What must be Lesson 1 in reopening SC schools? Don’t force kids to be in classrooms

No child in South Carolina should be forced to be physically present in a school building in order to receive an adequate education during the upcoming academic year.

Period.

It’s that simple.

That should be a steadfast and firm rule of thumb as our state works toward reopening our schools by this fall — and particularly as long as South Carolina continues to grapple with troubling rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

It’s time for Gov. Henry McMaster to leave no doubt that he embraces that philosophy.

Unhelpful, unnerving

McMaster needs to move away from his current approach of publicly pushing state educators to reopen their facilities for face-to-face instruction by early September while also prodding South Carolina’s parents to commit to having their children physically return to classrooms this fall.

It’s an unhelpful posture for McMaster to assume as long as South Carolina continues to trend as a national hotspot for COVID-19 cases and deaths — and as long as there are no clear assurances that these grim numbers will dramatically flatten and improve by early fall.

It’s also an unnerving posture for McMaster to assume given this stubborn reality: despite the spiking virus rates, McMaster still refuses to implement a statewide requirement to wear face masks.

At minimum, you’d think that requirement would be a must before McMaster could even begin to credibly urge educators to emphasize face-to-face learning — or actively encourage parents to put aside legitimate concerns and send their children back inside classrooms in a matter of mere weeks.

Rather than hectoring educators and exerting passive-aggressive pressure on parents, McMaster should stand aside and simply let individual school systems get on with creating suitable educational gameplans for their communities during the 2020-21 academic year.

The best tack appears to be relying on a hybrid approach of providing virtual learning while also making in-person instruction accessible as a totally voluntary option for parents to choose for their children — not one that is aggressively pushed upon them by an impatient governor.

A clear message

As our state continues our painstaking effort to recover elements of normality while still confronting the realities of COVID-19, educators, parents and students alike need clarity when it comes to the education process during the months ahead.

And this is clearly the most resonant message they can receive:

No child will be forced to sit in a classroom to get a quality education in South Carolina during the 2020-21 school year.

McMaster’s rhetoric is needlessly muddling that simple message.

It’s time for the muddled rhetoric to end.

This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 9:05 AM.