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By Angela Charlton / The Associated Press
PARIS – A mother and her three children scanned school supplies in a Paris supermarket, pulling out multi-colored fountain pens, crisp notebooks and lots of masks. Despite the resurgence of coronavirus infections, similar scenes are unfolding in Europe as a new school year begins.
Virus or no virus, European authorities are determined to return children to classrooms, reduce the learning gaps between the haves and the have-nots, which deepened during the confinements, and get their parents back to work .
Faced with an increase in virus cases, authorities in France, Britain, Spain and elsewhere are imposing rules on masks, hiring additional teachers, and building new desks and classrooms.
While America’s back-to-school saga has been politicized and chaotic, with a hodgepodge of rapidly changing rules and a backlash against President Donald J. Trump’s insistence on reopening, European governments have faced a minor fuss.
And even though the virus has invaded classrooms in recent days from Berlin to Seoul, with some teachers and parents warning that their schools are not ready, European leaders of the political left, right and center are sending a message. Unusually consistent: even in a pandemic, kids do better in class.
France’s prime minister vowed on Wednesday to “do everything” to get people back to school and work. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the reopening of schools a “moral duty” and his government even threatened to fine parents who keep their children at home. Italy’s health minister abruptly closed nightclubs this month with one goal in mind: “to reopen schools in September in complete safety.”
As a parent and teacher, Mathieu Maillard has a lot to worry about before French schools reopen on Tuesday. The number of virus infections per 100,000 people has increased fivefold in France in the last month.
How will your 5-year-old daughter keep a safe distance from the friends she’s so excited to see for the first time in six months? How will you gain the trust of your high school students, from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Marseille, if you have to watch the use of their masks?
But overall, Maillard thinks it’s time to go back. School “has to start over at some point,” he says. “The health risk exists, but the risk of not taking children to school is even higher.”
During the confinement, he said, some students never joined his French literature classes online. Some didn’t have a place to work, or didn’t have computers, just phones they used to send out blurry photos of handwritten work.
“Our students really, really need school,” he said. For those who grow up in an environment plagued by violence and drugs, school “is a place where they can breathe.”
Unlike the US, many European schools reopened at the end of the last quarter, offering lessons for the fall.
Among the measures implemented: hand washing stations, one-way hallways, staggered starts, and continuous lunch hours. Some regions are giving away laptops in case of new lockdowns. Many countries require masks at school, but the rules vary on where to wear them and at what age.
In south east London, Mark Davis, a father of three, expects schools to reopen in early September, but is upset about what will happen if there is a new wave of viruses.
“Everybody is pointing to this [return to school]But it is not good to hope for the best, ”he said. “It is necessary to implement plans.”
So far, the government says schools will only close as a last resort. But parents say the government’s message has not been clear and inconsistent.
Most of the UK’s 11 million students have not seen a classroom since March, and the reopening of schools is at the top of the political agenda. Britain has 41,515 virus-related deaths, the highest confirmed figure in Europe, and the Johnson government has been heavily criticized for its handling of the pandemic.
Some European schools are planning or considering a hybrid academic year, with some physical classes and some online, but most aim for full face-to-face classes.
That’s in line with guidance from global organizations like UNICEF, which said Thursday that at least a third of the world’s schoolchildren were unable to access remote learning during virus lockdowns. He warned that “the repercussions could be felt in economies and societies for decades.”
Medical experts say the risk of opening schools depends on the extent of Covid-19 infections in the community and the security measures taken.
Evidence suggests that young children do not transmit the disease very easily, while children 10 and older can transmit it as easily as adults. But experts say more conclusive evidence is needed. And although children seem less likely to be infected than adults, serious cases and deaths have occurred.
Amid an unexpected new wave of infections in Spain, authorities are scrambling to adapt plans to reopen schools on September 4. They include hiring an additional 11,000 teachers, building makeshift classrooms in schoolyards to gain space, and creating “bubbles” of students that are allowed to mingle with each other but not with strangers.
But the teachers’ unions denounce the shortage of funds and have called strikes starting next week.
Italy, Europe’s first virus outbreak, is hiring an additional 40,000 temporary teachers and requesting additional desks, but some won’t be ready until October. And many parents and teachers don’t know exactly how it will work when most schools reopen on September 14. They wonder how overcrowded and dilapidated schools can ensure distances of one meter (three feet) between students and smaller classes.
“They are on their heads,” said Cristina Tedesco, a parent representative from a high school class in the province of Verona.
Germany can serve as a warning or example to its neighbors.
At least 41 of Berlin’s 825 schools reported virus cases when classes resumed this month, and thousands of students have been quarantined across the country. But Germany is determined not to close schools again, so they are sending individual students or classes to quarantine.
Schools remained closed in most of Africa, Latin America and in some of the world’s most populous nations, such as India and Bangladesh. In the United States, some school districts are planning a combination of in-person and online learning to help maintain social distancing. Other districts are starting classes online only.
Parents and teachers are not the only people demanding a voice at school reopens. Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, sent all high school students home after a spike in virus cases, but teens declined, saying they don’t learn as much online.
Protesting Monday, they had signs that read, “I just want to go to school.”
