Instead, the return of elementary school children has tweaked that vision to less than 30 percent attendance with most parents keeping their children at home, out of fear and distrust, of both the Covid pandemic, as well as the school system itself.
Battle scarred from a second near strike with The Chicago Teachers Union, Lightfoot marshalled all of her considerable energies, and strength, to force the issue, and increase the optics of in person learning, as similar cities across the US attempted to do the same.
Needless to say the politicization of the effort was not only for mayoral benefit, but also for gubernatorial leadership, as the partisan divide began to take hold of this issue and came to have Gov. J.B.Pritzker as a party of interest; and,while widely acknowledged to be a benefit for both children and parents, the issue also began to be intertwined with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and the massive vaccination effort from the Biden administration.
While the CDC said that vaccinations were not necessary for schools to open, the White House began to push for it, as an aid to in person learning. Yet, that effort began to be compromised by the lack of record keeping on teacher vaccinations.
Associated Press reported that “States and many districts have not been keeping track of school employee vaccinations, even as the U.S. prioritizes teachers nationwide.”
While that may come as a surprise to many, they also noted that “Vaccines are not required for educators to return to school buildings, but the absence of data complicates efforts to address parents’ concerns about health risk levels and some teachers unions’ calls for widespread vaccinations as a condition of reopening schools.”
For Chicago, this seemed like the nail in the coffin as not only was it supported by CTU, but in a latent move, after the request and tense negotiations, by CPS who began to advocate for them in a level of requirement, said some reports, to the chagrin of Union officials.
Reaction from parents across the country has been mixed, with some saying how joyful it was to have in person instruction, as their children cheered, to others, more fearful and less trusting saying, with one parent noting, “Nope, my kid will not go back and take that risk. Teachers may have gotten the vaccine but not the kids that are in class, and they can still get sick,” said one from Chicago.
In Louisiana’s East Baton Rouge parish, a mother told Huffington Post, “My family works. I have no one I can take her to and say, ‘Ok, at 12 o’clock you are going to have to start working online with her for school.”
Whie no one area can be called an epicenter, Chicago with its racial and economic diversity might be seen as a model for frustration.
Adding to that are the variables of school size, and age, with some, from another era, not easily equipped for physical distancing, and others built in another century that have not been adequately maintained and parents who cannot afford child care, especially Black and Brown parents, whose resources are already stretched thin; not to mention the gulf between wealthy suburban districts, and those from the urban core.
Detroit with its 78 % Black population, and widespread unease with the vaccine, faces an uneasy comparison with suburban schools, serving as a prime example of the difficulty of a one size fits all process with widespread belief in the efficacy of vaccination, tied to school openings.
Now enter a change in the social distancing requirement that Illinois education officials issued on Wednesday, in a move to increase students, that was met with more than “scepticism from teachers and some parents,”the Chicago Sun Times reported as they reduced the 6 ft. distance requirement to “3 feet as long as educators are vaccinated.”
The problem is as AP noted, “No states are publicly reporting the percentage of teachers and school staff that have been vaccinated, according to a Johns Hopkins University analysis published Thursday.”
Lacking that communication only hampers the thin level of trust between some educators and parents.
Adding to the confusion is that, “President Joe Biden directed all state governments this week to administer at least one coronavirus vaccination to every teacher, school employee and child-care worker by the end of March. Biden has promised to have most K-8 schools open for classroom instruction by the end of his first 100 days in office, or the end of April.”
It is worth noting, as AP did, that, “Vaccines were a contentious part of the fight to reopen schools in Chicago, which narrowly avoided a teachers strike last month over COVID-19 safety plans. Vaccinations began in mid-February, but it’s unknown how many of the nearly 40,000 Chicago Public Schools employees have been vaccinated.”
Whether the bulk term of “employees” included teachers was unclear, but one week earlier the Chicago district online tracker showed at least 3,586 “staff members had received vaccines at CPS sites,” but, which may not be inclusive of “doses administered to staff through partnerships of independent providers.”
For those teachers that have been vaccinated, they are required to wait two weeks before returning to the classroom,unless special accommodations have been made and frequently will have substitute teachers teaching students, instead of themselves.
An ironic situation then ensues, and one that The Chicago Tribune noted, quoting one teacher, who said, students are “basically being put into a room to do the exact same thing they’ve been doing,” while remote learning’”
By the time Fall approaches, there may still be students whose parents have kept them in remote learning, thus freeing more classroom space, and making it easier for the new distance guidelines, say some observers.
If lack of knowledge seems apparent, one area where it is not is the politicization of the effort across America, where the above examples point, not only for desired optics in Chicago, but also California, Ohio, and Florida as well can be disregarded by their educators, with 6 ft as an ideal distancing target, but then becomes a requirement when students eat lunch.
A further muddying of the waters has occurred with a directive from the Illinois School Board of Education, and the Illinois Department of Public Health who recommends the discontinuance of on site symptom checks (mostly temperature measuring) and that “all assessments to be done initially in the morning ahead of the school door.”
Notably, the exact steps to be taken were not issued.
Looking across the nation we see a mix of remote learning balanced with classroom learning, a desired goal earlier done in 2020, in some parts of the US and Europe, but now with new strains of the coronavirus appearing, might prove to be the best avenue to opening schools and relieving, in part, ast least, the long standing problem of child care, although the new COvid relief bill does provide a significant amount of money for child care, for the poorest of families.
This effort is predicated on the belief that younger children are less prone to transmitting the virus, with their less involved schedules, than high schoolers who are often in school, playing competitive sports with other teens, and on field trips, among the many beyond the school walls.
Then again, there are some schools that are adopting a wait and see approach that will allow them to “scrap in person classes at least for the start of the school year, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington,” according to Huffington Post.
Still others despite rapidly increasing cases are equally increasing in person learning, such as Mississippi, where “44 districts began classes in person this week,m starting Monday with the rural 1,700 students . . . just east of Jackson.”
Taken as a whole it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic, yet fractured approach to a critical need for social capital, for the next generation, yet is also equally hard for various state and local needs to be met in an atmosphere of power, politics and passion; where it will take more than money, not matter how justified to move the needle towards the Fall of 2021, especially with a vicarious virus, such as Covid.
