And, American schools need to reopen in fall

Online schooling has failed. American schools need to reopen in the fall.
It has now become obvious that the steady diet of online instruction put in place for the coronavirus pandemic not only has hurt kids academically and increased absenteeism, but has contributed to anxiety and depression and probably even aggravated health problems such as obesity.
“All policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a June report.
A few states are starting to tackle the challenge of balancing the proven damage inflicted by inadequate internet technology and the deeper shortcomings of digital learning against the uncertain risks of Covid-19 infection. California, New Jersey, Alabama and Louisiana are among several states that have published detailed guidelines for enabling at least some in-person instruction. Other states, notably New York, have lagged behind.
Although New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a back-to-school plan before the July 4 weekend, it was short on details and clouded by political feuding. Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a long-running game of one-upmanship, disputed the mayor’s authority to act, but didn’t offer his own plan.
It’s past time to put aside politics. States that are not yet prepared should borrow from other states. California and New Jersey’s detailed blueprints, for example, recognise that each district must develop its own plan based on local needs and healthcare realities. They avoid mandates, instead providing suggestions for everything from staggered-class schedule options to enable social distancing to strategies for loading school buses safely (back-to-front during pickup and first-in, last-off for drop-off via California’s recommendations) to the equipment and hygiene protocols to deter viral infections.
There are no perfect solutions. Opening schools will entail some risks — though child-care centers that stayed open in New York City when it was the nation’s pandemic epicenter, and school reopenings in Europe more recently, suggest that these can be kept very low, in part because children appear to be less likely than adults to contract and spread the virus.
The first priority should be to return small children, pre-K through third grade, to in-person instruction. “Learning is social in young children; to deprive them of that is to deprive them of learning,” said Carol Burris, president of the Network for Public Education and a former award-winning New York principal.
Older students also will need to meet in person. But by breaking classes into smaller cohorts, schools can create rotations for meeting, say, two days per week in person and two days working on projects at home.

—Bloomberg