E-Learning is inevitable for US high schools next school year — it would be short-sighted and dangerous to try to go back to in-person school

During March, the school we work at closed in-person school and shifted to a virtual format, and as a result we have spent the last two and a half months engaged in E-Learning. Despite working at a well-funded one-to-one Chromebook school where almost every student has home internet, very few teachers at our school enjoyed E-Learning. The transition to a virtual format was abrupt and as the last nine weeks of school progressed, district policies and protocols changed frequently in an attempt to improve our process. This is no one’s fault; our state’s understandable decision to close school occurred because the world was in the midst of a global pandemic and decision-makers needed to act quickly in response to something they likely had never thought about before. Teachers found themselves in uncharted territory and were suddenly responsible for teaching their students through a new format while simultaneously helping their own children adapt to E-Learning as well. Student response has been mixed. Some liked E-Learning because it afforded them more independence to control when they worked on various subjects and removed social pressure to interact with peers and the anxiety those interactions brought with them. Other students found the lack of a structure they were used to challenging and, of course, some students hardly engaged at all. For parents, depending on the family’s situation, the challenge was figuring out how to balance working from home while helping their student with school, feeling comfortable leaving their high school student alone while serving our country as an essential worker, or being with their student twenty-four hours a day seven days a week without a break.

It is not a stretch to assume that across the country very few teachers, students, or parents prefer virtual schooling. After all, virtual schools have existed for a long time, and the overwhelming majority of students in the US attend in-person school. If nothing else, the radical change from the way most have conducted and experienced teaching and learning makes the sudden shift to virtual schooling incredibly difficult. Regardless of preference or value, the reality is, absent a vaccine or serious treatment, E-Learning next school year is inevitable. Even under ideal conditions and with creative changes to in-person schooling, schools will still be a hotbed for the spread of COVID-19 and will need to shift to an online format at some point next school year (most likely in the fall). As much as people do not want to engage in E-Learning and do not believe it is conducive to the best educational circumstances, the attempt to try in-person school will only exacerbate and magnify all the problems and pitfalls with E-Learning because schools will find themselves transitioning back to it when many more students, teachers, and parents are sick or will quickly become sick. Schools need to recognize the inevitability of E-Learning for next school year and use their time, focus, and resources to build better E-Learning capacity and improve its quality over the summer instead of delaying the inevitable and creating an environment where E-Learning is worse and more difficult than it could have been.

E-Learning is inevitable even with optimal creativity and conditions

Every school leader in America is researching, discussing, and thinking about how to redesign and reformat in-person schools to comply with CDC guidelines to minimize the risk of COVID-19 spread. Those leaders are being incredibly creative, thoughtful, and are working so hard to try to achieve something everyone hopes for — safe in-person school in the fall. However, the only way to eliminate the risk of transmission during in-person school would be to know with certainty that no one who enters the building is COVID-19 positive. Unless schools can accurately test every person who enters the building every day with real-time results, the spread of COVID-19 in schools will occur and that type of real-time accurate testing capacity will not be possible by this fall for any school let alone all schools. States currently do not have enough of any test, enough accurate tests, and certainly not enough accurate tests with the capability to provide real-time results.

It’s important to note, if we return to in-person school, the threshold for what it takes to close back down will be low. In fact, after an attempt by Israel and South Korea to go back to school, both places have had to shut down schools because of the massive reemergence COVID-19 post school reopenings. In Israel 31 schools have been deemed the “center of new cases”. Further, Germany and South Korea have substantially better testing capabilities and containment strategies than the US, and in each country, it took only one person with an undetected infection to shut down some industry after an attempt to open up: “…as the South Korean example shows, just one person with an undetected infection could jumpstart the virus’s spread. This has been a difficult task even with the most diligent testing-and-tracing regimen. And the US certainly does not have that as of yet, according to Jeffrey Duchin, the Health Officer for Public Health for Seattle & King County. ‘Without a vaccine or antiviral drugs,’ Duchin said, our best hopes are social distancing, widespread testing, and contact tracing. That is a herculean task for understaffed and overwhelmed public health agencies. ‘We have to be able to identify almost all the cases,’ he said. ‘Even a few cases, if unrecognized, will spark an outbreak that will spiral out of control.’”

