Of all of the seemingly intractable problems associated with public health and the broad effects of the pandemic on society and the economy, re-opening education from pre-school to university looks to be the one that will require the greatest amount of imagination, compromise and risk. The strategy of ‘just do it’ has been disgraced by the post-Memorial Day blow out that set the country back three months and the righteous fear that harm would occur to teachers, staff, and children if such a free-wheeling approach were taken with going back to school. Governments incapable of providing PPE and testing on a national basis are not likely to have the skill to manage a task with so many moving parts as 20,000 school districts,  colleges and universities. Putting health and safety first and going forward deliberately would appear to be the wisest course while providing wide variance for local particulars.

As a retired teacher who spent between my years as a student and  an instructor nearly a half century in the classroom I would offer a number of suggestions as to how to proceed slowly. The starting point is asking what our near term objectives are and remembering that schools need to be institutions governed by rules and that they need to model the behaviors that they seek to instill no matter what the nature of the content  being taught. In that sense, the affective and kinesthetic objectives are more pertinent to the plan than the cognitive ones because every site must support the emotional and physical safety of all involved while precluding the possibility of spreading infection to the families of those who go to school. These considerations mean that impetuous and risky approaches should be ruled out at the start and those that say ‘do it now, no matter what’ need to be gaveled silent.  We must take the time to do it right.