The pit in my stomach

Let me, first of all, note that I do not, in any of my capacities, have any authority over any of this.
And I am, as always here, speaking only for myself.

Let me, second, note that every time I hear from those who are making decisions, I can feel my stomach drop with the fear that they're simply going to send us back without the massive investment it would take to make that anything approaching safe.

Please make no mistake: having our kids out of school is absolutely catastrophic to their education, and, in many cases, to their physical and mental health. In some cases, this has been exponentially increased by the lack of timely response, or mismanagement, or other leadership lacks.
I'm not under any illusions on how destructive this time is to many.

I also spend a good bit of time in and around schools, and schools of different types. I know what it's like in a suburban high school at lunchtime, and what it's like at an urban elementary school at recess. I've been in the closets that pass for offices for speech therapists and myriad of other support staff, the auto bays and shops of a vocational school at work, the flood of students running for buses at the end of the day.
I've also been in a lot of bathrooms.
I don't of course know it all, but know what a lot of that looks like in schools in Massachusetts right now.

I don't know how we do it without kids touching each other and breathing on each other and their teachers. I mean that, genuinely. I have tried and tried to figure out how you'd do it.

• How do you get the kids on and off the buses? Ok, once they're on, they sit single seat, every other seat. That's going to take...probably three times the buses, I'm guessing? We already had a bus drivers shortage, so where are those drivers coming from? And it takes months to build school buses, so where are we getting those?
  But you also need the kids to not pass each other in aisle, right? So the first ones to get on have to sit all the way in the back, and they have to be the last ones off. And when you load for the ride home, the first ones to get on, who go all the way to the back, have to be the last ones off. If you're familiar with kids, you know that this is going to be both unpopular--kids wait to be the ones for those back seats!--and hard to enforce. So do we need to staff the buses with monitors?
  And still, every single student has to go past the driver, both in and out.
  And loading and unloading in that sequence, with kids having to wait to be six feet apart, is going to take forever.


• So then they get to school, and we get them off the bus, and they go...where? Little kids usually head to the playground, but they can't share balls or jump ropes; they can't use the playground equipment; they can't even stand together and talk to each other, right?
  And if not, usually they get sent to a gym or something, where they sit as classes. If you take the entire population of the elementary school and make them all sit six feet apart...where is that space?
  Older kids sometimes are allowed to go straight to their lockers. They can't be at their lockers when the people on either side are at their lockers, though, right? And we can't have kids passing along two lines of kids at open lockers, either. So is it sequenced? Have we arranged for every other one to go to their lockers in an order that keeps them from passing each other?


• Somehow, we have now made it to a classroom. We've seen the photos of the kids sitting every other desk in other countries. How many kids can we have in a classroom to do that? And if it's only them, where are their classmates? Are we switching off days in and out? How did we decide who was in and out? And how does it work if some of the point is for parents to be able to go back to work with students on a 50% schedule? And what about the vocational schools that already had a half and half schedule?
  Those students who are sitting there, though, have brought us back to having students sit in rows...which we were trying not to do anymore. I taught high school English, for example, and I had students move into a circle to discuss, and move into groups to work together, and pair up to exchange ideas, and...we can't do any of that.
  No circle time on the rug, no tables in the elementary classrooms, no lab partners in science class...
  How do we do special education pull asides? Or how does an IA work with an individual student? Can we do anything other than listen in music? Where will we find space enough for art class?


• And if you've taught or have kids, you know the reminders are going to have to be constant: 
• Leave your mask on.
• Don't touch him.
• Stay in your desk.
• Don't talk to her.
• Back up.
• Six feet apart.
• ...and on and on
...which just sounds absolutely miserable.
Add to that the fact that this is enforcing policies and procedures, and our institutions, schools very much included, do so very inequitably. Which kids are going to get in the most trouble for not wearing their mask/staying six feet apart/etc? The same kids who always do: kids of color, kids who are disabled, and so forth.
Also, how are we doing this for kids who don't speak English?


• Bathrooms. I imagine we send kids in one at a time? Will there be warm water in every sink? Soap and paper towels (bad time for the hand dryers to spread germs)? Are we going to give each kid enough time to wash their hands as often as they should? Are we going to allow that much bathroom access?


• How are we keeping all of this clean? Do we have sufficient custodial staff? Supplies? Are they basically constantly cleaning?


• How are we feeding the kids lunch? I've heard that kids are eating in their classrooms to prevent overcrowding in the lunchrooms. They go get their food, I imagine? Six feet apart and then they bring it back six feet apart with no one dropping anything and then they eat that way? And then they can't pass anyone to throw anything away, so someone brings the trash around but stays far away?

And again and again and again: where is the money coming from for the buses and the drivers, for the masks and the soap and the newly repaired sinks and the cleaning supplies and the additional custodial staff and the improved ventilation systems and the signs and arrows on floors and walls and all the paper towels? Ones that work, please.

I mean this absolutely honestly: I do not see how this can work.
Second post tomorrow: Not that anyone asked me, but...