It’s easy to get lost. Honestly, many of us feel adrift right now. One lost item that has not been receiving enough attention: EXIT PLANS for when the Entrance plan does not work. If we storm the castle and find we are outnumbered — what will we do next?
Eduhonesty: We talk all the time about opening schools. What about closing them? What are the exit plans? Where are the exit plans? I should give New York City credit here — although the state of school infrastructure remains highly questionable — because at least its version of a plan includes shutting schools when COVID positivity rates hit 3 percent. That’s a rational plan based in data. Other areas are going district by district and even school by school. That’s not any plan at all. That’s the Cherokee County School District closing Woodstock High School when COVID cases increased to a total of 14, with tests for another 15 students still pending, and hundreds of kids and adults in line to quarantine. That’s a bunch of struggling students and educators watching themselves crawlin’ out as they go a-crawlin’ in.
That’s “someone painted ‘April Fool’ in big black letters on a ‘Dead end ‘Sign,” if you remember the song, “Just Dropped In,” the countercultural song written by Micky Newbury that is inspiring my next few posts.
This is a union issue and that will be my next post. But for now, let me ask a critical question: Who is taking care of us? Is the government taking care of us? I’m afraid the post-COVID world seems to be pretty much everyone for him/her/they self. Lucky people have a good governor. In more fortunate areas, strong unions are attempting to guide school openings and closures. But other areas have neither the state governor nor the union to manage the situation — no central forces to fight on the side of good against one purely evil microbe.
Parents and teachers, on top of everything else, I am sorry to say I am going to recommend you talk with school administrators and members of your school board. It’s not too soon — in some geographic areas it’s rather late — to demand to know what happens if the COVID numbers start ramping up hard and fast. I believe we may turn the corner on this epidemic soon, but we are not there yet. What is the plan?
“We will assess that situation should it occur” is not a plan. “We will deal with things on a case-by-case basis” is not a plan. “Let’s see how the opening goes first” is for damn sure not a plan.
No plan has to be set in stone. A district can decide 3% is manageable and 3.5% is not, and a district can shift students and schools based on what is happening. Our leaders must be able to flex with changes and unexpected outcomes.
But this tripping on a cloud of hopefulness while falling from from eight miles high only ends in a crash, and potentially a crash of epic proportions. We can do better by America’s teachers and students. The old military maxim, HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY, should guide all U.S. school districts as we open for live instruction .
COVID testing is producing a nonstop stream of numbers. Let’s use them wisely to build data-driven exit strategies — because, as 2020 keeps demonstrating over and over again, life is what happens when you are making other plans.