Parents and teachers alike, trying to plan for their lives, have been weighing the credibility of guidance from state and federal authorities.
Peach season has almost past; apples are just ahead.
Some rituals are important to me, like savoring produce at just the right time. We headed into a farm store today on our way home from a trip, and found peaches, blueberries, melons and apples waiting for us. Since it's late August, and the local fruit, as well as local corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables are all ripe and luscious, we didn't have to think twice about digging in.
But apples? No, for me, that's a harbinger of fall, and it's against my religion to think of eating apples (which I love) when there are summer peaches to be had. I wait until sometime in September.
September abounds with rituals, including "an apple for the teacher, ' which may no longer be enough to keep the doctor away in this year when "Back to School" is hardly a given. Even in places where students have already returned to the classroom.
Teachers, students, parents, and virtually everyone else, have been waiting on pins and needles to learn what the school year will bring. Here's what we can all can expect, as the New York Times put it: "a roller-coaster ride."
Some schools have already opened, and quickly closed as students began contracting the novel coronavirus.
Nearly 2,500 students and 62 staff members in CherokeeCounty, Ga. were ordered to quarantine, after opening early in August, parent Miranda Wickert withdrew her two children to homeschool them this year in search of stability. She said the wave of quarantines are proving her fear correct that there would be waves of openings and closings.
“I just don’t know this is sustainable,” she said. “I don’t know how this is equitable, this constant in and out of school.”
A photo that went viral showing a crowded North Paulding High School hallway with students not wearing masks brought reprimands from the superintendent for the black eye it gave the Georgia district, but it wasn't until confirmation of COVID cases there that administrators began taking responsible action.
In Mississippi, 71 of 82 counties have reported cases in schools.
With school reopenings taking on a partisan bent in some places, with President Trump and Republican governors such as Florida's Ron DeSantis urging in-classroom instruction, The New York Times reported, "A constant flow of information about positive cases in classrooms and quarantined students could hinder those efforts, experts said.
“When schools have to shut down after students test positive, that doesn’t look good politically on governors and lawmakers who have advocated for opening up,” said Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida. “So the potential is there to hide behind privacy laws.
“There are definitely battle lines drawn, and the release of information can sway public opinion.”
The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has reported that 31.3 percent -- nearly one-third of students tested for coronavirus have returned positive results. It's had to shut down campus and transition to remote-only instruction.
Parents and teachers alike, trying to plan for their lives, have been weighing the credibility of guidance from state and federal authorities.
In my neck of the woods, where higher education and private schools are a large part of the region's economy -- depending heavily on foreign students, who are extremely unlikely to risk educating in the nation with the highest incidence of COVID, even if they were allowed to travel here -- the pandemic's effect has been disastrous.
Students, including those for whom this is the foundational part of their education face ongoing uncertainty of what their school year may look like, whether their lessons will be taught in a school or on a screen, if they even have one.
What they're all learning, and we along with them, is an important lesson about the importance of science and the laws of nature. It's critical that they also learn, at some point, about the realities of politics, and the critical thinking skills. Maybe if we learn our lessons, we won't ever have to suffer through these horrendous mistakes again.
And while we're at it, how about learning values like honesty, decency and integrity?
Please Follow the Almanac on Facebook
Check out my books, Inner Landscapes and Good Will & Ice Cream