Gov. Wolf, You Can’t Shirk Your Duty to Close PA Schools During the Pandemic by Steven Singer

“The Buck Stops Here!”

President Harry S. Truman famously displayed a sign on his desk saying exactly that.

It indicated that he didn’t pass the buck but accepted responsibility for the way the country was run.

What does it say on your desk, Gov. Tom Wolf?

Your latest Tweets don’t fill Pennsylvania residents with confidence:

“There are widespread rumors that I will soon be announcing a statewide school building closure or cancelling classes this fall. I want to be clear: I am not closing school buildings or cancelling classes.”

“School governing boards and administrators will determine if school buildings reopen and if classes resume in person, remotely, or a combination of the two. The best way to find out about these local decisions is to contact your school’s governing board or administration.”

 
Well, that’s two things you now have in common with President Donald Trump.

First, you’re making policy by Tweet.

Second, you are side stepping your obligations.

“I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump said when asked about his administration’s inability to test Americans for the Coronavirus during the outbreak.

That’s what you sound like today.

COVID-19 cases have been spiking throughout the Commonwealth since early June – especially in Allegheny, Philadelphia, Delaware and Montgomery counties.

Today in Allegheny County, where I live, the Health Department reported the second highest increase in new cases – 244.

 
That is the most new cases in the state. Philadelphia comes next with 130 new cases. Together, these two counties make up more than 38% of the state’s new COVID-19 cases.

And yet we have school directors looking at this same data and making different decisions.

In the Pittsburgh region, school boards at East Allegheny, Woodland Hills and Wilkinsburg districts have all decided to reopen schools with classes completely on-line – at least to start. Meanwhile, in neighboring districts like McKeesport Area School District and Steel Valley School District, they are moving forward with hybrid plans that incorporate on-line and in-person classes in the physical school buildings.

And those are the outliers.

The majority haven’t made decisions yet complaining of a lack of safety guidelines from the county and a lack of direction from you, the governor.

You don’t get to decide what schools teach or how local communities make educational decisions.

But whether school buildings physically reopen or not during a pandemic is not an educational decision. It is a public safety decision.

 
Back in March when the virus started spreading throughout the state, you choose to close down businesses and schools.

As chief executive of the state, you had an obligation to do that.

It’s a crying shame that many in government have politicized every aspect of this disaster and the response to it.

I know you have taken a lot of criticism from Republicans trying to score points off your quick and sound judgement in this matter. They call you a tyrant because you did what every previous governor has done during a statewide disaster – you made decisions to safeguard lives.

Nothing has changed. If anything, there are significantly more cases reported every day now than in March.

If schools needed to be closed to in-person classes and education needed to be conducted on-line back then, that is still true today.

Perhaps this doesn’t have to be statewide. Perhaps it can be decided county-by-county. But you need to work collaboratively with county officials and school boards to coordinate the response to the virus.

Otherwise, there inevitably will be outbreaks at schools that reopen to in-person schooling. And since most districts are not separated by wide open spaces and residents frequently travel between them to buy groceries or other necessities, those outbreaks will spread.

A district that wisely decides to keep children 100% online will be susceptible to infections from residents in neighboring districts and bring those infections home.

This is not the responsibility of local school directors. It requires an authority that goes beyond the neighborhood and provincial decision making.

This is YOUR responsibility.

Frankly, the federal government, too, should be playing a larger role to help coordinate state responses. After all, the virus is not limited by state lines either.

But just because this President has neglected his duties, that does not give you the right to do the same.

If you refuse to make this decision, many more people will get sick from COVID-19 than would otherwise. Many more people will eventually die.

These are teachers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and – yes – even children.

You can do something about that.

You have a responsibility to do something about it.

Do your duty.