Given the realities of our nation’s testing situation, for a moment imagine if all conditions within a high school were ideal (without taking into account the cost to setup and implement them): low enough class size to physically distance, 100% mask wearing, taking temperatures before everyone enters the building every day, staggered arrival and departure, 30% attendance each day, no large space gatherings, figuring out a plan for using bathrooms and for conducting passing periods (these last two will be especially challenging to figure out and are not addressed in detail within this article). All of those measures combined can only reduce the risk of virus spread, not eliminate it. Since in-person learning requires some amount of time where a group of students and a teacher are together (assume at least 30 minutes per class and as high as 90 minutes per class minutes if schools use a block schedule) in the same (likely inadequately ventilated) space, even with all the above precautions there is still significant risk of spread. This is due to the highly contagious nature of the virus and according to Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the idea that COVID-19 spreads through airborne transmission. Allen explains that airborne transmission, or transmission “caused by small particles that can linger in the air for extended periods of time…is key to understanding why this disease spreads so rapidly in certain circumstances…people are spreading this without coughing or sneezing large droplets; and basic aerosol physics shows…smaller ones that stay afloat for hours. Why is airborne transmission so important? One reason: super-spreader events…The evidence suggests that mitigating airborne transmission should be at the front of our disease-control strategies for covid-19…it also requires that we minimize exposure to airborne pathogens, especially indoors.” If it is true that COVID-19 spreads through airborne transmission, the duration of time even a small indoor physically distanced mask-wearing class and teacher spend together could result in transmission of the virus to most or all of the people in every classroom every day. Unfortunately, as the amount of scientific evidence that demonstrates COVID-19 can spread through airborne transmission continues to grow, combined with the notion that a 6-foot distance between people is not far enough to prevent spread, it becomes clear it is impossible to hold school safely in almost any indoor classroom because there is no “‘clear, safe distance’ between an infected person and someone who is healthy.”

Two other unique attributes of COVID-19 add additional challenges. First, people can transmit COVID-19 in an asymptomatic fashion. In other words, people can spread the virus even if they show no symptoms and as a result are often unaware they have the virus. Nevertheless, even if the World Health Organization’s recent announcement to the contrary is accurate (which they walked back less than 24 hours after they announced it), schools are still at risk for major spread because COVID-19’s second and undisputed feature is that it can have a long incubation period before symptomatic people show symptoms. That is to say, some people who eventually show symptoms can take upto 14 days to display them, and numerous studies support the idea that people spread the disease prior to showing symptoms.

The inability to test everyone every day coupled with both of these virus features increases the odds of infected people coming into contact with and infecting numerous people for days before infected people know to self-quarantine or before a school can become aware of mass infection. According to a Katrin Bennhold’s May 10th New York Times article about schools reopening in Germany, “The prospect that schoolchildren…might also become super spreaders of the coronavirus…means that school openings could pose real dangers…‘That’s my biggest fear,’ said Prof. Michael Hoelscher, head of infectious diseases and tropical medicine at Munich University Hospital…A study published in Germany…by the country’s best-known virologist and coronavirus expert, found that infected children carried the same amount of the virus as adults, suggesting they might be as infectious as adults…‘In the current situation, we have to warn against an unlimited reopening of schools and nurseries,” concluded the study supervised by Christian Drosten at the Berlin-based Charite hospital. The Robert Koch Institute of public health, Germany’s equivalent of the C.D.C. in the United States, found that children get infected in roughly equal proportions to adults.”

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

We also know, even with the best intentions, things at school will not occur in an ideal fashion. Since districts only have the summer to plan for in-person school, that gives them three months to develop a plan, communicate it, train on it, and implement it. Since summer is a time when teachers and students are off, finding enough time to train everyone prior to the start of the next school year becomes very challenging. Even if schools had already developed plans and communicated them to students, parents, and teachers, and started training on new policies and procedures tomorrow, the result would still not be perfect implementation. Why? Because kids will be kids. Some won’t listen, some will be outright defiant, some will not remember all policies and procedures even after months of communication and training, and even the best and brightest with the best intentions will still make mistakes. Results of a USA Today/Ipsos poll on going back to school are alarming: “…[n]early 9 in 10 [teachers] warn that they foresee difficulties in enforcing social distancing among their students. Parents agree. Seven in 10 would ask their child to wear a mask at school, but more than two-thirds say their child would find it hard to comply with social distancing.” While one can assume employees are less likely to be defiant, some employees will still forget policies and procedures, and even those with good intentions will occasionally make mistakes.

