There has been near-universal consensus that virtual learning or a hybrid of in-school and remote learning was chaotic and suboptimal, at best.
Kids had trouble accessing classes online, others had trouble concentrating on lessons for hours on the computer, while some students simply gave up and basically lost a year of learning. We really don’t want to go back to those bad old days.
We know the benefits of in-person learning. Kids perform better academically and feel better mentally when they can socialize with friends and not be stuck in isolation at home. We need to create in-school learning conditions for children to thrive.
With the new school year, we finally have all schools open 100%, five days a week. We want all educators and students to come to school healthy and safe and we want them to stay that way. It would be a tragedy to have to revert to some form of virtual learning because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
The best way to get back to normal is to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which means everyone inside school buildings wears masks and all eligible people get vaccinated. These mitigation efforts will greatly help us avoid a school year like the one we want to forget.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other credible infectious disease organizations urge masking and vaccinations for all who are eligible. The CDC said universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, should be implemented for the 2021-22 school year.
Here in New Hampshire, there is no state mask mandate for public schools, though I would strongly support that. It’s up to individual school districts. Teachers want to be in their classrooms with their students, but to stay that way, we need students and educators to wear a mask and get the vaccine if eligible.
The problem is, some school districts and parents in New Hampshire, and across the country, are not willing to do the small things to prevent a big thing, making schools super-spreaders, requiring people to quarantine or even shutting down schools and returning to virtual learning.
A big concern is in districts that allow parents to choose whether their child will wear a mask to school. For those opting out of masks, those children won’t be protected and could spread COVID-19 to anyone coming into contact with them.
In Merrimack, for example, parents can opt-out of masks for their kids when they are seated in the classroom, but not when they are walking in hallways. This is confusing and not protective enough. Parental dissatisfaction with mask requirements in schools is self-defeating. Would these parents rather risk the chance that kids will have to return to virtual learning and experience the kind of disruptions families endured during the last school year because of COVID-19 transmissions at schools?
The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading mostly among the unvaccinated, has caused hospitalizations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of confirmed and suspected pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations to record levels, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Children currently make up about 2.5% of the nation’s COVID-19 hospitalizations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the vaccine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the Delta variant. So it should not be unreasonable to ask students and adults in schools to wear a face covering. It may not be super comfortable, but it’s a lot better than lying in a hospital bed and suffering serious breathing issues and other problems. When families and educators work together, we can have safe and healthy learning environments.
(Deb Howes is president of AFT-New Hampshire.)