The following is an article that I wrote for the Philadelphia Jewish Link on November 13, 2020 about Montgomery County’s decision to halt in-person learning at all schools located within its borders:
The decision by the Montgomery County Board of Health requiring all schools to halt in-person instruction is short-sighted and smacks of a political expediency that belies their underlying mission.
500 people participated in the board’s Zoom meeting to discuss the possible closure, and despite vociferous opposition from numerous parents and a dearth of data to support the determination that all K-12 students in schools – public and non-public alike – must learn virtually from November 23rd to December 6th, with a possible expansion beyond that date, the board forged ahead with a mandate that forces our children to do their studies at home, using a computer as their conduit to learning, as opposed to a classroom.
While we should all be fully supportive of measures intended to curb the spread of COVID-19, including wearing masks and engaging in social distancing, I cannot in good conscience endorse a nonsensical directive that unnecessarily and unjustly impacts my children in an adverse fashion. If Montgomery County wishes to shut down their public schools, that is their prerogative. However, they have no business requiring non-public schools, including Jewish day schools, to close their doors.
In her remarks about the school closures, Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, noted that students and teachers coming back to school after Thanksgiving “could trigger a very substantial outbreak within our schools.” Moreover, Michel Masters, division director of communicable disease control and prevention for Montgomery County’s Office of Public Health, cited “the increase of social gatherings surrounding the holiday” as one of the issues that led to the school closures.
That is utter nonsense. While Thanksgiving may be the first instance of the 2020-21 academic year for public schools where people will possibly interact with others over the course of a holiday, Jewish day schools have already gone through this several times this fall, having enjoyed a successful return to the classroom after the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot. Our schools instituted clear guidelines that enumerated the steps families were asked to take over the holiday breaks in an effort to pave the way for a smooth school reopening at the conclusion of each holiday, and we assiduously adhered to those standards. Jewish day schools already proved that this could be done, and therefore this nebulous concern about “a very substantial outbreak within our schools” related to Thanksgiving is unfounded.
In addition, while we all recognize that the number of positive cases in Montgomery County is rising, the data concerning children and schools does not warrant the cancellation of in-person learning. Epidemiologists and public health professionals across the United States have acknowledged that young children do not spread the virus easily and maintain that it is safe for them to learn in school during the pandemic. Certainly, schools need to institute social distancing protocols to ensure that in-person learning environments are safe, but our local Jewish day schools have done that, with great success.
Could there be positive cases in our schools despite the precautions they have taken? Of course. However, schools are not super spreaders, COVID-19 outbreaks in schools are rare, and the infection rates in schools nationwide have been incredibly low.
The Montgomery County Board of Health should not have painted all schools with the same brush. A more prudent course of action would be to assess schools on a case-by-case basis and order a particular school to close only when there is a medically proven reason to do so. Closing schools should not be a one-size-fits-all approach.
The religious instruction our schools provide, as well as the rigorous secular academic curriculum they offer, are vital to our children’s continued growth. The intellectual stimulation and social interaction our children enjoy in school are core components of their development, and while our Jewish day schools did a yeoman’s job in the spring when the pandemic was raging and they had to transition to distance learning, there is no way to truly replicate the classroom experience that our children have had during the current school year thus far.
Furthermore, it is quite curious that the board solely targeted schools with what seems to be an arbitrary directive, yet entities such as bars, restaurants and gyms were not referenced, nor were residential gatherings within the county. It appears that schools were an easy mark for the board to impose its will and our students and schools will sadly suffer the consequences of this misguided mandate.
It is unfortunate that the Montgomery County Board of Health views our schools as coronavirus hotspots rather than the safe spaces for our children that they are. With a lack of data and a lack of foresight, the board’s decision to close our schools regrettably has terrible implications for our children and our community.
This is a time when we need to advocate for ourselves, our children, and our community. For those of us who are disappointed with the decision to close our schools, we should make our voices heard and express our displeasure to the county in a courteous, yet compelling way.
Email the Montgomery County Board of Health at publichealth@montcopa.org and let them know that you respectfully disagree with their determination. Urge them to permit individual schools to apply for an exemption from the school closure order based on a metric that sets forth specific criteria for a possible reopening, including the COVID-19 precautions taken by the school and the number of positive cases in the school.
Consider this a clarion call to action, in which we come together as a community to tell the county that they should not shutter our schools. Our children deserve nothing less.
