AUGUST 2020

Back to School: COVID-19
Challenges Lesson Plans
BY PAUL NATINSKY
As we head toward fall in what
have been dubbed “uncertain
times,” Michigan and
its schools face an uncertain return
to halls of learning.
The MI Safe Schools Return to
School Roadmap and its six-phase
“MI Safe Start” protocols serve as the
overarching guidance for individual
K-12 schools and districts. In following
the Roadmap, school districts
would create a plan for reopening and
adhere to mandated safety protocols
marked “required” in the Roadmap.
The first three phases provide
for distance-only learning. They are
lumped together in the Roadmap
and don’t seem very differentiated.
Phases 4 through 6 provide for inperson
instruction and gradually
loosen spacing and other restrictions.
In Phase 4, the most restrictive inperson
reopening phase, students and
teachers are required to wear face coverings
(with some medically based exceptions).
Students from multiple classrooms
cannot combine for assemblies
or other events. Hygiene supplies and
instruction are required as is a beefed up
cleaning schedule using EPA-approved
disinfectants, which ranges from wiping
down classrooms after every class
to cleaning light switches, bathrooms,
doors and other “frequently touched
surfaces” every four hours.
However, spacing requirements
inside classrooms, special areas within
schools to quarantine students,
and rules governing when students
and teachers can return to school
after testing positive for COVID-19
or exhibiting symptoms appear under
“strongly recommended” or “recommended”
measures. Cooperation
with local public health department
protocols and guidelines is listed as
“required,” but it is unclear how that
coordination will take place.
Athletics is governed by a list
of “required” restrictions that limit
contact between athletes, call for
separate water bottles for athletes
and social distancing and face coverings
for spectators, among other
provisions.
“The West Bloomfield School
District will be following the ‘required’
and ‘strongly recommended’
protocols for each of the MI Safe
Start Phases,” said Superintendent
Gerald Hill, PhD.
The first requirement listed for
returning to in-person instruction
under Phase 4 states that, “The number
of new cases and deaths has fallen
for a period of time, but overall case
levels are still high.”
At press time, daily reports of
new cases were in the hundreds and
tagged as rising in Johns Hopkins
University data. Other requirements
for a Phase 4 reopen regarding hospital
capacity and disease tracking and
testing are equally vague.
Recent studies
show that students
have likely suffered
significant learning
loss during this
period of remote
schooling.
Money
Michigan’s School Aid Fund is facing
a whopping $1.2 billion shortfall,
mostly from to a drop in sales tax
revenues for big-ticket items during
the recession that began in February.
That is about $600 per student.
Adding insult to injury, one estimate
pegs the cost of extra personal
protective equipment, daily deep
cleaning, screening and other costs at
almost $2 million, or about $500 per
student for an average-sized school district.
These shortfalls and added costs
come during an era in which schools
have taken a budget beating already.
“We know that safety protocols
come with costs,” stated Gov.
Gretchen Whitmer in the forward to
the Roadmap. “Thus, we will be investing
a significant amount of federal
funds to support schools in the implementation
of the required safety
protocols outlined in the Roadmap
and to address other needs resulting
from COVID-19.”
“If our state and nation are serious
about opening schools safely for
the fall, additional resources, not
budget cuts, are imperative,” said
West Bloomfield’s Hill. “The federal
government must pass additional
stimulus legislation that backfills the
loss of state and local revenue caused
by the recession. Schoolchildren and
teachers cannot be expected to learn
and work safely and productively
in stripped down learning environments.
One of the keys to a successful
economic recovery is an appropriate
investment in K - 12 public
schools. Our future, and our children’s
health and safety are at stake.”
Crash Course
Like many K-12 school districts
across the state, West Bloomfield was
not set up to provide distance learning
when Michigan schools shut
down in mid-March. At press time,
the district was finalizing its plans
for blended distance and in-person
learning, a program called Classroom
to Cloud, and refining a remote-only
option, called Lakers Online.
The new strategy is designed to be
flexible and meet the challenges presented
by a changed environment for
in-person learning and a newly minted
necessity and demand for distance
learning. “The hybrid option of Classroom
to Cloud, which will be implemented
if we are in the MI Safe Start
Phase 4, requires significant investments
in PPE (face masks, hand sanitizers,
etc.) as well as less efficient space
utilization due to social distancing on
school buses and in schools (which
necessitates smaller groups of children
in classes),” said Hill. “Additionally,
because students will also be working
remotely, we are providing Chromebooks
for each student to use at home
in addition to the Chromebooks that
will be used during face-to-face instruction
when they are at school.”
Teachers
Remaining in play are issues regarding
teachers, who have a list of safety
and work process concerns, and parents
who decide to keep their children
home this fall.
Time Magazine reported in early
July, “About 20 percent of teachers
said they aren’t likely to return
to teaching if schools reopen in the
fall, according to a USA Today/Ipsos
poll conducted in late May.”
The Magazine reported that Ed-
Week Research Center surveys conducted
around the same time found
that, “more than 10 percent of teachers
are more likely to leave the profession
now than they were before the pandemic,
and 65 percent of educators said
they want school buildings to remain
closed to slow the spread of the virus.”
Students
Still, the undisputed goal among all
parties is to return children to school
as soon as it is safe to do so. The
Michigan chapter of the American
Academy of Pediatrics urges “in-person
education to the maximum extent
possible,” according to an email
on school reopening.
“In our offices we have seen large
discrepancies in available at home
learning support…which increase
the achievement gap (especially
with) younger and special needs
children,” the email reads. “School
closures have put mental and social
health at risk (for students) and that
affects their educational trajectories.”
Schools also provide meals, personal
health services, mental health support
and a better environment for
English learners, AAP notes.
Time reported that “…the pressure
to reopen schools is strong.
Recent studies show that students
have likely suffered significant learning
loss during this period of remote
schooling, worsening the achievement
gap between affluent and lowincome
students…Dr. Anthony Fauci,
the country’s top infectious disease
expert, agrees. ‘I feel very strongly we
need to do whatever we can to get
the children back to school,’ he said
during testimony before the Senate
on June 30,” reported the magazine.
With regard to the fears about
spreading COVID-19, the doctors
refer to data suggesting elementary
and pre-school kids are at low risk
of contracting the virus and they are
“less likely to be primary vectors for
the spread.”
For children, the benefits of being
in school might outweigh the risks
to their health, but older teachers
administrators, custodians and others
who work in school buildings fall
into higher risk groups for both infection
and death.
The state has provided a framework
and schools are working on
plans, but money, logistics and developing
science regarding COVID-19
leave much work to do in an increasingly
short window.
26 CHALDEAN NEWS AUGUST 2020