“What is your biggest fear?”, is a powerful question to ask public policy makers in the Time of COVID. Their responses give insight into the decision-making processes and policies that are informing how we go about our lives in this pandemic. Fear-based decisions abound, but are they leading us properly? Life tells us that we will not know the effects of our 2020-21 policies until time has passed. Perhaps that is our biggest fear? Did we choose wisely?
Pandemic policies for schools are flowing in two streams: Fear of the health risks – our decisions will endanger the health and lives of children and school employees and family at home, and, Fear of educational damage – our decisions will endanger the intellectual, social, and emotional development of children.
From outside the school board room, multiple other fears are afoot. Fear of endangering the economic viability of our community and school parents. Fear of community spread that could overrun a school. Fear of the electorate who will not be happy with policy decisions and their effects. Fear of public demonstration at a board meeting. Oh, the list is long. The biggest fear of all is the fear that time will tell everyone we made the wrong decision.
Take Away
What are we afraid of? Are your afraid of “fear itself”, as President Roosevelt declared. Perhaps not.
“Fear is hardwired in your brain, and for good reason. Neuroscientists have identified distinct networks that run from the depths of the lambic system all the way to the prefrontal cortex and back. The capacity to be afraid is part of normal brain function. In fact, a lack of fear may be a sign of serious brain damage.” What does that mean? Fear is a natural emotion in humans. Fear happens!
“Fear dictates the actions you take. Actions by fear fall into four types – freeze, fight, flight, or fright.” What does this mean? These categories accurately portray how we respond to our fears. We also have dominant or usual responses to fear.
Just as we recognize that COVID is real, it is not a hoax, we realize that fear is real and human and not an emotion of shame. Hence, policy makers need to put their fears up front by stating “…this is what I fear will happen, or, because I am fearful that this will happen, our decision is to …”. Then, we can understand the context and purpose of policy decisions.
What do we know?
From March through August, children attending school in-person was an abstraction in the daily COVID news. Children learned at-home. Frontline health care workers and their risk of infection headlined our concerns. We followed the surge stories of the virus in assisted living centers, among meat packing workers, within professional sports teams and their summer practices, and at political rallies. Then, attention focused on the surges following Memorial Day, July 4th gatherings, partying at bars and resorts, and Sturgis, SD. In each of these stories a large number of people gathered, worked or partied. Large groups of people begat large numbers of positive cases, hospitalizations and numbers of deaths. While we fretted these events, schools, the largest collection of children in any community, were in summer recess and were not gathering people together. But, September was coming and with planning for school openings loomed the fear that large gatherings of children and teachers will beges positive tests for COVID. Our fear became personified.
We fear health risks to people. We fear risking our personal health as well as the health of family and friends. We fear risking the safe health of those who are medically fragile and elderly. We fear risking the health of children by opening school and gathering hundreds if not thousands of people, children and adults, together in proximity.
We fear that closed schools will cause damage to the education of children. In the best of times, we constantly read that too many children do not successfully achieve in school. What will happen to the quality of their learning in the worst of times? If not academic loss, then losses in social and emotional development, personal development in arts, activities and athletics, losses in college and career preparation, and losses in the potentiality of an entire generation of children. We fear the risks of the pandemic to the future of our children.
We fear that closed schools and open schools will cause damage to families in our community. Many parents need to work and do not have access to or can afford the cost of day care when schools are closed. Working parents are not available Monday through Friday to assist their children with remote education. On the other hand, if a parent stays home with children when schools are closed, a parent will lose income and may lose employment. Parents face problems regardless of their decisions.
Quickly we get back to the other hand. If we return children to school, we fear that children in school will become carriers of the virus and will infect parents and family members at home. Teachers and staff may become infected and in turn infect others in their homes.
Our dilemma is this – which course of action do we choose – freeze, fight, flight, or fright? Our decisions and policies will fit one or more of these.
Why Is This Thus?
Reality can be crass and harsh. In a pandemic there will be illness, death, long-term health damage, educational loss, economic loss, and damage to families and the community. And, by definition, the virus of a pandemic will be with us for several years in the future. Regardless of our fears and with the best decisions, these will happen.
During and because of the pandemic there will be –
- Lost school days
- Inequity in access to virtual education/Internet
- Lost academic achievement
- Lost 4A opportunities – academics, activities, arts and athletics
- Lost educational revenue
- Falling behind on long-range goals
- Children with COVID
- Staff and teachers with COVID
- Families with COVID
- Increased unemployment
- Businesses and families that lose income
- Businesses that close
- Individual and personal angst
School boards must choose how to best manage their real and potential losses. This is not where any board wants to be, but it is where every school board is.
To do
Be responsible for good governance. School board members are elected officials and at all times responsible for good and proper governance. This does not always mean giving an individual constituent what that person demands. It means giving that constituent access to the governing body, opportunity to be heard, and to receive a response to his concerns. It means adhering to the rules of governance and the procedures for decision-making. It means compliance with open meetings and open records statutes. It means civil discourse. The need for good governance is non-debatable.
Provide maximum support to achieve your primary mission. A school board is not a state government, a county board, or a municipal or town council. Those governmental bodies have their own missions and jurisdictions. School boards are authorized by the state constitution for a specific purpose. Stick to that purpose – the public education of children. Provide a maximum of support to achieve the education of all children. Push the envelope of allowable options for educating all children. Provide all of the ancillary services that a public education now includes, like breakfast and lunch programs. Make and continue to make every required and needed modification of teaching and learning to achieve an education for every child. Be fiduciary in aligning all expenditures with your mission.
Make the decisions and policies that assure an equitable and equal education for all children. A pandemic may make things difficult, but it does not remove or reduce the responsibility of these essential words – equitable and equal.
Provide flexibility for individuals to choose among options. Choice is now a standard in public education – parents expect and demand choices in how and where they will educate their children. Expect that more parents will choose homeschooling and virtual school options during the pandemic. Additionally, parents and children are accustomed to options and choices in schools. Elective courses, arts, activities and athletics that can be implemented within pandemic low risk guidelines. Maintain as many choices as possible to satisfy a parent’s primary mission – a best school year for my child.
Personalize your listening but do not personalize the response to your decisions. Regardless of a board’s decision for in-person or at-home learning, some parents will applaud and some parents will boo. Even the Solomon-like decision to provide parent choice – in-school or at-home – will have dissenters. Until the pandemic no longer threatens our health, board members will face pandemic decision derision. Please consider, when did a board decision please 100% of the public?
The big duh!
A board’s biggest fears regarding the pandemic will color its decisions and policies. Know your fears. Validate or defeat your fears with facts. Know that others may not agree with your fears, your facts, your decisions or policies. Maintain the best of governmental practices. Protect the education of disadvantaged children. Then, make your decisions and let the future determine your wisdom. This is what a board is elected to do.