Meeting The Enemy

New from me and @KalleyHuang: Even as some Texas schools hadn’t yet started the school year, the number of positive COVID-19 student cases statewide reported last week surpassed the peak seen any time last year, state data released Friday shows.https://t.co/yMiFBPpfPA

— Brian Lopez (@brianlopeztx) August 27, 2021

 When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I practiced family law; and not long enough to get good at it. But I saw one thing quickly enough: in any divorce case with children, the children were always the battlefield.

They weren’t fought over, they were fought on. The parents fought each other and the children weren’t just caught in the fight, they were where the fight was conducted. Now we’re doing it in the schools.

There’s no doubt masks and social distancing are valuable tools against Covid. Resistance to both is the primary reason we are in worse shape now than last winter. So we clamor for mask mandates in the schools.  But here’s the thing: we can’t enforce them, because the parents won’t go along.

Do you suspend students who won’t wear masks? Is refusing a mask the same thing as starting a fight or bringing a gun to school? What if the child has been told by the parents not to wear a mask? Dallas ISD went to court to defend its mask mandate, but allows parents to opt out for “philosophical” reasons. They admit that’s a loophole you could drive a truck through; but they also admit an absolute mandate is unenforceable.

Eanes ISD has solved the problem by segregating masked students from unmasked. That requires two sets of teachers, lots of physical space, and even two different lunch schedules. Most school districts don’t have the staff or the facilities to do that.

So is the answer to punish the kids? Most of them don’t have agency in this situation; they’re doing what their parents tell them to do. Do we force those students to stay home, endangering their education for another year?

I suppose if we had a top-down push (from the Governor) for masks a mandate might be more effective. But I think that horse has already left the barn and besides, we burned that barn down a long time ago. Demanding a mask mandate is not solving the problem. Refusing to observe basic public health standards is not solving the problem. I’m not sure we’re capable of solving this problem. But we’ll sure find lots of other people to blame for that in the meantime.