When the Port Townsend School District reopened the doors in September 2020 my family opted out of in-classroom learning. We opted back in at the beginning of November. My youngest was happy to return to Blue Heron Middle School even if it was for only two days a week. She attended a total of five days before the school closed because of rising COVID cases in the county. Everybody went back to distance learning.
Call me a malcontent, call me cranky, or call me somebody who just wants something better for my kids. Over the last several months I have observed the process of online schooling with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I know the teachers are working as hard as they can with what they have. I would like them to see what I am seeing. Staring at a computer screen for most of the day is not good for my children. It is not helping with their social or physical development. It is not generating a desire to be lifelong learners.
I don’t have the ability to teach my children everything they need to know at this point in their education. I imagine many other parents feel the same. This will be a lost year for many students in our community.
I look for answers from administrators that are also trying really hard to find a way through this. They offer a barrage of explanations, including assurances that officials are talking with each other regularly, data is being compiled, and statistics are being analyzed. But no one can say exactly what the metrics are for the schools to reopen. Meanwhile our kids fall farther and farther behind.
I am sent lengthy policy statements and a decision tree laying out a pathway to reopening, detailing a process that, if followed to the letter, seems to be practically impossible.
Like many experiences in this year of “Just Shut Everything Down” I am left wondering what has happened to the can-do approach that used to exist in our culture.
Have we come to a point in history where our only option is to stay home and isolate because anything that might involve the slightest risk is too much of a liability for the powers that be?
I can’t fight the bureaucracy, but I can share the next best option. It is not my idea, but it is a concept that is gaining momentum nationally. I believe it deserves full consideration by our state legislature:
Families should immediately be provided with a refund—a prorated portion of the money that would have been spent by the state in which they reside and by their local school district from the beginning of March through the end of the school year.
Those dollars should be placed in a restricted-use education savings account that parents could use to pay for virtual tutors, online learning, textbooks, curriculums, diagnostic tests, and other products and services, in order to maintain education continuity for their children during this crisis.
School Districts Owe Parents A Covid-19 Refund, by Lindsey M. Burke Ph.D. writing for the Heritage Foundation.
Washington State’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction has a biennial budget of tens of billions of dollars. If there is a surplus because the schools have been closed for most of the year, the funds should be returned to the parents to help them cover the cost of educating their children at home.
On Friday, December 12th, as a parent in the Port Townsend School District, I received this email from Sara Rubenstein, director of communications, telling me what the future holds.
On Wednesday afternoon Governor Inslee announced updated guidance for schools that may allow Port Townsend Schools to return to our blended learning model at some point in January or February, as well as resume some other school activities. We will make these changes no sooner than January 19th and most likely at the end of the semester if our county Health Department can support these changes. We will update families in early January as we see updated information on the case numbers and positivity rates after the holidays.
Maybe January 19, more likely the end of the semester – January 29th. maybe February. Maybe.
We have paid full fare for public schools and are receiving part-time learning. Our state representatives and the Superintendent of Public Instruction need to be told that the system is not working. They have the power and the responsibility to return any surplus funds. What we can do as parents is to make it clear to our elected officials that if they aren’t willing to find a better way to educate our children in a crisis, we are more than happy to lead the way.
Brett Nunn has spent the last two decades in Port Townsend’s Uptown, raising a family, volunteering at local schools and wandering the outdoors. He writes about survival, community and culture. He is the author of the book, “Panic Rising: True-Life Survivor Tales from the Great Outdoors.”
My suggestion: Vaccinate all of the teachers & school staff as first responders in part 1(b), wait four weeks to get the second jab. Then open schools five days a week. Kids wear masks in school, moderate social distancing. Teachers deciding not to vaccinate are placed on leave without pay.