COVID doesn't care

COVID-19 doesn't care about your politics.
It doesn't care about the economy or small businesses or the GDP.
COVID-19 doesn't care about learning loss.
It doesn't care about language acquisition or student growth or meeting state standards.
COVID-19 doesn't care about socio-emotional learning.
It doesn't care about your mental health or your social connections or student support.
COVID doesn't care.

We can want, desperately, to have things back to normal, to have children back in classrooms, to have families back to work, to begin to repair what we've lost by schools being closed.

But COVID doesn't care.

So no matter how many times DESE writes in bold and underline that their goal is to bring back as many students as possible in-person

...COVID doesn't care.

Ever in my mind as we go through this pandemic are the accounts of how leaders have dealt in the past with similar situations. In Worcester, for example, in 1918, the city leaders were extremely reluctant to respond, and continue to wait for the state to take action:

Saddled by an indecisive Board of Health with no clear leader and with a mayor who seemed equally unwilling to take charge, the city opted to take its cues from Massachusetts officials rather than plot its own course. It waited for state health officials to make influenza a reportable disease, leaving it with no good source of information on the severity of the epidemic during those critical early days. Likewise, the Board only moved to close public places after the state board of health strongly urged local communities to do so. As a result, Worcester’s public health response time (the period between the time when the city’s epidemic became severe enough for health officials to take notice and the time when the first control measures were adopted) was 15 days, the longest of Massachusetts’ major cities.

Because they waited for state guidance and then only followed that, significantly more people died of influenza in Worcester than in other cities in Massachusetts.
Influenza didn't care, either.

This is thus the lens I bring to reading the initial state guidance released earlier today. You can read coverage of the release of the guidance here, here, here, here, and here.

I'll start with the points to know, and follow with some critique:

• The Department really, really, really wants as many kids as possible back in buildings.
• Really, really. I'm saying this twice because it is repeated and bolded and underlined throughout.
• Districts are required to submit four plans by sometime in August (date not yet announced): 
• a back in the buildings plan, 
• a hybrid plan, 
• a remote plan, 
• a plan for special populations.
• Because the Department is so heavily pushing being back in buildings, much of the guidance is about that, though it doesn't go into details on some pieces--cleaning, transportation, athletics, and more--for which guidance will be coming later. 
• For planning this, districts need to name a "COVID-19 response leader" and establish planning and implementation teams, establish a process to work with the local Board of Health, and plan "for communicating more intensively with students, families, staff, and the community."
• The state is offering grants for school reopening of $225/pupil ($182M for formula grants plus $20M for Commissioner's discretion statewide), plus $25M in 100% matching grants (the state will match what the district puts up) for technology.
• Regarding being back in buildings:
• districts need to have a remote learning plan for students whose families opt to keep them home.
• face masks will be required to be worn by all from grade 2 and up in buildings, and by all on buses; masks should be provided by student families and be washed daily (though districts are encouraged to use, yes, the grant funds to have disposable ones available for those whose families cannot provide them); there's a medical exception in here, too
• students are to be distanced by "a minimum of three feet" though districts should "aim for six feet" which the Department argues is "[b]ecause of the reduced susceptibility in children and lower apparent rates of transmission, establishing a minimum physical distance of three feet is informed by evidence and balances the lower risk of COVID-19 transmission and the overarching benefits of in-person school."
• "To the extent possible," desks should be "spaced six feet apart (but no fewer than three feet apart" meaning that other spaces in the schools "should be repurposed to increase the amount of available space" like libraries, cafeterias, and auditoriums. Also, districts should "consider engaging with community partners to find spaces outside the school" for additional room.
• Students should stay in the same group in elementary and "to the extent feasible" in middle and high school. Schools thus should "divide students into smaller groups that remain with each other throughout the day."
• Use of the cafeteria (thus) is discouraged, so students should eat in their rooms. Because they will be taking off their masks to do so, they will need to be six feet apart to eat.
• Students and staff are required to "exercise hand hygiene" when they get to school, before eating, when putting on and taking off masks, and before dismissal. "While hand washing with soap and water is the best option," the guidance is quick to defer to sanitizer if handwashing "is not feasible."
• Schools are required to have an "isolation space" for students who are displaying COVID-19 symptoms.
• "At this time, in-school testing is not recommended" and temperatures will not be taken, either.
• Vaccines for the flu will be strongly encouraged.
• Families should keep children home if they are ill, should support the use of masks, arrange "alternative transportation whenever possible," communicate and follow state guidance for health and safety.
• Regarding hybrid learning:
• Priority on being in buildings during hybrid learning is to be for students with special education needs and for English learners; others would switch between remote and in person learning. 

