Will Memphis-area schools open in the fall? Here's why that's a 'tough question'

With back-to-business plans in order, leaders are looking to the complicated issue of reopening schools. New plans will consider the school calendar, how students get to school and how much school work will be done outside the classroom. 

Knowing when and how to bring kids back into classrooms is complex. 

"The general point is that this is a really tough one, tough question," said Dr. Jon McCullers, who has advised Memphis and Shelby County leaders throughout COVID-19. Pediatrician-in-chief at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and a department chair and professor at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, McCullers is also an advisor for the university system's reopening plan. 

In Memphis and Shelby County, the COVID-19 task force has deliberately placed school reopening discussions on hold, McCullers said. Now that the back-to-business framework has been established, he said it's time to address the complexity of schools and how that return may happen. 

Shelby County Schools also recently announced the formation of its own task force.

"We’re going to have to all put some thought to it," McCullers said by phone Thursday. "We’re going to have to involve the schools and our governmental leaders and scientists, and I’m not sure there’s an easy solution. So it’s going to take some thought and we’re going to get working on that.”

Social distancing at school 

McCullers' own experience with his kids proves that completely remote or virtual learning doesn't seem plausible in the long-term. Young kids can't stay home alone while parents are at work, especially for the next year and a half to two years that he expects for the coronavirus pandemic to continue.

"My sense is that we’re not going to be able to keep kids from transmitting virus at school. Their social contact rates are too high," McCullers said. Like other experts in Memphis and across the country, McCullers noted that it's nearly impossible for children to social distance from one another. 

The question then becomes: How much social distancing do you attempt?

If there were resources available to socially distance in classrooms, would you be able to social distance on the school bus? 

Schools could alter scheduling, he posited, so that some children come to school on certain days and some on others, leaving room for more social distancing to take place.

But then there's the issue of instructional staff and having the resources to pay them. Shelby County Schools teachers have already spent the last year negotiating increased salaries and working conditions. In a meeting Friday, district officials said the sought-after salary schedule would be put on hold due to COVID-19, Chalkbeat reported. 

McCullers presented the conflicting issues at play: "So I think every school is going to have to have some thoughts about how to be innovative, and is there some hybrid learning opportunities with some online and some face-to-face, and is there staggered schedules, or do we put kids back in there and let the virus pass itself around because we know that the risk is really low for that age group?"  

"It’s a real tough one," he said, "which is why nobody’s solved it yet.” 

SCS Superintendent Joris Ray announced the district's new reopening task force in a weekly update posted Friday.

More:SCS distributes first laptops during COVID-19, readies online plan for entire district

“This group will be made up of key stakeholders with education, health care, faith-based and business experts to advise us on a longer term strategy for reopening schools,” Ray said. 

So far, the group is discussing the “new normal” for education and virtual learning and how to make up lost instructional time by possibly taking advantage of tutoring or extending the school day or school year, he said. Transit and logistical challenges are being addressed, Ray said, among other re-entry protocols like social distancing and wearing face coverings. He said the district is also working to meet the social-emotional learning needs of its students and families.

Kids and COVID-19

Children make up less than 2% of COVID-19 cases reported nationwide, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from April, and in most cases, they show mild symptoms that do not require hospitalization. 

In mid-April, when Shelby County first reported data on pediatric cases, or cases for individuals under 18, that rate was the same. 

More:Coronavirus in Shelby County kids: What we know and why it matters

As of Friday, though, pediatric cases made up 6.4% of all cases in the county, per data from the Shelby County Health Department. 

David Sweat, chief of epidemiology for the department, said Friday that the department's best interpretation of the rise in pediatric cases can be explained by the spread of the virus among members of the same household. 

He said that a large number of reported cases continued to be in the 25 to 44 age group and that if one member of a household had the virus, it was likely to spread to others. 

"We have active disease in the age group that is the prime age group to be parents of young children," he said. “It’s likely due to household spread." 

Kids as asymptomatic carriers 

When kids do return to school, McCullers said, he anticipates that the number of reported infections in that age group will rise. Because most kids have mild symptoms, he suspects that many pediatric cases of COVID-19 are going undetected.

In an interview with 92.9 ESPN Thursday, McCullers said that returning to school could prompt more community transmission and trigger the community to "pull back" and consider more protections. 

But because kids have generally mild infections, the biggest worry in a return to school could be for the adults kids interact with, be it teachers they'd see daily or the family members they return home to.

At a press conference Thursday, Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department, said data will inform the return to schools.

"As we move back toward school, that's many months away," Haushalter said, "so we'll be continuing to look at the data as we move closer to school reopening, and make recommendations to leadership ... on the decisions that they need to make to prevent spread in their particular schools."

McCullers said that widespread testing for kids could be less of a priority than for teachers, suggesting that teachers might become priority population alongside health care, service industry and other frontline workers. 

So a return to school could prompt a desire to learn more about how kids have already been impacted by COVID-19 and whether they had mild or asymptomatic infections, McCullers said by phone Thursday. Just as kids are required to have regular immunizations for school, there would ideally be a way to keep record of who had been exposed to COVID-19, whether through testing for the virus or for antibodies. McCullers recently tasked some researchers to prepare an antibody study among kids. 

When kids return, there will need to be infrastructure in place to continue to contact trace. Schools would need to be prepared for the possibility of closing and reopening. And the city may have additional, fluctuating restrictions, he said. 

"I think we’re all in the dark on this one," McCullers said, adding that so far, he's felt much more confident on back-to-business advice. 

Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino