Solving the puzzle of school reopening
Keep your balance, one step at a time, and a treacherous path becomes a tolerable one. (Image by 은주 송)
When I was a public school teacher in a small Maine town, we had an intense snowstorm that shut the region down for days.
School was closed for two days. On the third day, my district, alone among the others, decided to open.
The roads weren’t safe. I will never forget the drive in that morning — twenty minutes of intense concentration on a winding road that was already notoriously dangerous and didn’t appear to have been treated with salt.
But apparently, in the opinion of the superintendent, we had been out of school long enough. To him, it was worth the risk, even though it wasn’t any safer than on day one.
Today, many regions are grappling with something painfully similar. We have little sense of whether kids will be any safer in school in the coming months than they were in May, but to keep them home any longer is problematic, too. What do we do? How do we possibly make decisions here?
I do my best decision-making based on principles. I have found that the best decisions are simple, elegant, and win-win. Once made, they seem obvious in retrospect.
There doesn’t seem to be a simple and obvious solution to the current problem, however. When we decided to close down our The Little Middle School on March 12, that was difficult but straightforward. Deciding when and how to open is another matter. As I pursue this puzzle, I’d like to publicly share my thought process with respect to school reopening. Perhaps it could be useful to someone else.
The first obstacle I can see is my desire to come up with the “right” solution. As a business owner, I tend to want to create procedures that are replicable so that my team can take the same path as a matter of routine. That way, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. However, this situation is so unique — and the solutions so untested — that I’d be putting too much pressure on myself if I expect to come up with a plan that will work in every situation.
Following from that understanding, I see that we are unlikely to be able to find a universal fix that could be followed by any other school or district. Perhaps we can exchange ideas with other institutions, but the individual circumstances necessitate a custom solution. This insight offers some freedom and makes room for creativity.
Next, I consider the obvious ideas that have already been suggested. Temperature checks, masks, physical distance, no shared items, plexiglass dividers. Seems easy enough — until you consider that virtually every activity, routine, and procedure will have to be reimagined for these new circumstances.
Wearing masks makes it difficult to have normal social interaction, which is a huge problem when you’re trying to welcome new students.
Keeping a six-foot distance will make it impossible to gather our twenty-five students in our regular meeting room. And that room is also where we play music, which is its own concern because singing indoors doesn't appear to be safe even with a mask.
Meanwhile, outdoor activities will provide ventilation and perhaps a break from masks — but how can we reinforce social distancing? How can the kids develop normal, healthy friendships and get exercise? Must we forbid basketball, which our students play every day at recess?
Which rules are the important ones?
It seems to me that the areas most affected by the new rules — socializing, sports, music, and community gatherings — are also the ones most affected by online school. Is it worth the risk and the hassle to come together in person if we can’t really reap the benefits of it?
On the other hand, what is the value of a smile, a hug, a song, or a game of Lava Monster? How much would we risk for these things?
Dead end — these are impossible questions to answer. What’s important is to notice that we would be missing these things. So we have to figure out a way to address those gaps. That plan is going to be just as important as our prophylactic measures.
This changes everything. I was stuck because all of the proposed solutions to the problem of the coronavirus just created more problems. And now I see that we simply have to identify and solve those problems. There are fixes for those, too.
At this point, my mind opens up. I consider activities like Double Dutch, which have some amount of physical distance built into them. What about marching band or drum corps — musical ensembles meant for outdoors? And perhaps a pool party would be possible, given proper social distancing measures. No virus can spread in chlorinated water.
Yes, we can add activities that are compatible with the circumstances. And there’s no reason that some of those can’t be online. Now that we are Zoom experts, we can take advantage of video conferences in order to learn what our classmates look like without masks on. We can do collaborative projects that are reinforced by some in-person interactions.
The specifics of our plan — scheduling, logistics, and metrics for adjusting it — will be worked out by a group of parents and teachers dedicated to the task. But now, I have a sense of how we can create positive changes in our school environment, not just negative ones. We can find elegant solutions not only to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but also to solve the problems caused by our disease prevention and risk mitigation.
In the first couple of months of the pandemic, my team and I didn’t have much bandwidth for coming up with new ideas. We were exhausted, just trying to survive. The complexity of assessing risks made it simpler for governments and institutions to tell everyone to stay home. Now, as we reemerge, we can muster the energy and enthusiasm to find ingenious ways to give students an educational experience that’s worth the hassle without increasing the risk of illness.
Unlike the foolish superintendent sending students and teachers out onto icy roadways, we can keep everyone safe while still helping them move forward in learning and growth. With creative thinking, clever planning, and festive collaboration, we are laying the groundwork not just for a short-term fix, but for long-term benefits to our school and its people.
Is there a way that your organization can create a win-win in the midst of the coronavirus? What problems might be caused by your proposed solution — and can you solve those, too?
