ETHS misses the chance to lead with staggered reopening plan

As the high school which served as an exemplary nationwide model for respecting LGBTQIAN+ rights and boldly course correcting outdated sexist dress codes which unfairly punished teen girls, ETHS had another opportunity to demonstrate leadership with its plan for the 2020/2021 school year. Sadly, this plan falls far short of what we have come to expect from our high school. And it is less than our students, teachers, and school staff deserve.

I share this opinion not as the member of the ETHS onsite population, but as a mother in our community who has had the unforgettably tragic misfortune of watching a dearly loved friend bury her child who died from an illness last year. The heartbreak of her unimaginably traumatic experience will never, ever leave my mind. She had no choice in whether her shining star of a toddler-aged daughter would be able to beat the disease that took her in a matter of days. So I am in awe at how quickly we are following in the path of Betsey DeVos in determining that in an outbreak, there is ANY acceptable loss of life to our community.

Students return this fall during a time of unprecedented uncertainty. ETHS has decided that fewer than 1,000 students can return at a time in an alternating/staggered week by week schedule that allows for remote learning. I very much applaud the decision to allow for remote learning for students who need it. But we are taking risks that are startling, and implementing a model that is woefully inadequate to protect people inside ETHS from catastrophic impact of an outbreak. A teacher at a Baltimore City school this week calculated by school district and county the number of deaths projected for their student population assuming a relatively low level 0.016% morbidity projection. This results in 127 student deaths and eight staff deaths, even ignoring the increased contamination likelihood in cold, allergy, and flu seasons. When you kick the number up to 1%, the numbers become genocide like with nearly 800 student deaths and 50 staff deaths in Baltimore city schools alone. With the alarming trends in resurgence of the first outbreak of COVID-19–Florida now with more cases than any single country in the world, California going to a fully remote model for the fall in most metropolitan areas, and Philadelphia extending limits on gatherings to February 2021–we have reason to believe that even larger numbers are possible.

As the daughter and sister of teachers on the North Shore and in Los Angeles, I’ve seen my loved ones contract bronchitis and pneumonia when parents send their ill children to school or are dishonest in representing the contagion of an illness, using fever reducers to avoid detection. We must account for the further risk of this behavior to our staff and teachers. To our custodial teams who are doing the critical work of sanitizing surfaces. Last week it was reported that a woman who was asymptomatic infected 71 people who used an elevator after she rode in it, and she is “one of the good ones” who wore a mask, sanitized her hands regularly, and social distance. It took COVID-tracing teams far longer to determine how 71 people were infected by someone who had no reason to believe she had coronavirus. In addition to the risk from the behavior of parents sending unwell kids to school, we need to factor in the possibility that sick people who are waved through temperature check stations are still contagious.

Finally, we are placing an enormous pressure on our children by expecting them to adapt to the chaos of this staggered learning proposal while maturing into young adults. There will be rumors, gossip, bullying and stigmatizing that harm already emotionally drained teenagers.

Remote learning is the only solution that guarantees we are not sacrificing our ETHS population of many for the sake of the few. As an alternative to the current proposal, we should be looking at ways to facilitate safe onsite learning for only the number of children whose parents’ obligations to essential workplaces makes it impossible for the child to safely learn from home. Reducing the threat to our most vulnerable essential community members who are keeping the rest of us fed, functioning, and safe, by reserving space for their children is the right thing to do. Those who must be in a safe learning space during the day should be able to do so without those of us who can accommodate learning from home increasing exposure to essential workers.

Illinois borders enough states to be threatened by the lack of diligent measures neighboring states implemented, so much so that it almost inevitably undoes the solid work our state did to go from the fourth worst to safest state before we re-entered phase 3. I am confident that there is time to make a better decision, and for ETHS to recast itself in the light our community celebrates in our high school: as a pillar and a leader in the wellbeing of our staff, faculty, and children in this country.