The pressure is on to reopen public schools. But can it really happen? | Maria Panaritis

In what is now the 11th month of shuttered or partially opened public schools since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the call to return to brick-and-mortar classrooms seems to be intensifying.

But does that mean anything substantive or comprehensive has been done to address the biggest barriers to safely reopening our nation’s public schools?

I wish the answer to that were “yes.”

In the affluent Wallingford-Swarthmore School District in Delaware County, where students have been in actual school buildings for only a few days a week, the community was in an uproar Monday over plans for a five-day-a-week return to classrooms for children through fifth grade. People appeared split into two camps: Team Hell No or Team Hell Yes. That day’s snowstorm prompted postponement of a school board meeting until Monday, Feb. 8.

On Tuesday in a district 2½ hours west in Shippensburg, the school board gave angry parents what they wanted and approved a four-day-a-week return to buildings for all grades by Feb. 22. It was not clear if students would be spaced six feet apart as federal health guidance has urged.

On Wednesday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on national television that opening schools could be done safely in the absence of a vaccinated workforce if certain other mitigating steps were taken. That includes low-density classes — i.e., ones with room to space kids. The CDC was still working on what exactly those guidelines should be.

On Thursday in Philadelphia, where children have been home since March from buildings that often lack even a working ventilation system, the teachers’ union asked the district for third-party evidence that classrooms were now safe. The superintendent is expecting teachers to report to school on Monday as part of a plan to reopen in phases, as Inquirer colleagues Kristen Graham and Maddie Hanna reported.

On Friday, the union told its teachers not to report to work in Philadelphia on Monday. Can you say “showdown”?

So, yes. There is momentum for public schools to open their doors wide after a long stretch mothballed. It’s happening as COVID-19 vaccines are making their way into states at a turtle’s pace. But can schools safely do so without a fully vaccinated population?

Private ones have done so for months. Public ones could, too, but no one has publicly explained exactly what that would entail and how to get there.

There appear to be two stakeholder groups slinging grenades across the ideological center since March: Perfection-or-bust types who don’t believe middle-ground solutions during a national emergency can be anything but careless. The others are suck-it-up-and-wing-it nimrods who demand, ignorantly, that under-resourced schools reopen without addressing safety concerns during a pandemic that has claimed more than 457,000 American lives.

Who, if anyone, in Pennsylvania or South Jersey, has come up with a pragmatic plan to tackle three of the biggest barriers to reopening that private schools have largely figured out? I’d love to know.

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1) Public school buildings were so packed with students pre-pandemic, with large class sizes aimed at keeping local property taxes in check, that they had no lavish extra real estate capacity to create classes large enough to keep students spaced six feet apart, as recommended by the CDC.

2) Many public schools lack adequate or any mechanical ventilation to circulate fresh air into rooms. Ventilation — whether open windows, fans, or elaborate HVAC systems — help prevent the spread of COVID-19 among masked, carefully spaced people indoors.

3) Many public schools lack the resources to hire enough additional teachers, substitutes, and support staff to shrink class sizes so that kids can be spaced apart, or to handle absences due to teacher leaves or quarantines.

Those three factors have meant the difference between being open five days a week or being closed. Addressing them enabled many private schools to open fully in September, long before any approved vaccines.

Public schools don’t have the luxury of charging private tuition or even the right to cap admissions to keep class sizes small. So what, then, are the alternatives?

In a metropolis of five million people, you would think that political, corporate, philanthropic, and education officials would have come together by now to brainstorm. Especially in light of the leaderless neglect of former President Donald Trump at the tippy top.

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“Some school districts have plenty of space, good ventilation systems, plenty of teachers. They can get substitutes. These primarily wealthier, well-funded school districts, it’s perfectly safe to open because they can keep COVID mitigation practices in place,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of the public school-funding advocacy nonprofit Education Voters of Pennsylvania.

And yet, even wealthy Radnor, Lower Merion, and Cherry Hill have opened schools only hybrid, for a few days a week for children.

Some $2.2 billion in federal pandemic aid is heading soon to Pennsylvania public schools, Spicka said. Districts had better spend it fast, with impact, and with the goal of fully reopening.

Vulnerable children may need summer school, which means extra money for teacher labor hours. Tents and cameras to broadcast classes in real time must also be high priorities if no other strategies to expand real estate are on the table. Another easy buy: more school buses so that kids are safely brought to buildings once they do go back to five days.

But why have we heard nothing of a plan for more real estate? Where is the district that has laid out specifics about ventilation upgrades that are affordable, effective, and fast? Who is tackling the problem of finding enough staff to be on par with private schools?

If anyone’s on this, I’m all ears. Isn’t it about time?