Everyone is aware of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as the years go by, things start getting deadlier and deadlier. However, that does not mean that everyone should just give up and let it infect everyone, so it is everyone’s job to protect others from ever transferring the coronavirus. When it comes to schools all over the United States, then it is an all-hands-on-deck situation that needs to be taken care of immediately. COVID-19 and the rubrics of schools are still integrating a pattern with it’s uniques of learning, so it is up to the school districts like the Board of Education and many others to assemble and come up with logical solutions to aid kids now and in the future to get the best education during the pandemic.

Ever since COVID-19 began escalating the death rates and cases on March 25, 2020, all schools across the United States were closed, with the exception of Wyoming and Montana, and all students, K-12, were forced to remotely do their classes at home by the end of the school year. By summer 2020, all states banned together and brainstormed some ways to reopen schools all over the US. Moreover, while they were doing that, they elaborate on how they were going to reopen schools safely, making sure students stay six feet apart when riding on school buses, and serving out meals. When the new school year of 2021-2022 began, it came clear to Mayor de Blasio and all of the other Education team to reopen schools, especially the ones in New York, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, and Texas, however, reopening them comes with a very important twist:
The following guidelines are as followed when students and teachers enter the building on the first day:
Wear your mask at all times
Staying six feet apart
Wash your hands or use Hand Sanitizer
The school district’s number one priority is safely getting K-12 students back to school. Aside from the reopening plans for the upcoming school year and protectively getting children to school cautiously, parents are very concerned and troubled about the safety and protection of their children because they hope and pray that none of them were tested positive from COVID-19. Furthermore, the emotions and reactions are also what’s driving parents from letting their kids go back to in-person learning, so it is very logical that it is best to let parents and teachers learn the basics of how all schools across several states are going to reopen all schools. Once they do that, then they get to decide whether it is eligible for their kids to safely do in-person learning.
COVID-19 has become a colossal situation in the world, and it is up to the teams of education to not only help kids return to school safely, but to fortify them from both the coronavirus and the new virus, the Delta Variant. When the Delta Variant was brought up in India last year December 2020, then that is when the world’s chance of slowing the coronavirus was cut short. As of now, they are still finding ways to prevent both viruses from affecting people. Furthermore, the Board of Education has a new mission now: to help teachers and students return to schools safely and to get them receive a covid-19 vaccine so their immune systems can defend them from both viruses. Both the coronavirus and the Delta Variant have taught all of us that we have to be prepared for the worst, and even though this school year turned out to be sloppy, everyone is trying their hardest to help children pass all of their classes and not be far behind in their academics. No child should struggle in school, which is a possibility for all children, five through eighteen, to stay safe and healthy during the school year.
Even though there were some ups about the reopening of schools across the US, there were some downs to it as well. Most parents are stressing to see the risk in their beloved children as they plan on going back to school in-person, so they think that it is best that they switch to remote learning. Remote learning still proceeds on, and it has become a massive struggle for most kids. The Rand Corporation, a research group, stated, “Students attending remote classes learned less English, Science, Math, and History.” A Harvard group, the Opportunity Insights, also stated that when students do remote learning, then they are lagging off of low-income. Even the Netherland school districts are saying that students perform poorly if they do remote learning. Furthermore, according to Center on Reinventing Public Education diagram, it is shown:
8% are vary brand/varies by school
12% are hybrid
25.8% are remote
48.9% are in-person
By November 2, 2020, the new studies are shown that:
19% are remote
36% are in-person
45% are hybrid
By May 3, 2021, more studies were shown that:
1% were remote
46% were hybrid
53% were in-person

Based on all of the research, students who lack even excelling from their classes, are lacking poverty. Poverty has been a big issue for students of color, or BIPOC(Black, Latina, and People of Color). High school and college students who are represented by their skin color in their studies are more likely to fall behind in their academics, they lack food support, fall short on their income due to their parents’ job loss, and too much caregiving for their younger siblings make remote learning harder for them, it is like they are putting too much pressure in their education at home. Moreover, it is positively fair that students will have better grades if they switch to in-person classes, however, it may be a huge concern to the parents because they want to make sure their kids are safe and healthy from the spread of the coronavirus. Overall, even though some kids are afraid to go back to school in-person, it is fine for some parents to make them do remote learning, however, in order for them to do better in their classes is for them to go in-person.
