Ken Bernstein has been a teacher for many years. He blogs at the daily Kos as Teacher Ken.
He writes here about the practical problems of reopening, such as social distancing in classrooms, hallways, cafeterias, and on buses.
This is what he writes about classrooms:
CLASSROOMS — It is impossible in most schools to have 6 foot between students. Last year I had up to 30 seniors in a room at a time, with a social distance rarely even 2 feet between them. To get to 6 feet I would have to limit the number of students to around 10-12. To even get to a 3 foot distance in between would probably require a doubling of the number of classrooms, even maximizing use (teachers floating into rooms where a teacher has a period off). Very few buildings have that kind of excess space. And even if you could get to 6 foot distance, how do students maintain that coming in and going out of the room without creating problems in the hallways?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The best comment I’ve heard about this was one I heard yesterday from the NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia, commenting on the incompetence of many Republican governers in reopening (as I recall it, likely not verbatim): My God, they can’t even get opening bars right and they’re telling us to open schools without proper guidelines? Bars and schools. Perfect comparison to highlight the criminal negligence of the many public officials.
I serve on my district’s reopening committee. Our solution to this, so far, is to have two cohorts of each class attend on different days each week. Otherwise there is no way we will be able to accommodate physical distancing nor do we have the budget to put up plexiglass between student desks. As well, we would never expect our students to wear their masks all day long.
Our first public town hall is on Tuesday. I anticipate a lot of complaints about the schedule. So no matter what we do, it’s going to be inconvenient and very costly to open schools safely. Curious to see how it all plays out.
I’m curious as to in what state your work in?
Take care.
I’m in central NJ, one of three states with the lowest spread currently. After the devastation we endured months ago, it’s good to be in this place. However, what’s to stop us from going back there because of opening the schools?
Thanks and you take care, as well, John.
“it’s going to be inconvenient and very costly to open schools safely”
The understatement of the year.
Beat me to the punch. But he forgot an important word “It’s going to be inconvenient, very costly and deadly to open schools safely.” And I would substitute impossible for inconvenient.
All of this, however…there are political factions that don’t seem to care about public health, but sit up and listen when we tell them that there are monetary and convenience costs associated with reopening. So to appeal to their darker side, tell them that it will be coming out of their pockets and suddenly, it’s a terrible idea.
yes: a train wreck waiting to happen, and much like endlessly re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, the overwhelming selective blindness is hard to stomach
The problem is that the staff would still be exposed to the same number of students, just on alternating days. True, it’s better than the plan in the district in which I teach (everyone every day), but there are still concerns. Look at what happened to those three teachers in Arizona. All three were very careful, and yet all 3 got the virus and one of them died.
Thank you for your efforts.
Cohorts do address viral load—amount of viral particles over A particular time period—which scientists are linking to the severity of symptoms and immune response. But yes, overall there will be exposure to the same numbers of students.
In some places (like Ontario, Canada) the return to school will be voluntary and based on parent choice. The solution is the remote education, unless there are special cases: https://www.ontario.ca/page/approach-reopening-schools-2020-2021-school-year
Thank you, Mr. Bernstein!
Reopening safely, as used in the current discussions, is an oxymoron. Emphasis on the second part of that compound, from the Greek mōros, “foolish,” though “foolish” is an understatement. Heedless is more like it.
The CDC itself was circulating a document “for internal use only” that described reopening schools as certain to create an enormous surge in cases.
Crisis situations seem to bring out the true nature of people, and I’d add institutions and societies.
So, when pushed to the limit, Diane Ravitch becomes even more Diane Ravitch -lucky for us. Same with you, Bob. (Your writing these days is even more sharp, erudite and thought-provoking than usual, I’d say.)
Sure, people and groups can and do change. And, individuals will rise to the occasion and sometimes it’s the people we least expect. Thank,God, and let’s hope that happens in our nation and soon.
But, yeah…the fact that schools are being thrown to the sharks, asked to do a near impossible job for the coming school year without adequate funding and all the while putting our children at risk….well, hasn’t that been the M.O, of the U.S. of A. for a very long time now?
And, crazy thing is, as a parent and a teacher I feel caught in between, and quite conflicted. I have a daughter who just graduated from high school. She’s very much looking forward to living a dorm and going to college classes. My wife and I are hoping she can actually be there. But then I think about the professors who will be teaching and the other people at the school and is this whole proposition of going away to college safe right now for everyone involved? How do those professors, for example, feel about being in classroom?
And herein lie the depths of the tragedy of the Trump Era. For he’s not only exploited the divisions already existing in our society….he’s sometimes been able to take advantage of people’s own conflicting thoughts and emotions. Instead of bring us “together”, in every sense of that word, he has so often riven us so much further apart.
Trump is despicable. And, this COVID-19 virus is diabolical.
Both isolate us and sow fear and chaos.
These are the plague years of the United States. And, it’s up to us to rise above them.
