Fairfax County Parent Explains Viral Posts On Reopening Schools

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — President Donald Trump has been insisting that America's schools reopen for in-person education this fall. At the local level, many parents have joined the president in advocating for schools to open their classrooms, at least for two or three days a week.

The discussions over school openings, in many ways, are serving as a proxy debate on how the United States should respond to the coronavirus pandemic as a whole.

The schooling question is anxiety-inducing for all parties and one that puts extreme pressure on parents to decide the best course to follow and how their children will be cared for if a school district goes the 100-percent virtual instruction route.

In Fairfax County, the debate grew more intense this week when the school board decided it would not be offering the hybrid model to students, even though a majority of parents in the district chose that option for their children. Based on discussions with health experts, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Scott Brabrand recommended the district's 189,000 students start the school year virtually. And the Fairfax County School Board on Tuesday adopted Braband's recommendation.

Among the thousands of parents in Fairfax County offering their opinions on how the school system should handle the decision was a father of two FCPS students. Joe Morice of Clifton posted a three-part series of thoughtful takes on Facebook on the risks of going back to school. His posts demonstrated empathy for all parties, a rare trait in this day and age and one of the primary reasons why his posts went viral.

Morice's Facebook posts were shared by thousands of people, not only in Fairfax County but across the country, who thought he did an incredible job addressing the issue from a parent's point of view as well as a teacher's perspective.

Patch reached out to Morice to get his reaction to his Facebook posts going viral. Morice, who has lived in Fairfax County for 27 years and whose children will be in 8th and 10th grades for the 2020-2021 school year, agreed to answer a few questions from Patch. Here's what Morice had to say.

Patch: Your Facebook posts on the type of instruction that children should receive when school resumes this fall in Fairfax County and across the country have gone viral. Why do you think your posts have generated so much interest?

Joe Morice: For several reasons. One, it's the issue of the moment, and here's this 2,000 word post with a big picture that 20,000 other people have read. So part of it, eventually, was about catching a wave.

I've gotten thousands of comments and messages from people, and to be honest I haven't come close to reading them all. What people say "thank you" for most is articulating what they were trying to organize in their heads. That school, no matter what, it's not going to look like last year. That they're working from home for safety reasons but sending their kids to school. That every "only a few kids get it" argument hinges on the idea that their kid won't be one of the few. I took all these rationalizations they had and just cracked them a little bit, gave people a chance to look in the mirror as they were saying them. In many cases, it changed minds. In many more, it gave people a chance to take a breath, just pause and think a moment.

Patch: It's clear the coronavirus is going to be with us well into 2021 and perhaps beyond. Why do you think there's a rush to get students back in the physical classroom as opposed to officials taking a longer-term approach?

Joe Morice: For many parents I'm not sure the rush is about the classroom so much as it is a desire to turn the clock back on the pandemic. People are familiar with yesterday. They know how to approach yesterday, so yesterday slots into people's minds easier. I think that's part of the rush.

For some parents they're looking for, and incorrectly holding the schools responsible for, someone to watch their children while they're at work. That childcare gap, that's a huge societal gap, but it's not the school system's to fix. And we need people to, at long last, wrap their heads around that, really get that. Their municipalities, their states, their country, that's who needs to be helping with that. We don't try to bully school boards into flying blindly into a pandemic to address that. I don't know what the answer is for families facing that dilemma, but I know rushing into buildings is not the answer.

That part also ties into what has become this national political morass where somehow it's the schools who are now responsible for "saving" the economy. Restaurants and retail locations either aren't open or people don't feel secure going to them, but somehow the school building being open during the day, when most people only shop online anyway, that's supposed to rescue us?

