Balancing Act: 'Hardly any kids get COVID.' One dad's viral Facebook post brilliantly captures the bind parents are in over remote vs. in-person school
CHICAGO — As school districts around the country roll out their plans for fall, many parents are tasked with choosing between 100% remote learning or a hybrid model that combines remote learning with a staggered in-person schedule.
On Friday, Chicago Public Schools announced a plan that calls for most students to attend school two days per week and learn from home the rest of the time. Families can decline in-person learning and opt for 100% online instruction if they prefer.
In Naperville District 203 and Indian Prairie District 204, parents can choose between an online academy or an option that has kids in school part-time.
Similar scenarios are playing out across the country.
It’s all a bit of a nightmare, and one that could have been avoided if we had a president who took the coronavirus seriously in January and instituted national guidelines for curbing its spread, along with ample testing and contact tracing.
But here we are, weighing expert guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that emphasizes the benefits of in-person learning against the very real concerns about exposing children and their teachers and families to a deadly virus.
Joe Morice, a dad in Fairfax County, Virginia, posted a thoughtful treatise on Facebook last week, five days before the deadline for parents in his district to choose which model their kids would be learning under for the fall.
“Like all of you, I’ve seen my feed become a flood of anxiety and faux expertise,” Morice wrote. “You’ll get no presumption of expertise here.”
Morice wrote as a parent leaning toward sending his kids to school part-time, but having reservations. He listed a handful of arguments he’s hearing in favor of sending kids back to classrooms, along with his reasons for remaining skeptical of each one.
His post has been shared 22,000 times.
It struck a nerve, I think, because it gets at some of the nuances that all the expert advice, important as it is, doesn’t quite capture. Some of the highlights:
Argument: “My kids want to go back to school.”
“I believe what the kids desire is more abstract,” Morice wrote. “I believe what they want is a return to normalcy. They want their idea of yesterday. And yesterday isn’t on the menu.”
Argument: “I want my child in school so they can socialize.”
“This was the principle reason for our 2 days decision. As I think more on it though, what do we think ‘social’ will look like? There aren’t going to be any lunch table groups, any lockers, any recess games, any study halls, any sitting next to friends, any talking to people in the hallway, any dances. All of that is off the menu. So, when we say that we want the kids to benefit from the social experience, what are we deluding ourselves into thinking in-building socialization will actually look like in the fall?”
Argument: “My kid is going to be left behind.”
“Left behind who? The entire country is grappling with the same issue, leaving all children in the same quagmire. Who exactly would they be behind? I believe the rhetorical answer to that is ‘They’ll be behind where they should be,’ to which I’ll counter that ‘where they should be’ is a fictional goal post that we as a society have taken as gospel because it maps to standardized tests which are used to grade schools and counties as they chase funding.”
Argument: “Hardly any kids get COVID.”
“Yes, that is statistically true as of this writing,” Morice wrote. “But it is a cherry-picked argument because you’re leaving out an important piece. One can reasonably argue that, due to the school closures in March, children have had the least exposure to COVID. In other words, closing schools was the one pandemic mitigation action we took that worked. There can be no discussion of the rate of diagnosis within children without also acknowledging they were among our fastest and most quarantined people.”
Argument: “I’m not going to live my life in fear.”
“You already live your life in fear. For your health, your family’s health, your job, your retirement, terrorists, extremists, one political party or the other being in power, the new neighbors, an unexpected home repair, the next sunrise. What you meant to say was, ‘I’m not prepared to add ANOTHER fear,’ and I’ve got news for you: That ship has sailed. It’s too late.
“Fear,” Morice continued, “is the reason you wait up when your kids stay out late, it’s the reason you tell your kids not to dive in the shallow water, to look both ways before crossing the road. Fear is the respect for the wide world that we teach our children. Except in this instance, for reasons no one has been able to explain to me yet.”
Every family brings its own needs and risk factors and economic realities and unique situations to this tremendously complicated decision. But I like Morice’s words and wanted to share them because they’re practical without being emotionless, frustrated without being resigned, empowering without being admonishing.
A tough balance, but one that feels like a lifeline for those of us in the thick of these decisions.
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(Contact Heidi Stevens at hstevens@tribune.com, or on Twitter: @heidistevens13.)
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