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Elementary school principals have said that reopening schools in September will be incredibly challenging and that schools will need significant additional funding to make it happen.
They say schools will need guidance from the Department of Education by the end of this month to have enough time to plan.
They outline a litany of potential problems, but are also concerned that there is great uncertainty about what the public health situation will require at the time.
They say significant additional funds will be needed to provide personal protective equipment for staff, install hand sanitizers, and install hot water in toilets. Many elementary schools do not have hot water in the restrooms.
More than 550,000 children attend primary school here.
Cleaning also presents a problem. Schools complain that their ancillary grants do not currently cover the cost of very basic cleaning. If schools reopen when necessary, much deeper and labor intensive cleaning regimes will be needed.
Among the “main problems” identified are the fact that a significant proportion of children depend on bus transportation to get to school, and the difficulty of accommodating children in existing classroom infrastructure under social distancing protocols.
Those who travel to school by bus include vulnerable children with underlying health difficulties.
There are suggestions that students may return to school in stages, with some years, such as exam years at the second level, prioritized over others.
Children may also be required to alternate between days or weeks at school and time at home.
This would lead to reduced numbers on any given day since it would allow the implementation of social distancing measures.
Staffing
However, these reduced number plans bring their own problems.
Among the workers for whom any kind of alternate school attendance system would create childcare difficulties are the teachers themselves.
The vast majority of teachers here are women and many of them have young families. How can those teachers go to work if their own children have to be home on certain days or weeks?
School administrators also point to the current crisis in education personnel. They say that schools survive because teachers come to work even when they are sick, for example with a cold. In September that will not be possible. Anyone with any of these symptoms will have to stay home.
They also point to the fact that the profession’s gender and age profile means that a high proportion of teachers are pregnant at any given time and would have valid concerns about exposing themselves to the danger of contagion in a classroom.
Curriculum
In addition to the physical reorganization of the schools, there is concern that the curriculum may also need to be “reorganized”.
The modern elementary school curriculum and the teaching methods it requires bear little resemblance to what parents will remember of their own school days. Gone are the days when the “teacher” was on the board at the top of the classroom.
School work is now extremely collaborative and based on active learning. The children sit together in groups. They work closely together. They are encouraged to move around the classroom. Teachers and the SNA also move around the class, working closely with groups of children at once.
“Will we have to go back to the 1977 curriculum?” reflect on a director.
Road map
School managers say schools need a roadmap in order to plan and work for a return in September. They say they need it by the end of this month.
Elementary schools are extremely interested in getting children back.
Your concerns are much more likely to focus on the mental health and well-being of your students rather than any concerns about their educational achievement.
School principals, teachers, and school administrators know that it is not good for children’s mental health to be out of school for so long and in such anxious times.
Experienced school principals say that while children can catch up on their learning, school for many children is a vitally stabilizing and reassuring part of their lives.
At this stage, school principals and managers don’t know what a September reopening would look like. What they do know is that it will be a major challenge and that they need guidance.
“This is a massive massive enterprise,” says one main source. “It will take very careful planning and communication.”
It is very easy to close schools. It looks like it will be much more difficult to reopen them.
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