Great Lakes Wire

School officials, union leaders and parents in Michigan are pushing back against the recommendation by President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to reopen schools despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and uptick in new cases.

DeVos said in a July conference call with governors, “Ultimately, it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how. School must reopen, they must be fully operational. And how that happens is best left to education and community leaders,” a release issued by The Hill reported.

Michigan's 1.5 million children can return to schools with certain protocols in place, public health officials said in a release issued by the Detroit News. Those protocols include the use of masks, social distancing and increased ventilation. The officials also advised that the rate of infections must remain low.

But many are questioning whether schools should reopen, voicing concerns about children and teachers catching the coronavirus, and also exposing family members. Without a clear plan of action, a large number of teachers and parents are not confident that it's safe to return to public classrooms.

While some schools have announced they will open fully for in-person instruction, others will be offering remote learning. School officials in Lansing, Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids made the decision that it would not be safe for students to come back to brick-and-mortal schools, a release issued on Bridge said.

While Trump and DeVos have pushed for schools to reopen, it is certain that many do not support their decision. A recent Kaiser poll found that 60% of parents with school-age children prefer that schools wait to have in-person classes.

Other polls also seem to agree with Kaiser's data. An Axios-Ipsos poll from July showed most U.S. parents feel the risk would be high if they allowed their children to go back to school this fall. Another poll by Quinnipiac found that 62% said it would not be safe to send students back to school, compared to only 31% who thought it would be safe.

A different Kaiser study shows a risk of the virus spreading when schools reopen; and it's unclear how many teachers, schoolchildren and their family members could become infected.

"The evidence indicates that while children are much less likely than adults to become severely ill from COVID-19, they do transmit virus," the Kaiser Foundation reported. It is still unclear to what extent children, especially younger ones, are likely to get infected or transmit the infection to others compared to adults. However, where there is already widespread community transmission, as is the case in many areas in the U.S., there is clearly a risk of spread associated with reopening schools. This challenge may be more pronounced where testing and contact tracing capacity is limited. As such, the risk of re-opening schools needs to be considered carefully in light of the recognized benefits of in-person education."

An internal Centers for Disease Control document “warned that fully reopening K-12 schools and universities would be the ‘highest risk’ for the spread of coronavirus," a report issued by the New York Times said. “The 69-page document … was intended for federal public health response teams to have as they are deployed to hot spots around the country. What is clear is that federal health experts are using a road map that is vastly different from what Mr. Trump wanted."

The report came as Trump and his administration have pushed for a return to in-person instruction in schools.

"We are talking about Michigan children, teachers and families getting sick— or even dying," Ellen Offen, vice president of Protect Our Public Schools, told the Great Lakes Wire. "We can’t make rash decisions— like forcing all schools to reopen without a plan for safely doing so— when it could mean thousands dead.”