Perhaps mask-wearing provides the best example of a solution that health experts universally agree greatly reduces the risk of transmission, but still may be extremely difficult to get all students and employees to adhere to even if mandatory. The simple act of wearing a mask has created a political firestorm of controversy and become a symbol of our nation’s political divide. Some parents will refuse to send their students to school in masks, some teachers will object to wearing them, and some students will refuse to wear them or take them off at first opportunity. Aside from outright refusal, it’s unlikely everyone in the school will keep their mask on all day or keep it on correctly. Like it or not, masks can be uncomfortable, difficult for some to wear correctly, and cause some anxiety as well.

Another unique feature of high school (compared to elementary school) that radically increases the chance of spread is that high school students constantly change classrooms, desks, and chairs. In high schools, teachers specialize in and teach one subject: history, science, math, etc. So, depending on the type of schedule a school has, throughout every high school day almost all students go to anywhere from four to nine different classrooms, use four to nine different desks and chairs, interact with four to nine different teachers, and come into contact with four to nine different sets of classmates. Further, in many high schools, teachers do not have their own classroom and must share classrooms and/or the various academic departments have common meeting and planning spaces. For students and teachers, the need to move through hallways several times a day combined with different mixtures of students interacting with each other in different groups makes proper physical distancing nearly impossible and creates conditions that will maximize potential exposure of the virus to numerous people each school day. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for reopening schools indicate that if schools cannot have groups of the same students stay with the same teacher in the same classroom throughout the school day, they are putting everyone in the building at the highest risk for virus spread.

What happens outside of school hours matters too

To complicate matters further, even if everything described above were implemented and enforced perfectly during the school day, after school each day every student goes home. Students go home to their parents who may work in different places, and the parents will come into contact with many people throughout their day. Many students go home to siblings who may go to different schools, and the siblings will come into contact with many people throughout their day. Students will hang out with their friends outside of school where schools cannot monitor student interactions for mask wearing and proper physical distancing. Families may go out to eat, go shopping, or go to the park. They may interact with grandparents and cousins, with other families, go on vacation, or hold small or large events. Every day when students come back to school, each student brings with them the risk that anyone they made contact with or anyone that their contacts made contact with transmitted that student the virus. Multiply that risk by the number of students at a school, and one can see how much combined risk each new school day could bring. Of course, let’s not forget all the school employees because the same logic applies to them. Every school employee and all the people each comes into contact with after school hours each day including friends and family (and their contacts) could risk bringing infection to the school every day as well.

As we explore interactions after the school day, it’s important to think about after school activities and sports. The best way to maximize safety would be to cancel any activities and sports that cannot be done virtually or with one person. While a decent virtual option could exist for many clubs and activities, few sports would be able to compete safely. If schools did try to engage in team sports against other schools, they would not only have to trust that every school they compete against is taking all the correct and necessary precautions but that all the family members of all the students at the other schools are as well. Remember, none of the above discussion on sports even gets into the details of how to play competitive sports in a way that is possible without students getting more than six feet apart or breathing on or in the direction of one another.

Transportation for students to and from school adds another layer of complication. Even if schools could afford to increase the number of buses they used to space students out on a bus (which not even wealthy districts can afford), the aforementioned discussion of the aerosolized nature of spread means riding the bus will increase infection risk. Other modes of transportation may be better because there are fewer people per vehicle, but any mode of transportation that involves multiple people (carpools) could serve as a disease vector everyday both to and from school.

Realities for parents and employees

Independent from the arguments above, E-Learning is also inevitable for two other important reasons. First, there will be enough parents who will refuse to send their students to in-person school no matter what safety measures schools take and as a result schools will have to use E-Learning to teach those students. The percentage of parents who will not send their students back to school will not need to be very high for a school to shift online.

Why will parents be too scared to send their students back? First and foremost COVID-19 can make children sick and in some cases cause death. Further, the disease is so new, the long term consequences for people who catch the virus and survive are still unknown. For example, it is possible that the virus could cause permanent organ damage or put recipients at risk for future health complications. Additionally, even if most students do not get that sick from contracting COVID-19, they can still spread it to students with underlying conditions, any employee, and/or any family member. While every parent’s worst fear is that their child would become sick at school, the more likely scenario will be that parents become sick because their child attends school and brings the disease back home with them. While the debate about COVID-19’s impact on students will continue, the risk for school employees and parents is not in doubt — if we attempt in-person school, some teachers and parents will become very ill and some will die.

