As pediatricians, many of us have recognized already the impact that having schools closed even for a couple months had on children. At the same time, a lot of us are parents. We experienced our own kids doing online learning. There really wasn’t a lot of learning happening. Now we’re seeing studies documenting this. Kids being home led to increases in behavioral health problems. There were reports of increased rates of abuse.
Of course, the reason they were at home was to help control the pandemic. But we know a lot more now than we did then, when schools first closed. We’re still learning more every day...
From our perspective as pediatricians, the downsides of having kids at home versus in school are outweighed by the small incremental gain you would get from having kids six feet apart as opposed to five, four or three. When you add into that other mitigation measures like mask wearing, particularly for older kids, and frequent hand washing, you can bring the risk down.
I do think it’s a balance. I’m not going to come out here and say on June 30 that everything is going to be perfect in the coming school year. There will be cases of Covid-19 in schools even where they make their best efforts. But we have to balance that with the overall health of children...
Reopening schools is so important for the kids, but really for the entire community. So much of our world relies on kids being in school and parents being able to work. Trying to work from home with the kids home is disproportionately impacting women. So it goes beyond just the health of the child, which is, of course, very important. As a country, we should be doing everything we can right now, for lots of reasons, to make sure we can safely reopen schools in the fall.
He thinks wearing masks is important and effective. Clearly other doctors have a difference of opinion with him. Still, what I quoted above makes sense to me.
7 comments:
But....but...but...I only have one more year til retirement and I was kinda hoping for some more half-ass distance learning so I could have more time to work on my golf swing!!!
What about me, Darren? Huh?
Amen!
ObieJuan, I found the distance *teaching* to be more labor-intensive than in-class teaching. Since the students weren't really held accountable for *learning*, though, maybe I was a fool for trying to be the professional.
And you probably don't play golf...
I do not.
Just an observation-and I retired last year so I don't have a dog in this hunt-too many people with kids in elementary school use school as free government daycare. As such they do and will send seriously sick kids to school because they can't (or won't) choose to miss work. So while children and teens are less likely to get COVID, staff can and will. I remember before my first year teaching I was warned that I will catch every bug going through the school. I did. I also admit to working sick because I had my own children and could not afford to miss days when they were sick as well as being sick myself. I think that type of bravado will change. I hope high schools get rid of awards for attendance because some of my worst offenders for students coming to school sick were the kids in line for the scholarship that 100% attendance offered. I do think kids need to be in school, in person. I've seen the backpedaling of my bright grandson to immature behaviors. I'm hoping that doesn't manifest in retrograde on his academics. While some parents are great at homeschooling, when a bright kid has a much younger sibling and a pregnant mother, he's not going to get the rigor and challenge he needs. There's a private school in our area that has always done a 3/2 mix with 3 days in class and 2 days at home working independently. Sadly, that school is costly and not close enough for my grandson. All I can offer is good luck. With high school kids having witnessed protests and violence unchecked, it's going to be a challenging year.
Ellen, I believe one of the primary responsibilities of schools is to provide "free government daycare". These parents are taxpayers and they rely on having a safe place to drop off their children in the a.m. and pick them up in the p.m.
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