As schools across the United States continue to reopen their doors to allow in-person learning for their students, parents and faculty begin to express growing concerns for the well-being of the people involved as the Delta variant continues to spread nationwide.
Educators said they were anxious to start the academic and emotional recovery for children who have spent the last two years being rattled by the coronavirus pandemic. The health crisis forced authorities to conduct a mixture of online and hybrid learning in haste. However, the Delta variant's surge pressures officials into a new round of pandemic politics.
Reopening School Woes
Many school authorities are debating over vaccines and mask mandates and how to better protect their students. One of the issues that officials are avoiding from last year is the circumstance where students are forced to learn from home and young kids are shuttled into quarantine sessions after being exposed to the virus, the Washington Post reported.
Across the United States, new cases and hospitalizations related to the coronavirus have been driven up by the deadly new variant. Compared to last year, there are nearly two times as many COVID-19 cases today.
Officials from California and Illinois schools will require their students to wear face masks on school grounds when they come back to in-person learning in a few weeks. This comes in contrast to schools in Florida and Arizona which have banned mask mandates inside school premises. However, many districts are continuing to urge students to wear masks anyway.
Some local school leaders in Georgia have the authority to make their own choices when it comes to masking requirements for students. Each district has a different set of policies from another. Gwinnett County school officials imposed a mask mandate eight days before the start of the new school year last month, which was a sudden reversal of a decision that shocked parents, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Spread of the Delta Variant
In Des Moines, Iowa, public school officials planned to reopen in-person teaching to elementary school students in full blast this fall. However, the youngest students of the district continue to be ineligible for the COVID-19 vaccines. Iowa schools are banned from implementing mask mandates among their students despite the continued spread of the Delta variant nationwide.
On Tuesday, the Des Moines School Board voted to offer a virtual learning option for elementary school families due to the combination of challenges and risks. The option was made for families who were concerned about the dangers that in-person classes posed to their children during another pandemic school year.
During the Tuesday board meeting, School Superintendent Thomas Ahart said officials wanted to provide families with an option to stay with the district while keeping their kids safe at home. Ahart said the compromise allowed families to come back to in-person learning when they were comfortable with the situation and if conditions allowed the process to be conducted safely.
Several school districts in the United States initially planned to only offer in-person learning classes this fall. However, the Delta variant's spread and transmissibility have forced authorities to rethink their choices and opt for either remote or hybrid learning, the Time reported.
