The Governor’s Office has released a 49-page report on (to boil it all down) how to get kids back in the classroom beginning in September. In other words, the recommendation is in-person teaching from the beginning of the school year.
Related: Are NH’s Teacher’s Unions Unintentionally Destroying their Education Monopoly?
A safe return to school in September 2020 is the primary goal, with accommodations for individuals, students and educators, who due to underlying health concerns are not able to return to in person learning. This guidance is dynamic and as circumstances and data change, it may require updating.
New Hampshire’s largest teachers union is on record as opposed to that plan “absent a vaccine,” though I can tell you that a lot of teachers just want to go back to work in the classroom, period. It’s just the union stooges who will be blocking progress.
Parents want their kids to go back to in-person classroom learning as well, but parents need to be reaching out to their school boards if they’re going to get any traction. The Union is a national, and they have big lawyers and lots of folks who will bitch and whine in all the right places to all the right people.
Ideally, the districts say we’re going back, and the Union says no. That will pit the will of the people who pay their salaries against the cranky union schleps, and I’d love to see that fight right before a national election. Nothing says time for change like public servants refusing to go to work for the people that pay them.
This is not Chicago or LA. And while the typically liberal towns will fold like the French, the plucky burbs will make it work while parents trapped in union-run sh*tholes like Nashua discover education alternatives to the government variety. Probably not a lot of them but some. And never in the numbers needed to facilitate wholesale change, but a burst of affordable private schools popping up to take the overflow would be good for education across the board.
Anyway, back to the actual report.
Cloth face coverings while recommended where distancing is impossible, they are not mandated. Each district is encouraged to make their own decisions based on their circumstances, changing them as those circumstances dictate. But face coverings are suggested often.
- Waiting to enter, or entering, the school building
- Leaving the school building
- Arriving to, or leaving, a classroom
- Boarding, exiting, or seated on a school bus
- Traveling in hallways, and transiting between classes or to the restroom
- Engaged in classroom or group activities where students may come closer than 3
feet of other students or staff
This face-covering business is a whole lot of ass-covering, if you ask me, and nowhere do I see a blanket immunity for towns or schools. That should be a given, as should a similar arrangement for business owners.
Stepping outside your front door has always come with risks we each measure and evaluate with the understanding that barring certain circumstances, we are responsible for what we do and where we freely go. We can’t have schools (or businesses) being sued right and left over this even though the odds of anyone under 30 getting it with more than mild symptoms is astronomically low.
Until that shows up, unless I missed it, this could get awkward, messy, and litigious. The Governor could make it all a lot easier on everyone, but I don’t think we’re going to go there and maybe we can’t.
You can read or download the report here or peruse the embedded copy below.
k-12-back-to-school NH