And...that's kind of it. So what's the rest of the 27 pages?

As Shakespeare had it: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Because much of the above guidance is contrary to much of what we have been told, repeatedly, from multiple trusted sources, they spent a significant amount of time arguing that, yes, it is fine for students to come back together again, that students don't get as sick as frequently or as much nor do they spread the disease that much as adults or as they do other things. 

And then they spend a significant amount more time arguing that three feet is just fine when combined with other measures, no, really.

I'll be upfront: I have not gone through all of the research they're citing (they do seem to have a bit of a fondness for New South Wales?), but betting the health of not just students, but of school staff and of families of both students and staff on "kids don't get it as often and as badly and they don't spread it that much" is...betting a lot.
Plus, every country cited is a country with a functioning public health system that does not, as a country, have the nightmare that is both how we care for health and how we are managing the pandemic (or not).
The rate of Massachusetts adults is three times that of children in getting the disease, as is noted, perhaps because...all of Massachusetts children are home because school has been cancelled since mid-March?

And the health of staff, beyond a sentence or two regarding medical conditions, is barely mentioned.
It does not mention the number of children we have who are medically fragile.
It does not mention the, yes, rare, but frightening inflammatory syndrome that has more recently been presenting itself.
And there is no mention, in a document which presents itself as centered on getting students back in schools in part due to concerns regarding racial equity, of the vast racial and ethnic disparities among our population here in Massachusetts. The coronavirus rate is THREE TIMES HIGHER among Black and Latino people as it is among the white population. And it looks like Black and Latino parents are well aware of that, as well as of the limitations of the districts to which they (largely) send their children.

And there is evidence that even six feet isn't enough.

Do I think there are schools that can possibly pull all of the above off?
Yes, I do. I think there are airy elementary schools with lots of outdoor space, some of it covered, with library and cafeteria space that can be converted, where someone at home can drive each child in, where someone can stay home if there is even a hint that a child is sick, and where there is staff enough to cover the split classes. It won't be easy, it will take a lot of calculation, but some of those schools are already figuring out how to rework their bathrooms so no one has to touch anything, so they'll probably get there.

And then there are the rest of us.
It isn't only the Gateways that concern me, though of course how we find three or six or more feet of space per student in already crowded and overcrowded buildings in which we're already using basement space as classrooms with limited if any outdoor space for a student population that's at high risk, has to ride the bus, have parents who can't stay home if they're sick, with a staff that is by state calculation, well under what it should be is obviously a nightmare, even if we were going to be funded at what we should be.
The Governor demurred today on what is happening with Chapter 70 funding, by the way.
But it's a nightmare for any school district that is concerned about staff that are older or have medical complications or who have family members that do. It's a nightmare for any district that has barely been able to keep the facilities maintenance up. It's a nightmare for any district that has run into busing issues, or staffing issues, or crowding issues, or just has parents who, if the norm is "things must be okay because schools are open" have put hand to forehead, given a dose of Tylenol, and kept their fingers crossed their kid could make it through the day.
"To the extent feasible" is no way to respond to a public health crisis.

It is clear, as others have noted, that the guidance started from a place of "how do we get school buildings open" rather than "how do we do right by kids and families and staff." We, yes, have an educational responsibility to our students. We also have a societal responsibility to Massachusetts. That is, it seems to me, being frantically brushed aside in the race to get children back in the buildings.

For what it is worth: I dissent.