What If They Reopen The Schools But No One Shows? by Dr. Michael Flanagan

* I preface this article by stating that remote teaching is not real education. Period. No matter how good the teacher is at the tech, it is still children stuck in front of a screen trying to educate themselves, with only the support of stressed and overworked parents to help them. It is even more difficult for children with special needs. I am not saying I WANT to continue remote teaching. At all. I am just arguing that until things are safe, it looks like we may have to. 

Despite the spikes in coronavirus contagion, politicians and media are moving full steam ahead to reopen schools in the Fall. Mayor de Blasio of New York City just announced on July 2nd that schools would be reopened in September. That’s right—with some as-yet unspecified hybrid model and socially-distanced programming. We’re hearing promises of the school buildings being “deep cleaned” every night, and “touchpoints” like door knobs being cleaned throughout the day. Oh, and masks will be mandated “at all times” because “the health and safety of students and staff are the top priorities”. 

Priorities? 

Broadway shows will remain closed till January 2021. Gyms are not reopening. Restaurants have no eat-in dining, but, schools will be open?

Yeah; you gotta have priorities.

The New York Post cited a recent parent survey that said 75% of parents want their children to return to school in September. Of course parents want their kids to return to school. That is a given. The question is, should they? 

The pressure to reopen schools, and return to work, will continue to intensify, no matter how many new cases of Covid-19 there are each day, and the numbers are growing. Businesses, politicians and even health professionals are in the process of trying to convince us that sending our kids back to school will be safe.

And these calls are being echoed by far too many anti-mask wearing conspiracy theorists. The hypocrisy of these science-deniers and anti-vaxxers, who all of a sudden take it as fact that children can’t get sick from this virus is glaring. Selective science to suit their political agendas. Stuck on stupid is more like it. Children can and will get sick from Covid-19. That is the fact. 

I’m a teacher. And as a teacher I may return to the school when they reopen. I am also a parent. And as a parent I do not feel safe—not now, anyway—sending my child back to a school building. I don’t care what the politicians say. My daughter wants to return to school, and I want her to be able to. But I also want her healthy. And alive.

Parents will have to make a very hard choice in September. Keep our jobs or try to protect our children? It will be incredibly difficult for any parent to try to figure out how to keep their younger children home if they feel it is too big a risk to send them back to school. 

What is also clear is that the lowest income communities—especially families of color—will have the fewest options to keep their children safe. We are talking about the essential workers who cannot afford childcare; who would be forced to choose their jobs over their children.

It is a privilege to be able to keep your child home, even in the face of financial hardship. A privilege that far too many will not have. 

What is also clear is that racism is helping to drive this reopening movement. Wealthier people—most of them white—who have the means to keep their children home are content to see poorer people risk their children’s lives, so they can eat out at restaurants and get their hair and nails done.

Covid-19 has already disproportionately targeted people of color. Now the same people claiming it is “their right to choose not to wear a mask” want to sacrifice children of color to the same school systems that they themselves will not let their own children attend, in the very cities they white-flighted from decades ago. 

Whenever I see the New York Post advocating for the reopening of schools I know they have jumped the shark. Rupert Murdoch has never cared for the most vulnerable of our cities. Donald Trump calls Black Lives Matter a message of hate, and cages the children of undocumented immigrants. The only colors they are concerned with are white and green.

The unsafe reopening of the schools during a pandemic will disproportionately harm communities of color. That is not by accident, it is by design. It is American racism at its worst.    

Most politicians and corporations do not care about people of color having to leave their children in dangerous schools, to potentially get them and themselves sick. They are counting on it. They will use all means—media propaganda, unemployment cuts, funding cuts, healthcare cuts—to divide and conquer. 

Forcing people of color to send their kids back to school before it is safe is not only racism, it is attempted genocide. 

I want the schools back open. I want to teach my students and I want my child in her classroom. I want her to learn and play sports with her friends. But we cannot let greed and systemic racism force us back before it is safe. Our government predicts hundreds of thousands of us will die. We should not be helping them meet that quota. 

So, let the politicians and pundits climb on their high horses and tout the reopening of schools. But we teachers and parents will not be blind sheep. When our children’s lives are threatened—as they will be if they are forced to return to unsafe schools—we will be wolves. We have teeth and will fight back if they try to sacrifice our children to the gods of capital. 

Lawsuits will rain down, and the names of the very people pushing to open up the schools will be at the top of those class actions. They will have bodies on their hands, souls on their conscience and lawyers at their throats.  

People, if you really want the schools to reopen, then start by wearing your damn masks. Then worry about those among us struggling the most...before you complain about not being able to go to Olive Garden or being able to get your nails done. 

As far as I can tell, many in this country cannot even do that. Every day there is a new video of a “Karen,” screaming and attacking store clerks after being told to wear a mask. These are the same Karens that want our schools reopened. 

So, what if they reopen the schools but no one shows? What if we, as parents, refuse to send our children back to school until it is safe for all of them? I know that will be an impossibility in this divided country, but if we could all coalesce on just one issue, I have to believe it would be the safety of our children over racism and greed.

#BlackLivesMatter