Second, if school is in-person, a large enough percentage of every school faculty and staff will not go back to school to the degree that conducting in-person school will be extremely difficult if not impossible. Too many school employees are vulnerable because they are old, have underlying medical conditions, or have someone in their immediate family with underlying medical conditions. Moreover, even average age healthy employees will not want to go back because they are also at risk for serious illness or death. If districts attempt to go back to in-person school, we applaud the ones that will make in-person attendance optional for employees (and offer an E-Learning alternative), but again the result will likely be E-Learning for all because there may not be enough employees physically present to conduct in-person school. Further, many teacher and support staff unions will be advocating for E-Learning to protect the health and safety of their members, and regardless of the unions’ success at persuading school boards, those arguments alone will persuade many members not to return to in-person school.

Every argument against E-Learning is actually a reason not to attempt in-person school.

So far, this article has primarily made the case that a virus outbreak at in-person school is inevitable. The reason that concept is so important is because it means schools that attempt in-person learning will have to transition to E-Learning. Even if people do not like E-Learning or think it is not conducive to high-quality teaching and learning, it does not matter because they will eventually have to do it next school year. Moreover, every problem with E-Learning will become worse in such a transition because some students, parents, and teachers will be or become sick from in-person school generated infections. E-Learning is challenging enough when everyone involved is healthy, but if many cannot participate at all or to their best ability due to COVID-19 infection, teaching and learning during that E-Learning will be infinitely worse.

Perfect isn’t the enemy of good — especially when the alternative is sickness and death

Suffice it to say status quo E-Learning isn’t great, but it is also important to remember it can be vastly improved. Schools who spend time, energy, and/or resources this summer trying to figure out how to conduct in-person school safely are wasting all of them. The sooner school districts come to the realization they will need to E-Learn and spend all their time, energy, and resources focused on building E-Learning capacity and capability, the better E-Learning will be. For some districts the challenge will be getting internet access and required technology to students to make E-Learning feasible. For all districts they will need to focus on crafting good E-Learning policies, adding helpful applications and tools, and providing needed training and support for teachers and students. Fortunately, if schools come to a decision early enough that they will need to conduct virtual school, they can repurpose monies to help cover costs of technology and training. In a world of E-Learning there is not much (if any) need to spend money on transportation, athletics, most activities, typical building costs (like energy and lights), flying employees to professional conferences, field trips, and food service contracts (though the amount of money saved on this last one will depend on a district’s free and reduced population size). Moreover, anyone in a building whose main role is activities or athletics or anyone who gets paid to coach a sport or sponsor an activity, could perhaps refocus their job or that part of their job on academic or student service support in an E-Learning environment. Additionally, since almost every high school across the country found themselves E-Learning for the last part of school this spring, many schools have overcome the initial hurdles and barriers to E-Learning, and their focus can be primarily on improvements.

Since this year’s transition to E-Learning was so sudden, it is not surprising that most people felt E-Learning was not ideal and that context is important. It would be a mistake to let impossible and unpredictable circumstances that created the poorest possible version of E-Learning prevent us from going back to it when the alternative is risking people’s health. In any field, trying to reinvent the wheel overnight is almost never going to work. But, if you give masters of their craft time to think about how to make E-Learning most effective, it will substantially improve and perhaps could even become better than in-person school. The World Economic Forum indicates that “[f]or those who do have access to the right technology, there is evidence that learning online can be more effective in a number of ways. Some research shows that on average, students retain 25–60% more material when learning online compared to only 8–10% in a classroom. This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning requires 40–60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.”

