Fully Opening Schools
Many schools are either fully opened, hybrid, or fully virtual, depending on how many cases are in the area. To help broaden, your view on the situation, here are some reasons that support and don't support that kids need to be fully back in schools.
Social Interaction
By schools not being fully opened, many kids are losing a lot of social interaction due to not being able to attend school affecting their work ethic.
- “Social interaction is a motivator,” says Lori Markson, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University St. Louis. “It enhances and drives our ability to learn. We look to others as resources, and kids are paying attention to social interactions from early on.”
- “Even if you’re on Zoom, and you’re getting some of those social cues and that social feedback, it’s not the same,” Markson says.
​
​
Low Transmission Rate
Since kids are wearing are wearing masks and social distancing, there is a very low transmission rate at school.
- Benjamin's study of 11 school districts in North Carolina identified relatively few coronavirus cases from August to October: Only 32 infections were recorded in schools over nine weeks. Students ages 5 and up were required to wear masks, stay 6 feet apart, and wash their hands regularly.
- A new CDC report also detected minimal transmission among K-12 schools that required masks in Wisconsin's Wood County. Out of 5,530 students and staff members, only 191 COVID-19 cases were reported from August to November. Just seven of those cases were associated with in-school transmission.
​
Mental Health
Mental Health plays a huge role in opening schools.
- A study published in April in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics found that children in China, in grades two to six, experienced higher rates of depression and anxiety while in lockdown. Longer durations of lockdown were associated with higher rates of anxiety and depression.
- Spending greater amounts of time online can also exacerbate feelings of loneliness, agitation, anger, and despair, said Cynthia Martin, a psychologist at the Child Mind Institute in New York City.
​
Academic Loss
Learning at home conveys a significant loss in kid's learning.
- "Under these projections, students are likely to return in fall 2020 with approximately 63-68% of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year and with 37-50% of the learning gains in math."
- Once school resumes in September, the average student will have lost as much a third of their progress in reading and half of their progress in math, according to a study from the Northwest Evaluation Association.
- "The digital classroom can be boring, stressful, or distracting for kids and that can be so hard on kids in so many ways," Capanna-Hodge, a psychologist in Connecticut, said.
​
Helps with Families Financial Situations
Many families rely on school to help them get the things they need (food, and a place for their child so they can work).
- "the psychological welfare of the children, the fact that many children rely on schools for nutrition, for breakfast, for healthy lunches," Dr. Fauci said.
- More than 30 million children in low-income households rely on the free or reduced-price school meals program for their nutritional needs.
- "the unintended downstream ripple effects on families," he said, like parents needing to interrupt or stop work in order to take care of and homeschool their children.
​
Cons
Equipment
Unfortunately, a lot of expensive equipment has to be ordered in order for schools to fully reopen.
- Many schools also have struggled to balance investments in personal protective equipment and other safety precautions for in-person instruction with the technology and professional development necessary to reach students who will be learning at home part- or full-time, Bree Dusseault practitioner-in-residence at the University of Washington’s Center for Reinventing Public Education, which has been surveying schools throughout the pandemic.
- Strategies to help schools minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission would on average cost between $55 and $442 per student, depending on what measures are used, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.
​
More exposure
With most kids in the classroom, the chance of getting exposed or even getting COVID-19 dramatically increases.
- According to Dr. Sanborn, a doctor in the field of pediatric infectious diseases, although it seems that children may not spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus as effectively as adults, there is still major concern about a possible spike in infection rates, particularly in regions where infection rates are already high.
- Murphy, director of epidemiology at LetsGetChecked, points out that if someone in your household has a medical condition that makes it more likely they could develop a serious and potentially life-threatening case of COVID-19, having kids go back to school means they could more easily contract the coronavirus and infect that person."