Opinion: Parents shaped COVID-19 policies more than politics – The Atlanta Journal Constitution

In the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no marked path out of the darkness, no experts with a proven playbook and no trucks packed with antidotes to the deadly virus. In March of 2020, the coronavirus leapt from a minor news event in faraway places to a plague at our front doors, and none of us was prepared, least of all schools suddenly asked to produce not only virtual instruction, but also meals, and, in many places in Georgia, internet access.

COVID-19 is better compared to a war than a natural disaster when you look at the death toll of those on the front lines. The World Health Organization estimates that 115,500 health care workers around the world died of COVID-19 between January 2020 and May 2021. The virus overwhelmed and depleted supplies and staff at Georgia hospitals with desperate health care workers reusing masks, gloves and gowns.

Today, at a safe distance secured by new vaccines, we can pick apart what schools should have done better during the pandemic, but we cant assert that they should have known better.

No one knew, as shown by the deaths of more than 6.5 million people around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 10.5 million children globally lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. In the United States, the current estimate is that 225,600 children experienced the death of a parent or a custodial grandparent from the virus.

Yet, a national narrative is taking shape that school districts ignored the will of parents and remained virtual largely due to politics. Parents in Georgia districts that were remote the longest, including Clayton, Atlanta, Decatur and DeKalb, voiced many reservations about their children returning to classrooms. Most of these districts serve largely Black families, who had a higher proportion of family members or neighbors sickened and killed by the virus.

Because so many of our families were front line, they were not willing for our students to come back overall, Clayton County Superintendent Morcease Beasley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As a community, we basically made a decision that safety would be prioritized over everything else, which meant that students learned virtually.

It was a vocal parent base of CDC researchers, physicians and university employees that influenced the City Schools of Decatur to offer extended hybrid instruction. That influence also contributed to Decaturs decision to impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate and later a booster requirement on its school staff, which earned the high-performing district a rebuke from Gov. Brian Kemp.

Decatur, Clayton and other metro districts didnt discount parents in their COVID-19 policies; they deferred to them in many instances.

Its an easy finger to point in hindsight while conveniently forgetting the 95 million COVID cases and 1 million-plus deaths in the U.S. 1 dead out of every 330 people, said University of Georgia professor emeritus of education Peter Smagorinsky. As if the best plan would be to just keep sending people into death traps, which presumably puts children first in the grave. Maybe, they think we shouldnt evacuate for raging fires and floods, either, because its the evacuation thats so disruptive.

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Opinion: Parents shaped COVID-19 policies more than politics - The Atlanta Journal Constitution