FURTHER READING: Fairfax Schools Change Course, Will Start Year Virtually

Instead of trying to rush something for the fall, wouldn't it be great if we took this first semester on the chin and started thinking about how we can respond, rather than react, come spring? See what we can do with outdoor classrooms, be flexible with the dates of the semester to accommodate an outdoor schedule? Sure, it sounds crazy, but a year ago a pandemic killing 140,000 Americans sounded crazy too. If the hybrid option had been, "We're going to do this outside and we need parents to come build," I would have been the first guy there.

Patch: You discussed this on Facebook. But can you tell our Patch readers why you switched from the hybrid option to the 100-percent virtual option for your children and why it was a "stressful and anxiety laden decision" for your family?

Joe Morice: We were a Day 1 hybrid family. Our kids, especially our oldest, they're withering without that social structure. And two days, look, it's only two days, but it's something. And it's what we thought the kids wanted.

We kept thinking and talking about it, and kept coming back to conversations we had with one of our friends, a longtime FCPS teacher, who talked about how often families dose up their kids with Tylenol and send them to school sick. And we realized we've done that, that, "well, she's coughing a lot, but I really need to get into the office today." We just couldn't summit that point, that 'I'm sending my kid to school sick' has become a societally conditioned behavior. For all the points I've written about, I could rationalize almost anything else, but I couldn't get past that.

After it was all done, I kept second guessing it. Did I just ruin a year of our kids' childhood? Then our youngest asked if she was going to be going to physical school and I answered, "No. Mom and I just aren't sure it's safe," and she said, "I don't think it's safe either." That was when I finally had confidence in our decision.

Patch: Many people respect the predicament of teachers. But other people will argue this is what they signed up for. If they don't want to do in-person teaching, they should get out of the profession. What are your thoughts on the dilemma facing teachers during the pandemic?

Joe Morice: I cannot imagine what it feels like for people who have dedicated their lives to the improvement and advancement of children's lives to be treated the way they are being treated by a portion of our community. It makes me sick.

The argument that "teachers need to do their job" implies that someone teaching remotely isn't doing their job. That's offensive. Teachers, and all people, should have a healthy respect for a novel virus. In our time in FCPS we've been blessed with great teachers. We've gotten to know them. People should talk to them, these are actual human beings with actual concerns about their health and their family's health. That should have a prominent place in this discussion and fortunately Dr. Brabrand and many members of the School Board also saw it that way.

SEE ALSO: What Fairfax County Families Chose For School Reopening

Patch: A majority of FCPS parents selected the hybrid option for their children. Many believe the school board should follow the will of the majority. Can you elaborate on your reservations with the "majority rule" argument?

Joe Morice: That was doomed early on when we saw that the hybrid model was leading for families and the remote model was leading for teachers and staff. So, which majority gets to "win"? And for something to be a "vote," it needs to be a snapshot, not this multiday thing where conditions are different on different days. FCPS unintentionally had an allowance for that, kind of, because families could go back and change their decision, which is what our family did. But looking at it like "the majority should rule" ignores what all the surrounding school districts are doing as well as Dr. Brabrand's excellent point regarding the percentage of FCPS staff living outside Fairfax County. We elect a Board and hire Brabrand so that we don't find ourselves having to make these types of 'what's best specifically for me' decisions.

Patch: People have called on you to run for Fairfax County School Board after reading your posts. Would you consider running for school board? Why or why not?

Joe Morice: I do not and I would not. First, I think it would retroactively cheapen the entire narrative, reframing it as some sort of attempt at political branding.

Second, if Fairfax needs someone else in one of those seats, and that in itself is a big "if," there's no reason to think I'm that person. I'm this thing that burned bright out of the gate in a very specific moment. In long-term politics, that can only lead to disappointment. What's the line from "The Dark Knight"? You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villian.

And third, in the end they did the right thing, conceding there are people in the community who don't agree with that. If people like me helped give them, and other School Boards, a little nudge, that's our job as constituents, that's our end of the electoral social contract. I think in the very near future people will forget me. What I hope they'll remember was that in this ludicrous time we managed to tune out so much of the white noise, hunkered down, and really got to know our kids.