When parents hear the news of Mayor de Blasio’s plans to reopen schools across the US, emotions start kicking in. The way parents felt before they heard about this are as followed:
Worried: All parents worry to make sure their kids are secured and safe, but when it comes to the coronavirus and coming back to classrooms, then that is what they should worry the most. Their worrying is one of their primary emotions.
Fearful: Most parents fear that if they send their children back to school, then they will catch the coronavirus easily.
Anger: Frustrated by the fact that the school districts are letting kids come back to school, parents are angered as they blame de Blasio and the school districts for reopening schools. This strong and fragile emotion represents that they should not have announced that and let children do remote learning.
Confused: Just before Mayor de Blasio’s huge announcements on schools reopening last summer 2020, parents and children are full of confusion, and they do not know how the 2020-2021 school year is going to work with COVID-19 running amok.

All of these painful emotions make up the whole moral of COVID-19’s future on kids’ education. Moreover, these emotions also tell a strong point on what is to come of the coronavirus and the Delta Variant, both viruses are very dangerous that people may never know what is to come of the viruses. As of right now in schools, some parents find the two viruses horrifying, as well as children. For children, with the coronavirus cases rising, then they will find it fearful to see how their future educations are going to turn out if they get affected by them.
Despite the emotions, the reactions also tell a very story of the future of education. All parents have a say when it comes to their children’s education, but when it comes to COVID-19, then that is where they all have a lot to say about. New York chancellor Melissa Porter said, “We know our schools have been safe and we need our children back…. Nothing, absolutely nothing, replaces the interaction and the learning that happens between a student and a teacher in our classrooms.” Of what Porter noted is the type of reaction that parents were feeling before, during, and after the start of the 2020-2021 school year. From Porter’s statement , it was as if she was stressing over the fact that she wanted all children(K-12) and teachers to start coming back to school. However, Phil Murphy quoted, “Parents who disliked the idea of sending their kids back to school have remarked them as ‘disrespectful’ and ‘doing parents a disservice.’ This is also another type of source of reaction some parents got after hearing the news about the reopening of schools.
Other resourceable facts that school districts are using to help students who are “experiencing homelessness, do not have internet access or have Individualized Education Programs are creating district-run pods and community hubs”. Online learning is extremely difficult for BICOP students, however, school districts and communities are maximizing ideas to aid them with other useful resources to help them in their remote learning process. Although doing online learning may seem stressful, restless, and less educational to them, studies have shown that “29 percent of districts plan to prioritize any groups of students for in-person instruction when possible to do so.” That is the type of stupendous work the districts of schools are doing to the kids, and maybe in the near future, if kids are stuck with the lack of remote learning, then they will swap to in-person learning.
From the studies and data bases, all of the school districts, communities, and organizations are doing a perfect job in helping all of the students in need of help with their education, even though the virus is not over yet. Furthermore, all of these organizations are doing their hardest in giving out more databases and information on what is to come of those who are doing their classes remotely, in-person, or hybrid during the covid pandemic as well as the delta variant. Even though covid cases and deaths are increasing, it is still their number one priority to make sure that they are on the right path of making sure kids’ future of education are strategically going out well.
Online learning may be some of kids’ safest options, but it does come with one of the most paradoxical prices: Internet Access.
Internet access has been the worst problem for students who do online learning, especially for students who are BIPOC, students from families who have low-incomes, and those who live in country locations. The main focus behind internet access is the wi-fi, while students do their classes online, bad wi-fi begins kicking in, causing students to miss out on their classes and information from them.
