Reopening Schools Isn’t Risk-Free. Neither is Keeping Them Closed.

Staying at home has been bad for kids' emotional well-being, students have fallen behind, and at-risk kids are without a vital support system.

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Parents are understandably concerned about the risks of children going back to school in the fall. Echelon Insights recently reported that 65 percent of American parents say that “schools should remain closed until they are certain there is no health risk, even if it means students fall farther behind.” Los Angeles schools chief Austin Beutner declared in early June, “Science tells us there is currently no way to be back at school facilities without risk.” The American Association of School Administrators says that 94 percent of superintendents aren’t sure when their schools will reopen, while educational leaders insist that schools can’t reopen safely without more funds.

There are certainly potential risks—to students, staff, and public health—to reopening. Yet evidence suggests that these are less severe than some imagine. A six-nation study published in Nature Medicine, for instance, finds that youth under age 20 are half as susceptible to infection as adults. More than 70 nations around the globe have already lifted nationwide school closings, and countries where schools have been reopened for more than a month—including Denmark, Germany, Australia, and Finland—have not experienced any resulting resurgence in cases.

While there are certainly risks to reopening, those must be weighed against the risks of not reopening. 

Social isolation has been devastating to students’ social and emotional well-being. While the full extent of the shutdown’s impact on mental health can’t yet be fully known, early portents are grim. In April, the Department of Health and Human Services’ “Disaster Distress Helpline” recorded a 1,000 percent (!) increase in call volume compared to April 2019. A study of 2,300 Chinese elementary school students in JAMA Pediatrics found that 23 percent reported having depressive symptoms during the shutdown, a 35 percent jump from the norm. And a recent poll of American teens found that more than 20 percent report feeling disconnected from their school communities and classmates, 25 percent report that they’ve lost sleep due to worry, and 30 percent report that they feel unhappy or depressed.

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  1. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    I'm OK with re-opening schools, with 3 conditions:
    1) Prevalence of COVID needs to be reduced as demonstrated by a stable low level of new cases;
    2) Schools need to implement precautions like physical distancing, increased hygiene, and mandatory wearing of masks when kids are in closer proximity indoors;
    3) Contact tracing to identify if an outbreak occurs in a school, and limit further spread.
    In my city, condition 1) is met. The school board has partially fulfilled 2), although they're trying to avoid wearing masks via dubious reasoning, and 3) is functionally absent.

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  2. Avatar photo
    cheerio

    Ultimately, whether schools are reopened depend upon two populations--parents willing to send their children and teachers willing to come in and teach them. They need to be convinced of safety or it's a no-go. Children are notorious germ spreaders. I can always tell who have preschool-middle school age children at home among my coworkers. They are the ones who are always sick with one virus after another.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Tracie

      Children don't appear to be a force for spreading this particular virus.

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  3. Paul Zummo

    "Echelon Insights recently reported that 65 percent of American parents say that “schools should remain closed until they are certain there is no health risk, even if it means students fall farther behind.”

    These parents are aware that the flu is more likely to kill their children than COVID, right? Based on this insane standard, we should never re-open schools.

    I really wish my fellow parents would actually look at science and data rather than letting fear take hold of them to make really poorly informed decisions. I have so many concerns about my children, and COVID is about near the bottom of them. Actually, that's only partially true - the long-term ramifications of school closures and other restrictions due to COVID is near the top of my concerns.

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    1. Avatar photo
      George.Skinner

      I'm wary of making comparisons to the flu simply because so little is known about how COVID attacks the body and whether children act as carriers. Recent studies have shown a number of children with antibodies showing they've had COVID, and an increased rate of presentation at hospitals with a Kawasaki-like syndrome. Bottom line, they may not get acutely ill like adults, but there's the possibility of life-long health consequences. The data on transmission is also pretty sparse due to limited testing. I agree that we have to be realistic about some level of risk, but let's ensure we understand the things that we don't know when assessing that risk.

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    2. Jess

      I agree that the risk/benefit ratio of keeping schools closed is too high. However, keep in mind that parents may be worried, not about their kids getting Covid, but about their kids bringing Covid home.

      I assess the risks of Covid for my kids as low, but my husband has two risk factors—over 50 and male. Also, the post-Covid immune syndrome sounds awful for the subset of “long haulers”. Exhaustion, joint pain, continued fevers etc.

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      1. Paul Zummo

        Fair enough. There are always unique situations and we are going to have to be adaptable.

        There seems to be a consistent stream of evidence suggesting kids do not transmit the virus to adults, but I don't think we know enough to assert there is no risk. And of course there are teachers who are immunocompromised, like my friend who is wrapping up chemo. We'll have to think of ways to protect the adults.

        But not having school at all in person and going back to virtual learning should be a non-starter. Aside from the issues outlined above with kids' social-emotional development, almost everyone I know who deal with the virtual learning this Spring said it was, at best, ineffective.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Tracie

          We should ask: does public education exist for students, or for teachers and parents?

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  4. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    No wai! I insist that there must be absolutely risk-free options for everything in life!

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