The Time of COVID causes us to ask a variety of essential questions regarding who decides who should do what. Mask up. Socially distance. Wash hands frequently. These are three personal behaviors that have been at the heart of mitigative behavior during this pandemic. The decision to do any of these ultimately is left to the individual. Do I do these because I should or because I am told to? What does the commonweal require of me?
Opened or closed businesses? To gather or not to gather? State and local governments provide guidance and issue mandates without unanimity of purpose or design regarding these two questions. In general, the business of WI is business and businesses are open for business. School? 854,959 children were enrolled in WI schools in March, 2020, when COVID threatened our state and nation. Immediately, the Department of Health Services enacted our Governor’s order to close all schools for the remainder of the school term. Teaching and learning became virtual for all. Immediately, the issue became partisan debate of who decides who should do what. Since then, political rancor has left the question of in-person or remote education up to local school district debate. In almost every issue of personal and organizational behavior during the Time of COVID, the essential question is “what does the commonweal require?”.
Commonweal is a 14th century term for the happiness, health and safety of all of the people of a community. The archaic term is used to describe goals and programs intended for the common good of people. The constitutions of Kentucky, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania describe their states as commonwealths. The word, commonweal, is appropriate in considering personal and organizational behaviors in the Time of COVID, especially regarding schools.
I find three citations in the WI Statutes that relate to the question of pandemic, schools and commonweal. And, who decides who should do what.
WI Statutes 119.18 (6) School Board Powers – School Calendar tells us “The board may determine the school calendar and vacation periods for each school year for the regular day schools, summer schools, social centers, and playgrounds. The board may close any school or dismiss any class in the event of an emergency, fire or other casualty, quarantine, or epidemic”.
WI Statutes 252.02 (03) Communicable Diseases tells us “The department (DHS) may close schools and forbid public gatherings in schools, churches, and other places to control outbreaks and epidemics”. Further, WI Statutes 252.03(2) says “…a local health officer may forbid public gatherings deemed necessary to control outbreak or epidemic”.
It is clear that in the Time of COVID, education is a continuing and uninterrupted program for the commonweal. The WI DPI issued guidelines for the continuing education of all children during the pandemic and waivers that relieve boards of education from specific, mandated requirements, such as annual statewide assessments. Absolutely, no allowances have been made for stopping education during the pandemic. Teaching and learning for all children must proceed.
The issue is who and where. Can school boards gather teachers and children at the schoolhouse for daily instruction? Who decides?
119.18(6) considers a school closure within the context of adjusting the school calendar of instruction. Days of instruction may be set aside for holidays and other observances. Days may be set aside for seasonal vacations. Days of instruction may be set aside in response to an emergency, such as fire or other casualty, as in water or electrical outage or weather damage. The calendar is adjusted to accommodate these closings. Days may be set aside for quarantines, as in an outbreak of measles or other childhood illness. The calendar is adjusted to accommodate closings for these reasons. In this statute, the Board is authorized to adjust the school calendar not close schools.
Epidemic? I wonder what the writers considered in inserting this word. There has been ample time since the Spanish flu pandemic and the polio epidemics to clarify the term. Ebola, swine and avian flu epidemics touched the world but not Wisconsin. Is epidemic rhetoric or specific? Does the statute require the board to adjust the calendar of instruction to accommodate an epidemic? All other closures are short-term or matters of displacement to another place where in-person instruction can continue. Did the writers anticipate six months to a full school year, perhaps multiple years, to be a calendar disruption? Or, is another statute appropriate; one that addresses the endangerment of epidemic disease upon community health not epidemic upon the school year calendar?
252.02(03) and 252.03(2) consider a school closure in the context of communicable disease. The concept is that the gathering of community, children, teachers, and all staff, in a schoolhouse during a health emergency, such as an epidemic, is unsafe for the public health. School could be a spreader event.
Of interest, our Governor immediately closed all WI schools last March for the remainder of the 2019-20 school term. He declared the spread of COVID to be a state health emergency. Subsequently, the governor’s declaration was challenged by partisanship and his power to declare a statewide emergency was curtailed by the WI Supreme Court. And, that was the last action taken by public health in the Time of COVID. All communication from the WI Department of Health Services since is worded as community and personal guidance and recommendation and purposefully exempts schools. WI statutes regarding schools and public health in the TIME of COVID have been neutered.
That leaves local school boards alone to decide the commonweal not from the perspective of public health but from their authority to amend the school calendar in the event of an epidemic. School boards will tell who to do what.
Not to demean a school board, but we are lay persons elected and empowered to govern local schools on behalf of our constituent community. Although a person with a medical or public health background may be elected to the school board, 99.9% are generalist residents with a commitment to local public education. A school board’s commonweal is schooling not public health. The powers and duties of a school board are described in WI Stat 118.01 and public health is not mentioned. Yet, here we are. Lay boards in 421 Wisconsin school districts are making 421 independent decisions of the commonweal for their respective school community’s public health.
Some children are receiving in-person instruction in-school. Some children are receiving instruction at-home from in-school teachers. Some children are in-school one, two or three days each week and home the rest. Some children who receive in-school instruction are quarantined when a classmate, teacher or bus driver experiences a positive COVID test. Fourteen days at-home and then back to school, perhaps until the next positive test.
Lay school boards are doing yeomen’s work in sustaining a continuing education for all children during a statewide public health crisis. School boards say who will do what according to WI Stat 119.18(6) School Calendar. This is the condition of our commonweal in the Time of COVID.