The months of July and August were committed to dialogues about how to start the 2020-21 school year in the Time of COVID.  Every informed and uninformed person weighed in on whether children should be in-school or at-home.  Arguments were made and few were won as counter arguments roared back.  The first day of the school year became a “line in the sand” and school boards everywhere made the hard decision: children in-school for five days per week, children in hybrids of in-school and at-home schedules, or children at-home for five days per week.  Decision made – get on with it!

Take Away

A summer of argument, debate, consideration and decision-making led to a local plan for opening school.  Parents made decisions regarding school choice.  Some parents cheered the local board’s decision, depending upon preference and decision.  Children in-school or children at-home.

Some parents decided that a local school could not guarantee a child’s safety and chose home schooling.  Some of these parents formed local home-schooling pods where a handful of children could “school” together. 

Some parents chose to enroll their children in another school district, usually a school district that would provide five days per week in-school instruction.  Among these, some parents could not be home due to employment and could not supervise at-home learning and needed children to be in-school.  Some homes do not have Internet or adequate Internet and parents chose in-school rather than paper and pencil instruction.  Some parents were just angry with local decision-makers and chose a different school district as sign of their displeasure.

The first calendared day of school is a local decision.  Whether in August or on September 1 or on the Tuesday after Labor Day, children began their school year.  (A few school districts are delaying their first day until mid- or late-September due to labor decisions.).  And, so the 2020-21 school year began.

Not so fast!  It is one thing to begin the school year in a pandemic and it is totally another thing to teach children for an entire school year during a pandemic.

What do we know?

Military analysts tell us that “…Once the fighting starts, all battle plans are scrapped and each new battle situation requires new thinking.  The war goes on with real time battle planning in the immediacy of the moment”. 

Once the school year starts, every school needs multiple plans for continuing the teaching of children for the entirety of the school year.  No start-of-the-year plan will last 180 school days.  In-school teaching and in-school learning.  In-school teaching and at-home learning.  At-home teaching and at-home learning.  Backpack (pencil and paper) assignments for children without Internet or with inadequate Internet access.      Opening day plans will give way to the new plans in the immediacy of the educational moment.

Why is this thus?

In our state in the first week of school, teachers and children in numerous schools that began with in-school learning showed COVID symptoms and received positive tests after the first days of instruction.  In one school, the principal and assistant principal both had positive tests.  Contact tracing showed children and faculty were exposed to initial persons with positive tests.  Schools or parts of schools closed for periods of quarantining.  Several schools did not have enough “non-exposed” teachers to remain open for in-school learning.  Positive tests affected schools that began the year with children in-school and as well as children in-hybrid.  Positive tests did not occur in every school that opened, but it occurred in enough schools to raise this question:  What will we do when positive tests occur here? What’s the next plan?

Prior to opening, a few schools required parents to choose between in-school or at-home learning – a decision for the entire school year.  Their administrations determined the highest number of children that could be distanced from each other in school classrooms and that set the in-school choice capacity.  Interestingly, parents who chose at-home cannot migrate to in-school regardless of the local health data. 

In most schools, there is a recognition of the parents’ right to migrate their children from in-school to at-home and from at-home to in-school.  Health conditions will change and parents need flexibility in doing what they believe is best for their children.

Our local school began on the Tuesday after Labor Day.  We started all children with at-home learning.  This scheme allowed our teachers and students to use the technologies we added to every classroom for teachers to match at-home learning with in-school learning.  Remote education is delivered with new in-classroom cameras, digital whiteboards, teacher laptops, and student digital devices.  We expanded our platforms.  Our pandemic education plan says that all teachers and students need to be prepared for remote education – it will be required.  On the first Monday of the new school year, children will have the option for in-school or at-home learning.  Children can migrate from at-home to in-school after giving school one-week to adjust school bus routes.  The bottom line of our pandemic plan is that all children will be taught our school’s 2020-21 curriculum regardless of where they learn.

To do

Every school needs multiple pandemic education plans that will accommodate these conditions.

• Everybody at-home – at-home teaching and at-home learning.  Classrooms may be closed due to a high level of community spread, widespread infection/exposure in the school, or too many faculty compromised with infection/exposure to continue in-school teaching.  Teachers and children will be at-home.

• Some in-school teaching and some at-home teaching and some children learning in-school and some children learning at-home.  Due to a small number of classrooms with  infection and exposure, some but not all teachers can teach in-school and some children can learn in-school, but all teachers and children.

• Teaching in-school and children learning at-home.  Due to high community spread, classrooms are closed to children but not to teachers.  This is the most common scenario with high levels community spread but with schools that are properly sanitized.

• Teaching in-school and all children invited to learn in-school; some may not choose in-school.  Due to very low community spread, no teachers and no children or staff infected or exposed, in-school teaching and in-school learning are an option for parents.  Some parents still may choose at-home learning.

• Teaching in-school and children learning in in-school hybrids.  Due to very low community spread, no teachers and no children or staff infected or exposed, in-school teaching and in-school learning are an option for parents, although not all at the same time due to the school’s limited capacity for social distancing.  Some parents still may choose at-home learning.

• Homeschooled children migrating to in-school learning.  When health conditions improve, some resident parents who chose homeschooling will want to migrate to in-school learning.

• At-home children without Internet or inadequate Internet migrating to in-school learning.  As soon as they can, most parents of children with no Internet or inadequate Internet will migrate their children to in-school learning.  They will be hard-pressed in school districts that do not allow migration this school year.

• At-home children without Internet or inadequate Internet choosing pods for homeschooling.  If classrooms do not open in-school learning for these children, their parents may organize homeschooling pods with other parents.  One parent in the group will serve as the pod teacher.  This will be their one room school in the Time of COVID.

The big duh!

Having multiple plans ready to go means that schooling, although interrupted by health data and human conditions, will not stop.  Teaching and learning can shift from one delivery scenario to another and back again or to a third and yet a fourth scenario as real-time “battle plans” change.  A school without multiple plans will falter and teaching and learning will start, stop, start and stop.  And, 2020-21 will not be the school year it could have been.