Philadelphia Schools Headed for Reopening: Is It Safe?
By: Draki' Ballard
November 10, 2020The School District of Philadelphia aims to return to send students back to school safely by the end of November. They will start with Pre-K and Kindergarten because they believe that these grades will benefit most from returning to school in person. But is it really safe? Should families risk their kids' health by sending them back to school?
On September 29th, Philadelphia’s neighbor to the north, New York City, reopened District Schools. This only lasted one week before some schools were shut down again because COVID cases started spreading around the school. Teachers, like Annie Tan, a 5th Grade teacher at a school in Sunser Park, Brooklyn, faced the uncertainty of whether schools would remain open or return back to virtual learning.
“Schools opened in-person September 29th,” Annie said. “I believe a school closed October 2nd, and 169 schools were closed after a week after Gov. Cuomo's order to close down schools in orange and red zones with rising Covid rates.”
The school environment did not feel safe for some teachers in New York City. They weren’t 100% sure on whether or not it was safe for them to be there and were not confident that the safety plans proposed by lawmakers were going to be effective.
“I didn't feel safe and still don't,” Annie continued. “There are still tons of questions to be answered, including whether ventilation is enough during this pandemic, especially since the CDC keeps backtracking on whether this virus is airborne, and the fact that we have instructional lunch in the classroom and the kids are eating lunch in front of me unmasked and that we're all in the same classroom for five hours. We are half an avenue from the governor's orange zone right now meaning we're right next to where COVID-19 is spreading and if we were just half an avenue east we'd be fully remote for two weeks. There's also no trust in the mayor's plan and it feels chaotic.”
The School District of Philadelphia also has a plan to keep teachers and students safe. This plan includes groups of students slowly, beginning with Pre-K students, as long as monitoring of school health and safety practices and COVID-19 conditions support it is safe to do so. In Philadelphia, the protocols that are going to be taken to try and keep students safe are schools will prioritize plexiglass barriers for classrooms that have the most students or for classrooms without sufficient Schools will prioritize plexiglass barriers for classrooms that have the most students or for classrooms without sufficient spaces for desks to be six feet apart, ensure handwashing strategies include washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, etc. These measures taken by NYC schools to try to keep everyone safe didn’t work.
“NYC schools used ventilation reports, PPE, cleaning sprays, hand sanitizer, stickers on the ground to enforce social distancing, digital thermometers sent to schools for each student, health screenings every day for anyone coming into school buildings, opening windows in classrooms and leaving the door open at all times for ventilation" Annie, said.
With all of these protocols in place, schools still struggled to remain open. From a teacher’s perspective, it feels exhausting. With all of the necessary measures taken to be safe, teaching doesn’t feel the same.
“We are really exhausted and I know there's a lot of context here that is likely missing," Annie explained. "That we want to teach well and we're waiting for the other shoe to drop and for us all to go remote finally.”
Not all schools in Philly have been closed through the pandemic. Three Catholic schools that were opened in Philadelphia doing half in person, half at home were closed down recently due to someone testing positive for COVID. “The three students that tested positive for COVID-19 are in two different grades and each are believed to have been exposed to a contagious family member," the article from NBC10 explained.
If these smaller, private schools couldn’t prevent shutdowns in Philadelphia, how will the School District of Philadelphia handle this task with much larger numbers of students and staff returning to buildings?
All in all, it is not the right time for schools to reopen safely. Cases are beginning to rise again and returning to school will make it worse. The Pennsylvania Department of Education also recommends that Philadelphia waits to send children back to school. There is more research to be done before determining whether or not children should return to school in person.
“I think there are ways to open safely but I don't think local governments are going to provide all the funding, infrastructure, supplies, resources, guidance, needed to reopen," Annie shared. "There was no plan that took educator and student input and the workload has been so much, which has been causing further anxiety. If there were a good plan with educator and student and family input, yes, but at this time I don't think anyone has a sound plan that will keep people safe.”