The Tenuous and the Untenable in Reopening

Executive Perspective

Last April, in response to the concerns emerging as to how schools would begin to reopen from the coronavirus pandemic, AASA convened the COVID-19 Recovery Task Force. Twenty-seven experienced superintendents from around the country and several of our state executives accepted our invitation to join. After weeks of Zoom meetings, the task force agreed on a resolution in support of the conditions under which schools should reopen and the guidelines delineating the logistics.

The last line of the resolution says: “THEREFORE, AASA urges Congress to ensure federal resources related to future recovery funding include clear support for the values and priorities articulated in this resolution with funding allocated equitably, providing increased levels of support for needier communities and districts.”

The pandemic has shined a bright light on the inequity that has existed in public education and the persisting unwillingness of those holding the purse strings to acknowledge it. For years, educators have said standardized tests were not needed to determine the achievement levels in various communities. The zip code could readily tell you that.

When school districts were forced to shut down their buildings and convert to online instruction for the final months of 2019-20, well-funded school systems already had provided all or most of their students with laptops, had trained their teachers to do online lessons and had acquired the appropriate software and learning platforms. Conversely, districts with a high percentage of students living in poverty did not have the means to do that and, even if they could have provided students with laptops, many were lacking internet service at home.

Loss and Recovery

Many school districts will reopen schools this month and next using a hybrid model where, in order to accommodate social spacing, only a percentage of the school population will be allowed to attend while the rest of the students will remain at home undergoing remote instructions. If the technological inequity issue has not been resolved, the economically disadvantaged students will continue to be denied online instruction.

For many students, there will have been considerable learning loss spanning the period between schools closing in March and re-opening this fall. One strategy being adopted is to prioritize which students would be brought back first into the building. The students who missed out on online learning and might be lacking the appropriate technology could be first. Younger children could be given priority over older children, as could the children of first responders and medical personnel and the children of working parents.

All scenarios are fraught with liability. At the beginning of the pandemic, superintendents were faced with the prospect of delivering services to all students or to none. Where online learning provides the opportunity to offer instruction widely to students, it would in many cases not be sufficient to address the IEPs of students with special needs. There’s a potential for lawsuits. Requests to the U.S. secretary of education to allow temporary flexibility were denied.

The use of a hybrid model may continue well into the new school year unless those with special needs are given priority for being in the building at all times. But that scenario also might attract lawsuits from parents whose children are not in school all the time. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

Localized Decisions

If there is a silver lining to the untenable situation facing district leaders, it may be to ultimately transform education from the industrial-era format we adhere to. At risk of change are such traditions as the school calendar, seat time requirements, number of days and hours students are required to be in school, Carnegie units, grade levels and much more. Welcome additions as a result of more online learning would be the growth of personalized learning, the opportunity for students to learn at their own pace.

Beyond these problems, a major concern that superintendents will face will be having to open schools when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines cannot be met, either because schools are being mandated to open by the powers that be or because they are lacking the funding to properly implement the guidelines.

The AASA task force’s resolution contends “the reopening of schools should be a local or regional decision informed by applicable health, safety and disinfecting recommendations” and asserts that each school district should be permitted “to determine the timing and scheduling configuration of its schools using health data and benchmarks related to COVID-19 specific to its geographic location and communities.”