroom emergencies” to squeeze in a few minutes of chatting with friends from other classes? (And yeah, of course they’ve learned to coordinate these times.) Soccer, football, tag at recess? I honestly don’t know what recess would even look like. Everyone standing in a marked-off square, six feet on a side? This would be like walking past the windows of the bakery: They could see the donuts through the glass, but wouldn’t even get to smell them. They won’t get to work in small groups or play games with partners, unless they do it online.

Shared Materials:

Textbooks. Paper. Clay. Notebooks. Sticky notes. Meter sticks. Omnifix cubes. Markers. Library books. Gymnastics mats. Crayons. Glue. Lunch trays. Tape. Science trays. Jump ropes. Paint and paint brushes. Calculators. Maps. Chromebooks. Drinking fountains. Hockey sticks. Tissue boxes. Silverware. Notecards. Chairs. Basketballs. Game cards. Puzzles. Bowling pins. Pencil sharpeners. Game pieces. Plastic bins. Terrariums. Containers full of condiment packages. Scissors. Paper towel dispensers. Highlighters. Pencils, for crying out loud. This is a partial list of the things students share daily. You might be thinking, “But what about that list of supplies families buy at the beginning of the year?” 1) Not every family buys everything. 2) Supplies run out, more quickly for some kids than others. 3) Things break and get lost.

A lot of kids learn best and are most engaged when they work with their hands. If there are not necessary materials in the classroom to work with, someone will miss out on a chance to do their best learning, and might feel a little ostracized every time they need to get out their calculator and they’re one of the few who does not have one. There are already a boatload of issues that come with trying to manage common materials without being vigilant about keeping them disinfected. Those issues will inevitably compound each other.

Transportation:

A typical bus holds about seventy kids, if they sit three to a seat. Most bus routes won’t fill a bus to capacity, but will still be over half full. Social distancing? Impossible. For that we’re talking one kid to a seat, with each seat separated by an empty one, in a best case scenario. How many more bus routes will this require? How much longer will some of these bus rides be? How many more buses will be needed, not to mention the drivers needed? And how much fuel? Transportation costs will be five times higher. How could these changes affect the length of the school day? How many times daily will the buses need to be disinfected? Take everything that would make this more difficult, and double it. At least.

Health Services:

I’ve heard some of the more ignorant officials in the federal government say it wouldn’t be such an undertaking to take the temperature of each student as they arrive. Are you kidding me? How many thermometers will be needed to get that done with expediency? Will temperatures be taken more than once a day? Will we need extra nurses or paras fully PPE’d up to float around the building for temperature checks, who would then escort sick kids to the health office so they don’t cough on the several dozen lockers and classroom doors and drinking fountains they’ll pass on the way there? What happens if we find ourselves in the beginning of a spike? The health office in my school has two cots. We can’t always rely on parents being able to pick up their children right away. Also, let’s not forget about all the other normal reasons the health office stays so consistently busy each school day to start with. What happens to the ones with strep throat? Lice? Pink eye?

Sanitation:

First, let’s frame this topic by highlighting how an elementary school is the kind of place where, while infrequent, it’s not completely out of the ordinary for someone to sneak off to the bathroom and take a crap on the floor just because. I’ve seen random pants left in the hallway. I’ve had students leave small plastic containers of ranch dressing in their desks for so long that they grew into something unrecognizable. I’ve had students cough into my mouth at such close range I could taste it. I’ve seen a boy walk past a bank of twenty lockers in an empty hallway, plant his tongue firmly on the first, and lick each one in succession. Schools are big-time disease vectors already. 

Each night my classroom is swept, the wastebasket (which is usually spilling over by the end of the day) is emptied, and the recycling bin is dumped out if it’s more than half full. If I have an extra mess to deal with, I email the building supervisor and tell the night custodian, then cross my fingers he’ll have enough time that night along with everything else he has to do for it to be addressed. Will the plan be to disinfect every surface in the building that could have been touched by someone that day? Will that job become yet another expectation for the teachers? A lot of teachers probably will do extra cleaning on their own out of self-preservation — I know I would. What else would teachers be asked to do to keep their rooms clean, and how much longer will it keep them in the hot zone of their classroom? Or how many extra cleaning staff will need to be hired just for the daily disinfecting alone?

Nutrition:

There are kids who will not have the chance to eat healthy meals if they don’t get them at school. At our school we serve breakfast, we allow for snack time in the schedule, and we serve lunch. Our social worker will provide snacks for students who are unable to bring them from home themselves, and he goes through a LOT. I know our school district has a program in place to make grab and go meals available throughout the summer. Yes, this is a big reason to get the kids back to school, but there’s a reason why so many restaurants are at 25% seating capacity, or closed from indoor dining completely. If we get kids back in the building, how is lunch going to work? In the classroom? Shorter shifts than the already have? A menu with less variety? Something will have to change. 

Drills: 

Each school is required to run a certain number of fire drills / severe weather drills / active shooter lockdown drills during an academic year. How will these work? Everything done normally will take longer. How will that happen with distancing? If the call was made to say it just isn’t practical to run the drills, then why are we doing them in the first place? How do I get my whole class into the safest corner of the room during a lockdown when they have to be spaced? How do we get everyone out of the school as fast as possible when they can’t be near each other?

Lockers: 

They are all right next to each other. In some schools, they’re literally on top of each other. If we opened and managed to stay open into the winter because things were improving so much regarding the pandemic (AH HA HAA AHA), our students are expected to have jackets, snow pants, boots, hats, and gloves to go outside. Lockers are not six feet apart. Where do they keep this stuff? How much learning time is lost at the beginning and the end of the day, not to mention before and after recess, when they have to take turns putting stuff on over three different shifts on the hallway to make sure they’re distant enough from each other?

Substitutes: 

As ambitious as I was during the year I worked as a substitute teacher back in the Jurassic period, even I wouldn’t have taken a day job in a building where there could be a virus that might kill me. A need for subs doesn’t end with teachers, though. Don’t forget the paraprofessionals, cafeteria staff, custodians…the number of people needed to make the system work goes on and on. 

With that being my list, you might have noticed: I didn’t even touch the challenges that would come with the actual teaching and learning in any of these scenarios. It’s easy to break down the available opening options into three general categories, and calling something a hybrid model could literally mean one hundred different things. From my point of view, if all options end up being equally flawed, why not go with the choice that will keep the most people alive?

I’ve bought a school yearbook every year I’ve taught. Occasionally I’ll dig them out and look them over. Most memories are good. Not all, but most. I would never want to see a yearbook for the 20-21 school year including a memorial page that lists the names of the staff and students taken by COVID-19 because we went back too soon or unprepared. I’m afraid that scenario is far too possible.