NEW YORK — Parents have weighed in on reopening schools. Teachers have weighed in. Public health experts, too, along with cities, states and President Donald Trump.
But what about the kids themselves? As the grown-ups fret, kindergartners to high schoolers faced with a range of scenarios for virtual and in-person classes are expressing both fear and glee over leaving home to learn.
Many said they’re most worried about fellow students breaking the rules on wearing masks and keeping their distance, especially in areas that are hot spots for the coronavirus.
“We’ll be home in a month,” said a skeptical Peter Klamka, an eighth-grader in Las Vegas, in a county that logged 95 percent of new coronavirus cases reported in Nevada early last week.
The 13-year-old will return to his private school in about three weeks.
“Some kids will be more responsible than others. I’m not looking forward to it but I’ve got to go school so I’d rather be there in person,” Peter said.
Not yet 5, kindergartner Rivington Hall in Westport, Conn., will begin her first big-kid year in September, at least in part on Zoom after finishing preschool at home.
“I’d rather go to school because it has more toys and it’s more fun,” she said as she munched on animal crackers and sipped from a juice box.
Anxious parents around the country are looking to schools that have already opened for signs of how it might go. One, North Paulding High School in suburban Atlanta, rescinded a five-day suspension for a student who shared photos and video of crowded hallways and few students in masks after doors opened this month.
The school has since suffered an outbreak of COVID-19, along with other schools in hard-hit Georgia.
Nearly 50 miles away in Alpharetta, Ga., 10-year-old Collier Evans will attend school remotely when he begins fifth grade Aug. 17. He could have gone in person full time or picked a blended option but said he was anxious about returning to school.
“My parents and me, we said we don’t want to go in a classroom, get sick and then I’d bring it home and get my family sick,” Collier said.
As for distance learning, he said: “I hope it’s going to go better than last year. You had to wait in a queue for like 30 minutes to ask the teacher one question.”
In Tucson, Ariz., 10-year-old Simon Joubeaud Pulitzer returned to his private school Aug. 3, his blue button-down uniform shirt and tie in place. He was happy to see his friends again and have face-to-face access to his teachers.
Did he feel safe?
“Not the first day but after, yes, I felt a bit safer,” Simon said. “All kids were following the rules.”
Those rules include masks worn indoors, socially distanced desks and only two kids per outdoor picnic table at either end for lunch.
Most American parents said it was unsafe to send their children back to school, with more than 80 percent favoring school conducted at least partly online, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School survey conducted by Ipsos. But many expressed displeasure at the quality of online instruction.
As summer winds down, the mixed feelings mirror the lack of consensus around the country on how to balance virus risks and schooling.