For teachers, perhaps the greatest frustration of E-Learning this fall will be the challenge of getting to know their students. After all, the one thing that made this spring’s abrupt transition to E-Learning a little easier was that teachers already had an established relationship with their students. Many teachers had their students for three quarters of the school year already or at least for about nine weeks prior to the shutdown of schools. This fall most students and teachers will not have an established relationship and understanding of expectations and procedures. While video conferencing will not be as good as what school used to be like, it is a viable tool to use to help make the same types of connections with students as well as to explain expectations and procedures. Further, knowing ahead of time that forming relationships will be a challenge, teachers can prepare, plan, and adjust their lessons and activities to integrate more time and techniques for getting to know students and for students to get to know each other. Like learning any new instructional strategy, it will take thought, collaboration, and practice to master; thankfully there are already many proven techniques and tools that virtual teachers use to make the same types of genuine authentic connections with students that exist during in-person school. Lastly, it’s important to remember what the conditions of in-person school will be like this fall: with masks, distance, the fear of getting sick, dozens of new rules and procedures to follow and worry about, and the great likelihood the entire class will never be present together, it is very unlikely building relationships or a good classroom community will be easier or better at in-person school this fall anyway.

Be careful what you wish for…

In all the conversations about the attempt to reopen schools, one idea that seems to be lost is that when people talk about going back to school they are fantasizing about the school they knew before COVID-19. The yearning to go back is to achieve a sense of normalcy. However, in-person school in a COVID-19 world will be far from normal; frankly, to most it will feel the same as being isolated at home. Almost all the things that made school enjoyable for students will no longer be part of the school day because of safety measures. When students say they want to go back to school, they’re talking about seeing their friends, having lunch, socializing in hallways, hanging out before after-school practice; those things will not be possible in the fall. Returning to school under those conditions won’t relieve student anxiety and will probably, in truth, just exacerbate their fears and frustrations. Student wellness was a major concern in schools across America before the outbreak of COVID-19. When schools force students to go back to school, schools will still maintain all the same conditions that created student stress and anxiety before, take away all the parts of school that students enjoyed, and add a legitimate fear that every day students go to school they need to constantly worry about contracting a virus that could harm them, their teachers, their family, and/or their friends. The circumstances of in-person school in a COVID-19 world, one riddled with so many rules and constraints, so many new challenges and things for students and teachers to worry about, will not only exacerbate every mental health challenge students had before, but it will create conditions that make teaching and learning ineffective or perhaps even impossible.

The hybrid model is the worst of both worlds

Many school and district leaders are currently discussing a hybrid model for reopening schools in the fall. While this can come in many forms, the basic idea is for schools to use a combination of E-Learning and in-person school to decrease the total number of people at school at a given time to make physical distancing easier. Upon examination, it becomes clear that hybrid models have little upside and every downside of both in-person and virtual school; the combination of which perhaps makes hybrid models the worst option. First, and most important, the hybrid model will still eventually result in students, employees, and parents contracting COVID-19 which in turn will shut down schools. A hybrid model really only serves to decrease the number of people in the building at a given time; it’s a risk mitigation strategy, not a panacea. Every argument made in this article about the spread of COVID-19 in schools applies to schools that operate with fewer people in the building. Hybrid models rely on various people rotating through the building during each school week requiring schools to either spend money they don’t have to deep clean multiple times a week or risk outbreaks spreading between groups. Even if virus spread and contraction is a little less likely on any given day, the risk across an entire school year means virus spread is still inevitable and everyone who enters the building can transmit the virus, contract the virus, and spread the virus within the building and once they leave the building.

Second, hybrid models require E-Learning, but a version of it that severely short-changes teaching and learning. By comparison, schools that choose to do only E-Learning will be spending 100% of their time, energy, and resources thinking about, reforming, and perfecting it. Those schools will be more likely to ensure every teacher and every student has all the technology they need including devices, working internet, a variety of teaching tools and applications for every school subject, and the best video conferencing software with all the best features. Those schools will be able to focus 100% of their time and energy developing and refining lesson plans and curriculum to be conducive to a virtual format, but they will also have much more time to think about how the tools of a virtual format can enhance teaching and learning. The same will be true for students. If the hybrid model requires students to engage in E-Learning, why not give them the opportunity to adjust and adapt to that format to maximize their ability to learn and grow. Remember, at some point next school year, schools that start with the hybrid model will collapse to an E-Learning only system anyway because of disease outbreak; however, students in those situations will not have gotten as much time or opportunity to figure out how to best approach E-Learning compared to the students who got to engage in E-Learning all along.

