In another clear demonstration of the impossibility of reopening schools safely, St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Maryland—the private school attended by Barron Trump, where the student to teacher ratio is under 7, the largest class size barely cracks double digits, and the budget per student is many times that of any public school district—is not opening in September. In a letter sent out to parents, the school discussed the possibility of offering some “hybrid” classes in addition to online learning, but even that decision has been put off until they get a chance to see where things stand in mid-August. Fully reopening the school is not even on the table. This is a completely reasonable and appropriate decision, even if new cases in Maryland are standing at half of the peak they reached in May.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been forced to admit defeat on his dream of a “big, beautiful convention” in Jacksonville, Florida. Despite a budget of $100 million, and months of planning for a period of just four days, Republicans could not come up with a system that would keep their delegates and politicians safe. That hasn’t stopped them from insisting that impoverished school districts can keep thousands of children in tight confines for months at a time with no extra money, no extra materials, and no help in planning. Back to school, kids!
Republican politicians seem to be offended if anyone mentions the existence of their kids, but that certainly doesn’t stop them from making decisions that put the lives of other children at risk. They’re right that children shouldn’t be dragged because they happened to be related to people in the public eye … though they seem to find this rule more flexible when Democrats are in office. However, there’s an inverse law that should be just as important: Not having famous parents does not make children into nameless, faceless, interchangeable units whose futures can be sacrificed for political points.
Except, apparently, it kind of does. Because it’s not just that sending their children back to school represents a far small risk than they’re asking others to accept, the truth is that they’re not even facing a fraction of that risk.
As Florida takes the top of the chart in both new cases and deaths, the state’s Republican education commissioner has issued an “emergency order” instructing school districts to reopen in August. That order insists on “face-to-face learning five days a week.” Meanwhile, Governor Ron DeSantis says his kids would be going to school except, gosh darn it, they’re too young; Senator Rick Scott admits that his grandchildren are not returning to school; and Senator Marco Rubio refuses to say because he’s Marco Rubio.
Florida is far from alone. Republican governors across the nation are still taking their cue from Donald Trump and insisting that schools open, open, open, no matter what the cost … to everyone else who is not them. In Tennessee, which has made it’s way into the list of states with the most rapidly growing cases and reached a record number of deaths on Thursday, Governor Bill Lee has been particularly insistent on making children climb back into classrooms, health be damned. On Friday, Lee made it clear that he would not require schools to mandate masks even though 7,800 school-aged children have tested positive in that state and deaths among younger people are rising. That decision came a day after Lee denied a request from a school district asking for a reduction in the state’s mandated standardized testing—a burden that private schools don’t face.
That wasn’t the only request that Lee shot down. One school district administrator had the temerity to ask that the state wave mandates requiring 180 days of classroom instruction before a student can be accredited as completing a grade, noting that students may “need to self-quarantine if they should contract coronavirus.” Lee shot down that request. Not only will kids need to face the possibility of getting desperately ill or spreading disease to their families, but if they get sick, they better not think of going home. Instead, if they want to get credit for their school year, they have to remain in their chair—without a mask. In the world of perverse incentives, it’s hard to think of one much more perverse than that.
