Lisa Palmer, the WSSD School Board,* and Our Civic Leaders Are Failing Us
As September looms, we find ourselves on the verge of a new public crisis. The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District and its superintendent, Lisa Palmer, are sacrificing our kids’ educational and psychosocial wellbeing under the guise of keeping our community safer. The school board’s recent decision to start school virtually – a state of affairs that looks likely to continue indefinitely even if Delaware County’s case count data remains steady — will have adverse consequences for a generation of children. Specifically, it will worsen inequalities in ways that may reverberate for decades.
According to a survey WSSD conducted, two-thirds of district families want their kids back in school in person. Back in July, WSSD’s board had voted to adopt a hybrid instructional model that would have had students in school two days per week and online the other three. But at last week’s meeting, it abruptly reversed course, citing the risk that COVID case counts might rise due to Labor Day gatherings. They reversed their July decision even though there has been a slight decline in seven-day positivity rates since then. Similarly, last Friday, despite that downward trajectory, the Chester County Department of Health weighed in with a recommendation that all schools — public and private — adopt a virtual model until at least October 9. Their caution was based on the need to give public school districts more time to prepare, and on the same concern the WSSD school board cited, that Labor Day gatherings might accelerate the spread of the virus in the community.
Without politicizing the debate, any public health argument for closing schools that is based on the incidence level of the virus in Delco needs to be questioned and placed into proper context. 94% of people in Delaware County who have tested positive for the coronavirus are over the age of 19. This is why workers employed at businesses like Target, Giant, and Harrah’s face more real COVID-19 risk than do teachers, yet those businesses remain open to in-person visits from the public.
Which makes us ask: What are our public health priorities? If our civic leaders are serious enough to close schools to stem the virus, shouldn’t they also compel casinos, high-traffic retailers, and grocers to operate “online only” until community spread has been reduced to a level sufficient to safely reopen schools? In our view, schools, like hospitals, ought to top the reopening list, and be prioritized above the others, because the risk of contracting COVID in schools is relatively low, and their importance to public health is vital. The citizens of Delaware County can shop, order food, and gamble online — conveniently, right now. But forcing students and teachers online is a much heavier lift, and comes at great cost to kids and their families.
The momentous challenge of getting kids back to school for in-person learning offered our school board and Superintendent Lisa Palmer’s administration the chance to shine. Now is the time to creatively and carefully stretch boundaries and seek solutions. If ever there were a year to disregard budgets, exhaust capital reserves, and — dare we say it — spend money that has not been budgeted, this is it. Instead, after five months studying the problem, our school board’s 7 to 1 decision on August 10 effectively forces those tough choices onto the district’s parents and guardians.
*The sole dissenting vote came from Jennifer Lentz. Courageously, she was the only member who challenged the experts the district had brought forward – particularly their interpretation of the case statistics. She was also the only member who read into the record the concerns of parents in her ward, citing those concerns, along with her concerns about the statistics, as the basis for her vote.
Last spring, we experienced what a poor substitute online learning is, compared to in-person education, especially for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. But one difference between then and now is that, during the lockdown, most parents were at home with their kids. Now that adult workplaces have largely reopened, the consequences of kids not physically going to school will soon become evident: children left alone while parents go to work, and less-affluent students, with less support for online learning, falling behind their peers.
Parents with financial means will have more choices available to them. If they want their kids to have in-person schooling, they may be able to enroll them in one of the private schools that are fully reopening — or “pod up” with other families and hire private tutors. But what about those who cannot afford such luxuries? What about the working mom who posted online after the school board’s July meeting, “Am I the only parent trapped in a silent screaming loop of panic over the fall school year?”
Someone please help her, because our school board sure has not.
Todd Strine, Robert Borgstrom, and Gregory Hoy
Publishers