Third, hybrid models are the most expensive. Perhaps the only thing in the debate on reopening schools that everyone agrees with is that the monetary cost for districts to engage in effective E-Learning is high, as is the cost to redesign in-person school with risk mitigating safety measures. Hybrid models require schools to spend on both types of schooling while making both less effective than either could be if the school put the same amount of money into only one of those strategies. In our current climate, the economic impacts of COVID-19 mean schools are facing massive budget cuts which would be devastating for schools even if they did not have to spend money on safe in-person school or E-Learning. Given that the financial cost to schools to implement the most effective safety measures for in-person school alone will likely be impossible for schools to afford, spending on both safety measures and E-Learning while making neither fully effective is a precarious proposition.

Important parental concerns with E-Learning

For some parents, much of the desire to get their children back to in-person school is because it makes their life easier. In general, parents have found it difficult to work from home while also helping their student with E-Learning. While this indeed is not easy, by the time a student reaches high school age, that student is a young adult and should be capable of independent work and learning. This will not be the case in every instance, but for most it will need to be. Just like after school and work hours before COVID-19, parents will still be able to help their students with school; there just cannot be an expectation for high school students that their parents will help them with E-Learning all day.

Likewise, some parents will worry about leaving their student at home while they go to work. Again, in the midst of a global pandemic, high school aged students should be able to be home without their parents present. For unique situations where that is not possible parents and schools will need to work together to problem solve and create solutions, but for the overwhelming majority of students, remaining home alone will be fine even if not ideal. A more difficult situation exists for elementary schools and middle schools. Most students of that age cannot be by themselves all day let alone with an expectation to engage in E-Learning. Admittedly, we do not have great answers for those situations. But we do know that for the high schools the decision to engage in a pure virtual format with no in-person school is a much easier decision to make.

Having high school students engage in E-Learning can also potentially help with the circumstances for middle schools and elementary schools. First, if high schools are not using their facilities for in-person school, schools can offer their facilities to elementary and middle schools to provide more space to maximize physical distance for elementary and middle school teachers and students (though we believe this is still just a mitigation strategy and not a great solution). Second, if high school students are home E-Learning, some would be able to help watch their siblings and aid their siblings with E-Learning. It will be very important for parents and students to communicate with schools and teachers about unique home situations like these so teachers can understand the needs of these high school students and provide them with flexibility as the high school students engage in E-Learning while supporting their siblings.

It is also important to consider that many teachers have children themselves and this creates additional challenges for successful E-Learning. Part of the key to any E-Learning model will be to build in flexibility for teachers and students. The notion that teachers and students will need to sit in front of a computer all day every school day will not work. E-Learning models that build in predictability for students and teachers, teacher flexibility for creating times for synchronous sessions, student choice in demonstrating learning, and understanding by all when unique circumstances arise will all be essential to make E-Learning effective.

Inequities in education

It is important to recognize there are many inequities in education throughout our country. While this could be discussed at great length, the two issues most relevant to this article are student meals and access to the technology that enables E-Learning. E-Learning is certainly a more difficult challenge for underserved communities. Even in a world of E-Learning, it is very important for districts to provide meals for those that counted on schools to provide them prior to COVID-19. Given the economic impact of COVID-19, schools will likely need to expand these programs to aid more families that have become in need or will become in need and that will come at a financial cost. The reality though is whether or not schools are engaged in E-Learning or attempt in-person school, the same number of students will require school meals. The difference is that in a world of E-Learning schools will be able to have smaller food service contracts because they will only be providing meals to those who qualify for them, not food options for every student every day. While much work with regard to providing meals to students needs to be done, many universities, government agencies, non-profits, and farm networks are forming partnerships to help.

E-Learning for every student is, of course, only possible if at a minimum every student and teacher has a working device to engage in E-Learning and working internet at their home. As mentioned before, while every district has not fully resolved this issue, school closings in the spring forced many districts to already provide the aforementioned technology or at least likely enabled them to provide it to most students and teachers. Because of this and for reasons explained above, the cost of E-Learning alone will be substantially cheaper than either trying to engage in only in-person school or trying to create a hybrid system. Further, many internet providers are giving discounts and/or are creating partnerships to make internet use for education more accessible. Hopefully, people who can afford to help the schools and districts that are not able to engage in E-Learning will do so.