John,
I can give you some insight into what my university is doing and it is likely the school your daughter will be attending is doing similar things. For housing we have rented a large number of nearby hotel rooms for the fall semester in order to reduce the density in our dorms and provide quarantine capacity if that is necessary. We have also rented all of the large spaces around campus and are busy turning them and our own large spaces into teaching spaces. The largest lecture classes will be online, freeing up even more large spaces. With that, we will be moving the smaller classes into the larger space so that students will be 6 feet from each other. Everyone, of course, will be masked. Along with most everyone else, we are not bringing students back after Thanksgiving.
Thanks for the info. Best of luck with it all!
Very moving, John. Congrats to your daughter, and safety to her, to you, and to the rest of your family in this time! My daughter has decided to homeschool her kids. I’ll be doing private daily Zoom classes for them.
“To get to 6 feet I would have to limit the number of students to around 10-12.”
The private school in our town advertises that there will be no class over 12 for this fall.
Note that the forced re-opening of schools will paint public schools in a bad light. Privatizers have found another way to give us a bad name. They lost the standardized test as a weapon in the Covid Spring. Now the president and his followers seek to place the public schools at a disadvantage in another way. There will surely be urban spread of the disease within two weeks, especially in places already hard hit.
This will have a two-fold effect. First, it will give Trump and DeVos a reason to offer vouchers, which they will try claiming to want to help little poor children who are stuck in contaminated schools. Then they will complain about rules put into effect to stamp out the virus because the rules will be state-wide and unneeded in rural areas. these are the areas where Trump polls well. If this is not calculated, I am not alive.
I am glad that folks are finding what I offered of some value, and I thank Diane for sharing access to my post. If you have not done so already, you might want to read more than the excerpt she quoted and click on the link for the entire post at Daily Kosl
I did, and it was excellent, Ken! It asks questions that not nearly enough people are asking, and none seem to be answering. Thank you.
I read yesterday that Trump’s reason for wanting to force the public schools to open on time is to gain votes from overwhelmed suburban parents that want to be free of their kids 24/7.
Thin-skinned, Trivial, Thick-Headed Trumpty Dumpty has no idea that between the opening of school and election day in November, there will be plenty of time for the virus to increase the number of deaths among children and spread the disease to their parents, friends, and family losing him even more votes.
I just had a long email from a former student who tried to explain the plan for her school district. There are actual three plans, each depending on the level of virus activity in three nearby counties, but excluding the one county with the highest number of cases. The most likely plan will be determined in a few days and by means of some sort of parental voice or vote. A big problem is that this district is reliably red and mask-wearing has been politicized. Teachers cannot rely on mask-wearing by older students. Social distancing for the district has been reduced from 6 feet to 3 feet. Online curricula are being developed by “coaches” not the teachers who have been responsible for grade-level and subject-specific job assignments. This means that teachers are expected to serve as little more cogs in the wheel of an instructional delivery system–one that ignores experience and expertise. This teacher is faced with the prospect of taking early retirement, no pay and no health-care benefits, or trying to maintain some self-respect as a teacher and caring adult for students who will be assigned to her. She also notes that a number of teacher posts on the Internet are sharing information about wills, power of attorney documents, and DNR orders.
Your comment is so profound. I am finding that I am working harder and longer than I ever have in my life because everything I plan is in three scenarios and I have to plan in detail for each known that two of the three are (highly) unlikely. But to be responsible, I have to plan for each as though it will happen. Contingency is the key. Plan for each one and have a possible fourth plan in reserve. But I am lucky, relatively speaking.
The final sentence above is one I don’t have to consider, but it pains me that teachers, public servants, and others who have to work with the public must. Ours is no longer a civilized society considering the tragic depth of that factual final sentence. Five years ago, I would have never thought it could apply to our country. Worse that the Central African Republic, Burundi, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Tajikistan? Yes. The U.S.? Never imaginable before, reality today.
Three teachers shared a classroom during the summer and taught summer school in Arizona. They wore masks and gloves, and all three of them contracted Covid-19. The most senior teacher passed away from the virus. Without costly modifications that will provide a safe environment for teachers and students, we will see more of these cases when schools reopen. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/12/us/arizona-teachers-coronavirus/index.html
In my little classroom, I could take 10 students a time at six feet apart — all windows and doors open whether it’s a hundred degrees or fifty with rain coming in sideways. We don’t have the PPE for that anyway. No way we’re having breakfast or lunch inside while indoor restaurants and bars remain closed. No way! I would still want to hold class outside, requiring tents that fly away with wind, powerful outdoor WiFi to take attendance and communicate with the students at home, rainproof plastic covers for laptops… And what am I going to do, force the kids to sit on hot blacktop or wet grass all day?
Is this 6′ center to center spacing, or 6′ outside edge of body to outside edge? If a sitting body takes up about a 2′ radius, then 6′ out to out would require 8′ center to center spacing. Interestingly, the tightest packing on a plane is a hexagon like a beehive, not a square packing.
Hexagons on the floor everywhere, stay in the center of your hexagon.
I’ve read that 6 feet is the minimum and 11 feet would be much better.