Some more research was found, and that “16.9 million of kids nationwide did not have access to high-speed internet, 7.3 million children did not have access to a home computer, and 1 in 3 Black, Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native households. Overall, this is another example of why remote learning makes learning more complex for children, especially the BIPOC, children with low-income families, and those who live in rural sides of the city.
However, school districts in Montgomery, Alabama, used internet based school buses to provide hotspots equipped enough to assist children(BIPOC, low-income, and rural locations) with better wifi. One positive thing about students who do remote learning, is that when they do log in to their classes, getting the fastest wifi is the best way to proceed because no student should have to go through with the difficulties of a slow and weak wifi connection. Having slow wifi not only affects a child’s learning abilities, but also makes them miss out on the information they need for their classes.
In the Spring of 2020, while COVID continues to spread swiftly like wildfire, the extracurriculars, grading policies, AP Exams, SAT, ACT, as well as college applications had to be done online for a lot of high schoolers. Word on it is that it was a strategic idea to cancel all of this because it would make the 2019-2020 school year a monstrosity for high schoolers to do all of this in-person with more than 20 students involved. The SAT, ACT, and AP exams had to be taken online as well, but by the 2020-2021 school year came, that is when most high schoolers in other places in the US were given in-person instructions for these exams.
Before COVID struck worldwide, breakfast and lunch would be given out free, but now that the coronavirus is involved, the grab-and-go meals had to be delivered to children throughout. According to The US Department of Agriculture(USDA), inaugurated a nationwide waiver in March 2020, which was used to “allow schools flexibility in how they are going to expand ways to distribute meals and expanded eligibility to students. By the Spring of 2020, the allocation of meals are as followed:
81% of schools distributed grab-and-go meals
42% delivered meals to homes
32% used bus routes to distribute meals
That type of meal distribution helped kids a lot in the nutrition process, and it was a generous way to aid them during their remote learning experience.
However, by June 2020, 1 in 6 kids were not getting enough food because their parents could not afford to buy it, and according to the Brooklyn Institution, they pointed out that 14 million children, including the BIPOCs. Nutrition is linked to students’ education, because if children do not get enough of it, then they will start to go hyperactive and their brains cannot function well during the school day.
COVID-19 affections on schools through the past year and a half has put a damper on children’s education. All of the school districts around the US went through a lot of maximization and data points to come up with ways to help bring public, middle, private, and high school students back to schools and into their classrooms. Out of all the ideas they had brought up, they were able to come up with some of the positive solutions to this. First was getting kids to do in-person learning, because it is the only way they will receive better grades in school. Second, even though they cannot get free breakfast and lunch, it is possible for them to get grab-and-go lunches to their homes so that their brains can function better during their school days. And finally, wearing their masks and social distancing themselves is far from the best solution for them to stay protective and healthy. Even though COVID-19 pandemic and the Delta Variant are still going on in our world, the safety and future of children’s education rests in the hands of school districts, and in the nearby future, they will continue to do those sensational methods to help these kids get the outstanding education they will get.

Work Cited:
Shapiro, Eliza. “The Clock Is Ticking: What We Know About N.Y.C.’s Reopening Plan.” New York Times, Aug. 10, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/nyregion/nyc-school-reopening-delta.html
Leonhardt, David. “When School Is Voluntary.” New York Times, July 12, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/12/briefing/remote-learning-covid.html
Ferren, Megan. “Remote Learning and School Reopenings: What Worked and What Didn’t” American Progress, July 6, 2021 https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2021/07/06/501221/remote-learning-school-reopenings-worked-didnt/
Gross, Bethany/ Opalka, Alice. “Analysis: As Many School Districts Reopen Virtually, the Opportunity Gap Widens for Students in Poverty” T74, Sept. 9, 2020, https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-as-many-school-districts-reopen-virtually-the-opportunity-gap-widens-for-students-living-in-poverty/