Fall Reopening: The Word on the Street

SOURCE USA TODAY/Ipsos online polls of 505 K-12 teachers and 403 parents with at least one child in K-12 taken May 18-21. Credibility interval +/- 5 percentage points for teachers sample, 5.6 for parents sample.

Janet Loehrke/USA TODAY

We’re all aware that we won’t be returning to life as usual anytime soon—and that includes the way we educate students. While there are still many unknowns, districts are seeing increasing hesitance by parents to return to the way things were. 

An article from The New York Times tries to break down how reopening can be done safely. “Austin Beutner, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District—the second-largest in the country—has taken a more candid approach during his regular briefings to the public. He acknowledged on Wednesday, for example, that reopening schools would require ‘a delicate dance, with a thousand steps, each connected to the other’ and striking a balance among three sometimes competing priorities: the health and safety of those in the school community, the impact of the pandemic on jobs and families, and the need to effectively educate students.”

A recent poll conducted by USA Today found that one in five teachers were unlikely to return to classrooms in the fall. “Andy Brown, 43, who teaches at a rural high school in Mantua, Ohio, said that after 20 years on the job, he is reconsidering whether to return. "For the first time...these last three months have felt like I've been doing a job, doing this to earn a paycheck," he said. ‘The engagement level with the students hasn't been there, and that's the reason I got into this career—the interaction and the engagement and the seeing and feeling their excitement.’”

These reopening options include things such as dividing classes so that only a portion are on campus at any one time with the remainder learning from home. This allows students adequate social distancing space on buses but places a burden on routers to schedule routes to pick up certain students only on certain days. 

If your district is looking for ways to most effectively route students while maintaining social distancing, we can help. For those trying to keep routers and staff at home and still able to seamlessly plan fall routes, our online portal, RouteHub, allows route requests to be handled from any computer. Contact us today to learn more.