Franklin Matters: "Yes, kids should be going back to school in the fall"

Thursday, June 25, 2020

"Yes, kids should be going back to school in the fall"

When Dr Erin Bromage says that he had wished he had written an article like this, it is share worthy. The one aspect author Joseph G. Allen doesn't cover in this opinion piece is the impact/risk for the school personnel (teachers, administrators, etc.) who are more at risk than the children.

"I’ve spent more than 10 years as a forensic investigator of “sick buildings.” The stakes were often extraordinarily high: a hospital where four people had died and hundreds were at risk; a factory where workers were at risk of getting an irreversible respiratory disease called “Popcorn Lung”; a military base where housing was suspected in the deaths of 11 infants.

In all of these investigations, I was asked, “Is it safe to go back in the building?” If, after the appropriate controls were in place, my answer was “yes,” I always paused for one final gut-check question: Would my answer be any different if my family was involved?

When people ask me whether schools are safe during the coronavirus pandemic, I ask the same question: Would I let my kids go back to school in the fall? The answer is yes.

Let’s first acknowledge a hard truth: Widespread school closures come with devastating costs."