What is the Battle Plan?
/Today at 1:00 pm we are to learn how Nashville’s public schools will “re-open” in just a few weeks’ time in the midst of a worsening Covid pandemic.
This is an anxious moment for parents, faculty, and others who fear what may happen - and with good reasons. Because what presidents and governors and commissioners declare from their flag-adorned rostrums is one thing; what parents actually chose is quite another.
Only the deluded souls who’ve been persuaded this is all just a “hoax” are unconcerned now. Most other folks are genuinely worried that schools may not be safe for their kids.
It is essential for us all to understand the context this morning. Nationally, the norms in which America’s schools have traditionally operated are now being super-politicized:
National polling tells us a majority of parents of school-aged children remain fearful of fully re-engaging school schedules.
On Tuesday, President Trump declared in his top-down manner that he was pressuring governors to see to it that America’s schools fully resume on schedule. He also pressured the CDC to back off its science-based guidance for how that should be done. (Today CDC refused to do this.)
Trump threatened to withhold or impound federal funds if local school leaders don’t fall in line now. (I had expected we would hear something from at least a couple Nashville school board members, in response to this particular threat, but so far only silence.)
The Governor of Florida quickly did fall in line, and so did his Florida commissioner of education. (We should pay close attention to what the governors of Tennessee and Georgia say and do next. They were the quickest, last month, to push re-openings of other activities - and we are seeing the consequences of that.)
The Tennessean reports, this morning, that yesterday was Tennessee’s “worst day yet” in new Covid cases.
The Trump administration seems determined to weigh in against any strategy, by actual school leaders at the local district level, to do anything short of a traditional re-opening, with classrooms looking just as they did before this public-health disaster came.
The question this morning is how much of this one-size-fits-all approach has influenced what Nashville’s school Director Adrienne Battle will announce today at 1:00.
How will our classrooms actually work?
How will elementary schools and high schools differ in functional arrangements for the fall?
How will the issues surrounding remote-learning, especially the hard learnings of last spring, be corrected now? Almost a third of Nashville students’ homes don’t have computers.
What level of creativity are Nashville’s school leaders bringing to this critical planning? For example, will there be new variations of the school day, facilities usage, and transportation schedules to make possible enough separation of children? This is not just about “deep cleaning” classrooms at the end of every day.
These are essential questions. Good and honest questions. We will see some answers, I hope, this afternoon.
© Keel Hunt, 2020
