To reopen schools or not: A case for educational equity

It’s not just about logistics

By Shannan Vance-Ocampo | Presbyterians Today

My husband is an administrator at a school. In the early weeks of the pandemic, I watched the ongoing cartwheels and rushed changes that had to be made to provide for children’s education. I have friends whose children have IEPs (Individualized Education Programs) and some who are part of the disabled community. I heard stories about how some schools have forgotten about their children in the mess and maze of COVID-19, and how some children’s developmental needs are so significant that online school just doesn’t work at all.

Another friend noticed how little her grandchildren were getting from their public school while she watched what public schools in wealthier communities were doing for their online education. She is enraged and angry as lines of segregation glow even brighter, unabated and unchallenged in this time. I talked to a teacher, too, who shared that after several weeks into the pandemic, she finally got to have a virtual classroom experience with her high school students that she had missed so much. Only half of them were there and those who arrived were brokenhearted and dispirited.

Education has always been a sign of the great disparities in our country. Schools are still segregated by housing and ZIP codes, no matter the time we are in in this country. Those lines have been exacerbated and highlighted in even deeper ways in the time of COVID-19. There is an education gap. There is a resource gap. And of course, this is just another sign of the sickness, evil and malaise already present in our country pre-COVID-19; the intentional harm that was being done to some people, the intentional shunning of some children, the intentional toxic brew of racism and classism that make up the original sins of this country. We continue to wage a war of de-resourcing our children, turning off the lights on their future, and making sure that certain children know that they are simply not important enough to have what other kids already have.

So, when we think about schools reopening — as people of faith who live in local communities — the real question is not just about the logistics, but about equity. A focus solely on logistics leaves out the questions that we must faithfully ask so that we do not go back to business as usual. We have our work cut out for us as people of faith, because the forces that maintain the status quo are usually lined up against the gospel values we profess as a Matthew 25 church. Consider this: As of April, in hard-hit communities in metro New York City, over 50 employees of the New York City schools had died, 21 of them classroom educators. What will it take in communities where so many have died for children to be able to function after the trauma has set in? In school districts that are already intentionally defunded (and being set up for most “cost-savings” on the backs of our precious children), how will they afford what it takes to create safe space from a medical and mental health perspective for children, teachers and staff? What will it be like to bring children, youth and young adults back into classrooms of all types when their world has been rocked to its core, when we are teaching and potentially training them for jobs that no longer exist in a ravaged economy? What is the future story we tell them? Can we write a new one?

Most importantly for us as people of faith: What is our role in all of this? How can we come alongside our local schools, educators, staff, parents, families and precious children? What does our faith demand of us? What kind of future story will we choose, advocate and vote for? If we go back to just reopening our school systems — even in careful, staggered ways for good medical precautions — the inequities remain. If we don’t fix the rot at the root first, what sort of faithfulness will we show? Will the reopening be pleasing to God or to mammon?

Shannan Vance-Ocampo is general presbyter of the Presbytery of Southern New England and chair-elect of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board. A previous version of this article appeared on April 27, 2020, in the newsletter The Resistance Prays.

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