OK, let’s get right to it — yes, I’ve seen the posts and the graphics and the blog posts about how school might look in the fall. (Which, by the way, you can see directly for yourself from the actual source.)
I think we can all agree that the recommended guidelines don’t sound very appealing when applied to an environment that’s meant to nurture a child to reach their full potential in an educational setting.
Everything from face masks to nixing field trips to limited socialization has threatened to change just about everything we have come to know about school. I mean, what is first grade without a good exchange of germs on the playground?
Many of us know parents who are rightfully freaking out about how fall might look, and I definitely get it. I understand the concern, and it’s scary no matter which way you look at it, whether COVID-19 has personally affected you and your loved ones and you know how awful it can be, or whether you have been spared directly but know the larger implications it has had on society.
And call it quarantine fatigue or just a plain old survival tactic, but I have decided that I will not make any panicked decisions about school before I know more.
There’s still a lot of time ahead of us, and while I feel for the administrators and those involved in education who will have to make some tough calls with limited information, as a parent, I have the ability to choose how I approach this situation. And I am choosing to stay calm until I have a more accurate picture of which educational options will be available.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot we don’t know about the virus yet, including if it will spike again in the fall, how high the risk will be in a school setting, and how many of us have actually been exposed already. The summer months will hopefully provide us with some valuable information about how to best move forward.
Do I want my kids in masks all day? Of course not. Do I think schools —especially in low-income areas like ours — will actually be able to adhere to any of the guidelines? Probably not.
But I just don’t have it in me to make any long-term decisions just yet. Heck, I just barely made it through this school year!
I am aware that I am privileged to have been able to choose to wait and see, as my job does not depend on my children being in physical school. And because of that, I hope to wait this thing out.
For now, that is.
Ask me again how I feel in September.
