As Decatur schools prepare for wrapping the 2019-20 school year (last day for seniors is this Friday, for everyone else May 22), Superintendent David Dude is evaluating three potential scenarios for reopening the district on August 4. During a recent interview with the AJC he provided crystalline descriptions of each:
*”We’d have a normal opening [with students returning to the classroom],” Dude said. “Everything starts as normal with a couple extra precautions in place like serious hand washing and sanitation and the wearing of masks.
*”A hybrid [where] every other day kids [report to their classrooms, and on alternate days go online] and we basically split the student body in half. This way we can still have face-to-face instruction time, but we can do it in a way where we can maintain social distancing in the classroom.
*”The third—and I hope we don’t have to do this—is the full online approach, much like what we’re doing now. We have to be prepared for starting the year where the kids won’t be physically present at all.”
Dude said he’s also considering the possibility of students reporting to schools every day in am/pm shifts, but for now prefers the alternate days approach.
Though he’d like to choose the final option by mid June, he also knows much depends on CDC guidelines and the ceaseless evolution of new data.
Two recent studies, one in China and the other in Germany offered evidence that children can transmit COVID-19. Neither study is definitive, but both offer evidence that school children, well-documented spreaders of the common flu, may be equally as potent in passing on coronavirus.
This was followed by news last week of a “mysterious syndrome” (according to the New York Times), possibly related to COVID-19 that killed three young children in New York and sickened 73 others.
Dude believes that all decisions related to reopening City Schools of Decatur belongs to he and his staff and not the state. At heart is the central dilemma of reopening school while avoiding a second wave of deadly infections.
“This is clearly an unprecedented time,” Dude said. “But in my experience, such as an extreme weather situation, or in the current [pandemic] situation, the state will say all schools in Georgia need to close. That’s precedent. What would be unprecedented is if the sate says you have to go back to school even if the local community doesn’t feel like it’s ready for that.
“What I think will happen,” he added, “is that the governor will do the same thing he did with the businesses. At some point schools [statewide] will be allowed to reopen, but [the local districts] will have to make our own decision on whether it’s safe to reopen or not.”
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