Those who can do E-Learning should

From a sociological lens, the way people have opted to behave since COVID-19 started to spread in the United States has been fascinating. Starting in early March, health experts made a plea to the American people to stay home. In fact, it is now being reported that US lockdowns prevented 60 million people from becoming infected with COVID-19. Those experts tried to educate people to understand that the decision not to stay home is not a decision that just impacts the person making it, but that it affects so many other people and in particular our nation’s frontline workers. If high schools have the capacity and ability to engage in E-Learning next year, they should because if nothing else it will result in fewer hospitalizations in turn protecting essential workers and preventing hospital surges. Even if the result of E-Learning creates more difficult work and circumstances for teachers and students and in fact creates inferior teaching and learning, it is ultimately selfish to go back to in-person school because the health risks it will have directly on the school community and indirectly on so many people not in the school community far outweigh any potential marginal impact on the quality of education.

The fall will change everything

It’s also important to remember that the state of the virus now is not what it will look like in the fall. We’ve been constantly reminded that it is likely new cases will decline over the summer but have also been warned that there will be another peak in the fall. This isn’t to say summer will cure the disease but there are seasonal factors we shouldn’t ignore.. The decline has been partially due to the implementation of social isolation measures, including school closings. Schools will obviously be closed over the summer, but resuming in-person school in the fall will create new opportunities for the disease to spread rapidly. As the days get shorter, the decrease in sunlight could also affect Vitamin D levels, which may make people more susceptible to the virus. We also know that the flu is seasonal and peaks in the fall and winter, which makes it even more critical to stay healthy to avoid co-infections and avoid putting an unnecessary strain on our medical system.

The beauty and value of time

This article certainly advocates E-Learning next school year. Beyond that, it is possible our opinion may change, but the timeframe of a year is important. While few want to engage in E-Learning for a year, doing it for the 2020–2021 school year provides us with time which can be valuable for three reasons. First, it gives districts over a year instead of a summer to plan for in-person learning. Such important planning will be substantially better with time; when dealing with matters of life and death, no one wants to create a rush to failure. Moreover, we can use that time to learn from the successes and failures of schools that do attempt to reopen both in the US and internationally. That data will better inform policy making and decisions; most importantly it will save lives. Second, the 2021–2022 school year does not start for 15–16 months. Currently, the most brilliant scientific minds in the world are working on virus treatments and vaccines. While there are no guarantees, that amount of time, resources, and brain power being put into developing successful treatments and vaccines makes the prospect of either likely. Third, one thing we know about this virus, is that we do not really know much about this virus. However, that can change with time. In the first three months since the virus has been in the US, the scientific community and doctors made numerous assumptions about the virus that proved incorrect. Each day that people have an opportunity to study the virus, they continue to learn more that can help us fight against it or adapt to it. Perhaps after another year, for example, we will have more clarity on whether those infected develop immunity and if so how strong that immunity is and how long that immunity lasts.

Conclusion

When it is finally time for school districts to make a decision about the fall, one would hope part of their decision-making framework includes a moral and ethical component. Irina Mikhalevich, assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, and Russell Powell, associate professor in the department of philosophy at Boston University, write, “…it is easy to gloss over the moral magnitude of this ongoing pandemic…In about three months, COVID-19 has killed nearly twice as many Americans as the nation lost in its 20-year war in Vietnam and nearly as many as were killed in World War I, with many daily death tolls surpassing the horrific loss of life on 9–11…the expected peak for America is only where it is now because of robust social distancing efforts that have temporarily reduced infection rates and prevented emergency room capacities from being overrun. These social distancing policies are rapidly being reversed in an infection environment that does not come anywhere close to meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on the reopening of America…Moreover, flattening the curve only prevents additional deaths that would result from our health-care system being overwhelmed; a flat curve does not mean it is safe to reopen…We cannot, therefore, look at declining rates of death and infection over the summer, if these trends do occur, as a reason to open back up…The virus is poised to tear through our student and faculty bodies just as it is now ravaging nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants…But unlike cruise ships, nursing homes, food services and prisons, [high schools] can operate remotely with only minimal disruption to their mission.” Given that reopening schools substantially increases the likelihood of sickness and death, the difficult reality is that, even if unintended, a decision to reopen schools signals to school employees, students, and parents, that those risks are acceptable. Even when, in the end, high schools will be E-Learning next year anyway.

Dr. Ben Beach has taught high school for over 15 years, was the Vice President of the district’s teachers union, and currently serves as a school administrator.

Mr. Richard Westminster has worked in the field of education for over 10 years