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1) When is an emergency an emergency?
2) When is a priority a priority?
3) When is a disaster a disaster?
As with all things COVID, there are lots of questions with the answers found in red or blue columns. But a definite purple, is that students need to be in school. And the longer they are not, the darker the black eye on education.
FAST, FASTER, FASTEST
And if you want to open schools yesterday, doesn’t it only make sense to vaccinate the players that would make it possible? The speed in which educators get vaccinated will help determine whether schools reopen in-person for the rest of the year.
The CDC recommends that frontline workers, especially educators, be given priority for receiving the COVID vaccine.
President Biden has described the crisis in public schools caused by the pandemic as a “national emergency.”
Obviously, schools are in desperate need for the fed relief and need it now. The challenges school communities face aren’t for lack of effort by principals, teachers, staff, parents and students.
Hundreds of thousands of educators have worked to transform teaching and learning from the inside out.
TIK TOK A US HISTORY LESSON
We’ve seen teachers tackle long division from their kitchens and students debate the Constitution in Spanish from their living rooms.
But the fact is that for many — if not most — students, online and even hybrid education pales in comparison to what’s possible in a classroom led by an amazing out of this world teacher.
We need to treat the dire situation facing public school students with the same federal mobilization we have come to expect for other national emergencies, such as floods, wildfires and hurricanes.
A major, coordinated nationwide effort — imagine a New Deal for schools — is needed to return kids to public schools right now in the safest way possible.
Schools have shown that they can stay open safely despite community spread of the virus, but that demands the right set of actions, and adequate financial support, to bring students back and address the impact of this crisis head on.
Part of the problem is that the Cares Act and subsequent relief packages did not designate public school districts as recipients. Direct federal support for schools must be specific and targeted.
BACK TO SQUARE ONE
A federal relief package for schools should cover the basic building blocks of a safe, healthy and welcoming school environment so that educators and students can focus exclusively on their mission: high-quality teaching and learning.
Funds should be provided directly to public school districts for four essential programs: cleaning and sanitizing of facilities; providing protective equipment; school-based corona virus testing and contact tracing to help reduce the risk for all in the school community.
Include mental health support for students having issues adjusting to their isolated life; and funding for in-person instruction next summer to help students recover from learning losses because of the pandemic.
Many local districts have poured resources into these efforts. But it’s simply not sustainable without federal support, and as covid-19 infection rates surge across the country, the pandemic shows no sign of slowing.
MONEY WELL SPENT
The cost of this lifeline for schools — an estimated $125 billion — is less than 20 percent of what’s earmarked for the Paycheck Protection Program. That’s a relatively small price to properly reopen public schools and will be a major component in jump-starting the economy.
The federal government must put into hyper-speed the effort to get bodies back in classroom seats with the same urgency and commitment as other disasters.
Failure to do so will allow a “national emergency” to become a “national disgrace” which not even the ARC, DOD, FBI, FEMA, HHS, NDPO can help rebuild.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached at 305-788-4105 or email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project. NOTE: Guest contributor Lori Moldovan, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern, was unavailable for this column due to her extremely heavy caseload related to the pandemic.
