Coronavirus & School Closures: Schools Can Open Safely

I don’t blame schools that closed last March. My school did, and I supported the decision. We knew little about COVID, so the risk of mass casualty outweighed any benefits of in-person instruction. Nor did I much blame schools that opted to shutter their doors in September, for the same reasons. However, today, it is difficult to justify continued online instruction as health officials learn more about the disease, more schools open without detrimental results, and we see the immense cost of prolonged closure.

Safe, in-person education is a possibility. In the fall, my school opened. We mask. We wash our hands. We socially distance. We have desk separators. A few students have tested positive, but we’ve traced all transmission to exposure outside of our walls. When this happens, students, teachers, and even entire classes quarantine at home. I work with a Bluetooth earpiece switched on and a Google Meet running for any students at home after a positive exposure. As a result, we’ve had no known spread within the building, no mass outbreaks, no nightmare scenario. It’s not a particularly complex or difficult affair.

About the Author

Daniel Buck

Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.

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I don’t blame schools that closed last March. My school did, and I supported the decision. We knew little about COVID, so the risk of mass casualty outweighed any benefits of in-person instruction. Nor did I much blame schools that opted to shutter their doors in September, for the same reasons. However, today, it is difficult to justify continued online instruction as health officials learn more about the disease, more schools open without detrimental results, and we see the immense cost of prolonged closure.

Safe, in-person education is a possibility. In the fall, my school opened. We mask. We wash our hands. We socially distance. We have desk separators. A few students have tested positive, but we’ve traced all transmission to exposure outside of our walls. When this happens, students, teachers, and even entire classes quarantine at home. I work with a Bluetooth earpiece switched on and a Google Meet running for any students at home after a positive exposure. As a result, we’ve had no known spread within the building, no mass outbreaks, no nightmare scenario. It’s not a particularly complex or difficult affair.