By: Kevin Lee

Dear Editor,

Private schools reopening this fall presents problems for the containment of the coronavirus pandemic. Although private schools have the money to reopen, clearly showing the difference in wealth from independent and dependent schools, independent schools should not reopen for the safety of students and the community around them.

In recent days, the Sun Belt region of the U.S. eased restrictions on the coronavirus pandemic quarantine effectively making thousands of people pour onto the streets. In the last few days, cases have been surging in states such as Florida, averaging about 10,000 cases a day. George Allen, a Journalist of Georgia Public Broadcasting writes, “Florida has averaged more than 10,000 cases a day for the past week, and some public health experts said the peak is still weeks away.” Schools are only becoming breeding grounds for a virus like COIVID-19 instead of educational centers when students crowd into classrooms.

To fix this issue, we must stop the reopening of private schools and focus on slowing the spread of the virus to safely reopen. Additionally, the government should not be giving away huge amounts of money to schools to tempt them into reopening only to have a disaster unfold, but should send the manpower or supplies to disinfect surfaces or the extra equipment to protect students and staff alike in certain situations.

The safety of people should be prioritized over reopening to find an alternate solution or vaccine to stop the pandemic in its tracks. In this time we could also be slowly reopening due to herd immunity and slowly finding new ways to solve problems associated with the pandemic. Currently, we are trying to balance personal health over reopening but the best option would be to halt the reopening process.

Kevin Lee

Link to article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/upshot/coronavirus-school-reopening-private-public-gap.html