Worried? You’re Not Alone: School is Really Scary.
The dad executes a ballet leap worthy of a severe hamstring injury and joyfully hook-shots boxes of pencils and packs of lined paper into a shopping cart. His son and daughter trudge behind, lower lips protruding enough that birds could comfortably perch upon them.
Remember that commercial for back-to-school shopping? Remember feeling that relief (It’s ok to admit it, you are among friends here) when the calendar flipped to August?
Remember normal back-to-school shopping? It’s hard to believe that was only a year ago. And now this anticipated ritual is changed in ways we could never have imagined. Not only does our shopping involve more time online than at the mall or Target, but among the usual purchases the list of necessities includes a few different items:
- Socks–check
- Underwear–check
- comfy t-shirts–check
- Pajamas–check
- Chromebook (My husband doesn’t know about this particular item yet.) And last but not least:
- The best option for how to do school in the middle of a pandemic–what aisle is that located in, again???
This is one expensive and stressful back-to-school list.
The dialogue over how schools should resume in the fall is dizzying at best, and superseded only by whether schools should open for business-as-usual at all. And I’m SMDH (I just learned what “SMDH” means, so I just gotta use it somewhere…) over the degree of brain-power and time school districts have put in to figuring out cohorts, producing real estate for socially-distanced classes out of thin air, and learning new online interfaces to accommodate all their students whether they chose to attend in-person, part-time or 100-percent from home. All on severely-slashed COVID-infected budgets.
As if COVID-19 isn’t bad enough, our nation has been introduced COVID’s (even more) evil twin, SCOVID:
SChool Opening Virus Invades our Democracy.
The amount of ingenuity, stress, brain power and attention to small “studies” with our smallest people rivals the COVID headlines themselves. The debates rage on social media. But the important thing to remember is this:
Our opinions matter within our own families most of all, and
There is more than one opinion.
We need to consider first what is best for our own families, and for each of our individual children. And each family is going to have their own circumstances that drive their viewpoints: parental employment. Age of their children. Familial support system. To name just a very few. And certainly not of least impact is what their school district is offering up as educational options in this very difficult time.
It always comes back to the be kind, you don’t know what someone else is going through sentiment. Everyone has their own perspectives and situation and certainly plenty of stress while attempting to navigate choices and new guidelines, all the while figuring out what option will best fit their kids depending on their age, abilities and needs. So I (gratefully) stole these memes from a friend’s FB page because it helps us embrace empathy for other families who see the school debacle differently:
While we families get absorbed in our own concerns and debates with each other, let’s not forget the teachers. Let’s also not forget the teachers with their own kids and their concerns about their risk of contracting COVID going up something-fold because they have to be in school, too. Teachers whose job security is on the line if they refuse to teach in-person, or because of school budget cuts. Teachers who need their jobs. Teachers who will hear unprecedented griping from all directions because of COVID policies out of their control but are policies they are expected to uphold. We don’t hear enough from the educators’ perspective so I will share some of that here.
This is from an educator friend’s FB page, something he paraphrased from two separate opinions from other educators:
Someone else said it better, but I share it because I agree…
Unpopular opinion: Why are you getting upset at schools for putting in a system that is going to make it difficult for people to go to work on your regular schedule during a global pandemic, but NOT upset at your jobs and business for not offering flexibility and alternate schedules to accommodate this unprecedented time in our world? Why is it that you expect your schools to accommodate you, but don’t expect the community to do what it needs to do to support protecting our children, teachers and schools? If you are only upset at the school systems, you are missing a much larger portion of the equation. This should be a community effort to make this work for everyone. Not just the schools caving to a community that won’t help or support them. #isaidwhatisaid#everyoneshouldbeinthistogether
Combating COVID should be a community effort. Agreement on the three W’s are the very important beginning: handwashing, wearing masks, and watching our distance. But let’s add a fourth: businesses need a wake up call. Industry as usual is out the window. These are not normal times. A firm message to places of employment everywhere: Wake up and smell that stale coffee in your industrial coffeemaker. Support your employees through these unprecedented times. If schools and families are forced to think outside the box, you, business world, need to do the same.
We cannot put all the effort and responsibility on our schools and our teachers. In other words, there is no “B” for business in “Community.”
And here is a thoughtful op-ed by an Iowa educator who calls for the reconsideration of the school reopening debate in “9 ways America is having the wrong conversation about ‘reopening’ schools (A non-exhausting list by an educator and parent who cares)”:
There are innumerable opinions on school reopening. There are unknown ways the plans for school reopening could go wrong. But we can also hope that there are ways that considered reopening could go right, as long as communities navigate safely in this time of COVID. But is now the right time to open up? Is it too soon? Many believe so, many believe not, and others simply don’t care. But one thing is for sure: we will get an answer, sooner or later. In the meantime, though, we can make the decision that is best for our families, our individual children, and be understanding and supportive of everyone else and their challenges in this trying time.
