Republicans must back a COVID-19 relief bill to rescue public schools. The alternative is calamity. | Maria Panaritis

This is it. The moment of truth.

Public education, the enduring institution that promotes the uniquely American ideal of economic mobility, has been in virtual paralysis since March, thanks to the coronavirus. Leaders in Washington unloosed a modest chunk of rescue dollars in the spring, only to spend the summer doing nothing while school officials, children, educators, and our national promise hurtle toward calamity this fall.

Republicans in the White House and Mitch McConnell’s GOP-led Senate have deigned, as of only this week, to at least consider authorizing additional federal pandemic rescue aid that schools desperately need to reopen safely this fall.

Whatever these Republicans decide will either preserve this institution or hasten its unraveling, and with it any bragging rights that the United States is a place where you can pull yourself up with an education and do better than your parents — even if you’re not able to pay private school tuition.

Districts everywhere are in triage mode as they hammer out potential plans that appear likely to burden working parents with the duties of at-home teachers, while forcing teachers to become eight-armed Houdinis. This after an aborted spring in which lockdowns halted most learning.

There is anxiety even in Bucks County’s relatively conservative Quakertown School District, where half of parents want their children back in classrooms this fall even if strict social distancing is impossible.

“I believe the foundation of public education has been shaken by this,” Superintendent Bill Harner, whose district heads into the fall with a $6 million deficit, half of which is due to the pandemic, told me a few days ago. “We have catch-up to do — if that is an objective of our political leadership.”

He estimates that he needs at least $800,000 more in federal aid to just cover pandemic bare essentials: additional supplies, face masks, cleaning costs. He does not yet know where the other $2.2 million in pandemic-related shortfalls will come from. (Pre-pandemic, the district had budgeted a $3 million deficit to avoid a tax hike, covering the gap by tapping savings. That’s still the plan.)

Districts are mocking up plans to teach virtually, in person, or some mix of the two. They are doing so without the flexibility of deep pockets to hire additional teachers, rent tents, or use other tools available to upper-crust private schools and their elite, cash-paying parents.

The pandemic pressures mean that districts need more. It’s that simple. And from the government — immediately.

“It translates to more money and more time,” Harner said. “More professional development for our educators, our staff, possibly more time in school. The opportunity and analysis of looking at year-round school.”

» READ MORE: Schools are scrambling for tents. But public ones aren’t so sure they can afford the cover. | Maria Panaritis

Exurban Quakertown has not been grappling with surging enrollments in recent years. The district has been losing students since the Great Recession over a decade ago. It is now 5,000 students strong, with room to adapt. Districts closer to Philadelphia, including Abington, Haverford Township, and Lower Merion, have been watching student enrollment grow substantially — an extra challenge in trying to socially distance during a pandemic.

Federal relief funds should have been on every Republican leader’s radar every day since COVID-19 wrecked our economy starting in March. Massive emergency aid beyond Round One approved months ago through the CARES Act is critical. But conservatives have been on a summer chill session. One can only wonder if their true aim is to use the pandemic to destroy public schools once and for all.

Districts need to retrofit school buses, classrooms, gymnasiums, and cafeterias. They need to buy computers and figure out who will be teaching kids online — the same teachers doing in-school instruction, or some other workforce entirely, which would add cost. And who will help children learn at home if their parents are working?

“Districts that are trying to procure laptops, some of them have been on back order, they’re delayed, they might not have them at the end of August or beginning of September,” said Hannah Barrick, assistant executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials. “There are school districts across the country who are in the same situation, trying to think this through and making sure they have flexibility to provide their students the opportunity to be completely virtual or walk between in-person [instruction] and virtual.”

She continued: “We’ve heard challenges and delays with getting wipes and disinfectant and cleaner. Some districts have been able to procure them and have them ready to go. Others are sort of struggling just because of delays [from suppliers]. It’s a mess.”

There are 500 districts in Pennsylvania, 180 publicly funded charter schools, and more than 100 other entities delivering education and training with taxpayer backing, all serving 1.7 million children.

The school districts rack up $30 billion in annual expenditures, Barrick said. They will be $1 billion in the hole this year just from the loss of revenue related to the pandemic’s economic impact on tax collection. Many millions more will be spent just to deal with COVID-19 hurdles.

The federal government, in its first bailout, sent the state about a half-billion dollars, and a portion went to private schools.

I asked Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey’s spokesperson where the influential Republican stands on this crisis. In a statement, Toomey touted the insufficient, if laudable, first round of funding through the CARES Act months ago.

He also echoed a call reportedly favored by President Donald Trump to tie any new dollars to schools physically reopening, which has become as much a political fault line as a public health matter of debate.

“The Senate is expected to take up additional COVID-19 legislation in the coming weeks,” Toomey said. “Whatever measure is considered will likely include more in K-12 funding. These funds should be focused on ensuring students and faculty are safely back in the classroom this fall.”

What will the Senate cough up? It had better not be a poison pill, because voters will remember.