So, the yammering pumpkin in the White House wants to open schools, as do all of his flying monkeys in Congress and in Republican Governor mansions around the country. Big deal. Everyone wants schools to open. Everyone. All Democrats want schools to open. All public health experts want schools to open. Parents really want schools to open. The difference, of course, is that thinking people know that the only way to safely open schools is by creating and following a careful, science-based plan that ensures the well being of all students and teachers (and by the way, the student’s and teacher’s immediate families and their communities). This fact is totally lost on your President.

There has been a great deal of attention over the last few days in the press about opening schools in the US. Much of the focus has been on the difference of opinion between the yammering pumpkin and the CDC on what factors need to be in place to ensure safe schools. Now let’s say your kids are about to go back to school this fall. Who do you want in charge of their safety? CDC or Trump? Tough choice. How about if I add Fox News to Trump’s side of the equation? Even tougher now, huh?

What are we even talking about? There should be no debate. School districts should utilize their state and local health departments to help them interpret and apply the CDC guidelines to their particular situation and devise a plan that educates their students while ensuring their safety and the teachers’ safety. When there is doubt, the school decision-makers should err on the side of caution. They will need to be both innovative and wise, but I think some type of uniform education for our students in the fall is doable – just may look different.

Let’s be clear about one fact: the main factor in determining if it is safe in any area to return children to schools is the Covid epi curve for that state and county.  States like Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, Georgia and others have no right to be contemplating opening “brick and mortar” schools statewide over the next 2 months. These state’s Governors all made short-sighted decisions in May by opening their economies too quickly and by not following the CDC guidelines for re-opening. Most of these decisions were made to placate a fool whose only interest is in re-election in November. That’s what happens when you make short-sighted decisions – you pay in the long run. And these states are now paying in full. Record breaking new case numbers, rising deaths, and overwhelmed hospitals are the current legacy of their decisions. It will get worse.

The American people cannot let these same men make the decisions concerning the safety of their children. It will result in a debacle and children will be caught in the middle. We are not sure exactly what this virus does in children. Children seem to be less susceptible to infection, but that is not completely certain. We do know that 100’s of children have been hospitalized with inflammatory symptoms after testing positive for Covid. We also know that this virus has been surprising scientists at every turn with the damage that it does to the human body. We can’t let the nation’s children face an unreasonable risk based on our current level of knowledge. Simply put, we still do not know everything this virus does to us and we cannot use our kids as guinea pigs.

I am not an education expert, so I do not propose to tell teachers and administrators how to solve this problem. I will state, for most of this country right now, the old standard of 30 kids and a teacher in a small room for 7 hours is a non-starter, no matter what your level of testing and tracing. Also, at the present time, for some counties in the US, you cannot put these kids back in a school building. You cannot set new case records every day, have a test positivity rate of 25%, and have less than 5% capacity of ICU beds and open your schools. Let me make this clear, Governor, you have an out of control epidemic of a disease that hospitalizes about 20% of its victims and kills 1-4%. Try and deal with that first, then worry about opening your schools. Opening schools under those conditions is like forcing meat and poultry workers to stay on the line even as the disease ravages their plants. The devastation will be frightening. Only this time it will impact white people and their kids. Even southern state Governors will have to take notice of that. Maybe, depends on the yammering pumpkin, I guess.

VOTE!

Be careful. Be informed. Be safe.