Student Life

 When are schools Reopening?

By: Daksh Jain, Arya Balakrishna, Akash Chand

            The global pandemic of the virus, COVID-19, has had many effects on the world and one major effect of this pandemic is that schools had to shut down. This has struck many students in many ways in terms of their education. Most counties opted for a distance learning program, via Zoom, but students are eagerly waiting for the moment schools reopen but at the same time not wanting to attract COVID-19. They are bored and tired of quarantine, but luckily the government and school districts are working together to come up with a plan to open schools safely, but there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages regarding it. When will schools reopen…and what’s expected?

How Students are Responding to the Situation of Schools

While COVID-19 cases rise and the US breaks records day by day, students eagerly want to go back to school, so I took a survey in my class. This survey asked two questions which were “Do you want schools to reopen?” and “Do you want to go back to school?”. A majority of the class said, “No” to wanting schools to reopen while a majority of them responded with a ‘Yes” to go back to school. 

This shows that my peers really want to go back, but fear the consequences regarding health and safety. Students understand that the world is going through major changes, and can’t have everything they wish for while others suffer, but their hope of going back to school by 2nd semester doesn’t stop them from getting bored. A lot of students are fatigued during quarantine and just want it to end while many are wishing for a vaccine to come out by the end of 2020. They want to have fun, but in the safest way possible, to not infect others. Students being fatigued supports the evidence that a majority of my class want schools to reopen but are not willing to go back, because of COVID-19. But, that doesn’t stop the idea of thinking of solutions to reopening schools in a safe manner.

Pros and Cons of the Hybrid Model

            The hybrid model is the most suggested solution to tackling COVID-19 if we were to reopen schools, but there are a lot of pros and cons regarding this. One of the negatives of opening schools with a hybrid model is that teachers have to work harder to make sure the students via online and in-person are able to understand the curriculum and are not getting distracted by other things. Also, because of COVID-19, they will have to make sure the in-person students are maintaining social distancing and following the protocols, or else they are endangered more to contract the virus. This causes teachers to work harder than they used to. An example of a positive of the hybrid model is that students and families get to pick if they want to send their child to school or have them learn via online. This supports the best of both worlds. Also, because of the hybrid model students via online are able to work from anywhere in the world, and are allowed to have access to digital recordings of lectures, because of internet issues, while students in-person get their own personal time as a group engaged in a lecture. Now you can see why school districts are still on the fence on whether they should fall on one side, where you use the hybrid model, but they don’t have enough time to make the decision now since the 2nd semester is about to begin within 1 month.

What’s Expected in the Future

Vaccine development is coming along fairly fast, although one of the main problems is vaccine shortage. This means we may not have enough vaccines to open schools by the end of this year, this is bad news for many students who eagerly want to go back to school, according to the New York TImes. Currently, the way the cases are going leads us to believe that if we don’t open schools for the second semester, we may not, until the year ends. Also, the surge in coronavirus cases during the holidays this year will have a major effect on how many people in the world have to be vaccinated to control this pandemic, according to CNBC. Schools districts are having board meetings every 1-2 months regarding what tier Alameda County is, but you have to take into consideration that the chances of Alameda County being in a good tier before 2nd semester is so low, since many people are going to travel a few days before Christmas causing another surge in coronavirus cases.

            Students have a variety of opinions on reopening schools but it appears that most students seem

to share the common interest, which is to get through this pandemic. Thankfully it appears that we are

nearing the end of this pandemic because we have developed a vaccine. But we should also understand

that we may not get vaccines immediately enough to open schools by next semester because they are

given to the elderly and frontline health care workers first. I think students do understand that schools

wouldn’t open for the starting of the second semester due to vaccine shortage and that due to this

understanding, school districts shouldn’t force schools to reopen by the 2nd semester. School districts

shouldn’t rush in making decisions based on a political bias and should understand that safety and health

of the people should always be their 1st priority. I personally think schools will reopen in Fall 2021 or in

the beginning of the new school year after acknowledging everything happening in the world right now

regarding the political environment, and health. Have a wonderful winter break, and remember to

maintain social distancing from others while wearing masks! Happy Holidays!