"Twelve Weeks Of School Left"

You are absolutely correct. That is a mistake on my part. Half the city is at least half vaccinated. Including 65,000 DOE employees. My question still stands.

— Jesse Drucker (@JesseDrucker) April 3, 2021

Well, in New York State, anyway. Here in Texas, there are less than 8 weeks of school left. Your state may vary. And as the NYPost article points out, not all parents are clamoring for their students to return to school.

Parents are suing Katy ISD for forcing students who don’t wear masks to switch to online school.

The lawsuit is using Brown v. Board of Education — where racial segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional — as precedent.

Latest @TexasTribune: https://t.co/2MGBe14FMN

— Neelam (@neelambohratx) April 2, 2021

That is, frankly, a stupid lawsuit. It doesn't have a leg to stand on, as the Governor's emergency orders don't apply to schools (he has no statutory authority over them, nor Constitutional authority), and Paxton's suit to make Austin stop requiring masks is on appeal from the trial court, which shot him down. There are better reasons to not be too excited about that lawsuit, but I can tell you for every parent willing to sue to ban masks, there is a parent willing to sue to keep their child out of the classroom without any academic record effect. 

Besides, 12 weeks or 8 weeks, there's not a lot of school year left on the calendar until next fall.  Does someone really imagine the damage done by keeping children home (damage to some, a boon to others; it's always a cost-benefit analysis, but again, the only parts of that equation considered are the office holders and the employees (teachers). Nobody's asking the kids or the parents, except in rare cases.) is going to be undone in 2 months?  Or three?  Won't it be a bit more like the "blip" in the MCU, with students in class without other students who aren't allowed to go to class?  Is the return to class ASAP the solution to all our educational problems?

Journalists like to talk about politicians and office holders and unions, because they all have spokesmen. Nobody takes the parents seriously, because the parents are like a herd of cats, or a wheelbarrow full of frogs. The narrative is always simpler when you leave somebody out.  

Or forget there are 50 states out there, each one with its own education laws and requirements.  And many, many, many parents and children in those states (or hell, just outside NYC) with their own concerns and requirements.

And the “British” version of the virus (the variant first identified there) is proving to be more contagious among children than the “original.”  So going back to the classroom is not the simple solution some want it to be.