Benefits of Reopening Schools

The Benefits of Reopening School by: James Lee Jr

This image shows the classroom environment while Covid-19 began to arise and students are distanced.

During the pandemic, schools and other educational facilities were closing for its students, teachers, and staff. As time goes, we as a country are deciding the impact of reopening schools and how things might be different because of the sake of the virus and its spread.

There are many benefits of reopening schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, which may help alleviate the risk of exposure to students and staff.

Hybrid learning vs Remote learning!

Hybrid learning is the combination of both the experience of learning in class and receiving online instruction. Students can attend a course for the given days available to them, and other days they are online.

Remote learning is when the student and the teacher aren’t physically together, but they engage through online platforms.

Learning Abilities

As schools are opening up, many school districts figure out a strategic plan to allow students to attend school and learn. These include the options of remote learning and hybrid of person.

Remote learning enables students to be at low to the exposure of the coronavirus. The option of remote learning allows parents to feel much safer than sending their child to school and potentially exposed to someone else who’s carrying the virus unwarily.

For students with learning styles such as kinesthetic learners, they can interact with other students and teachers. Because of this learning style, it allows them to have a face to face interaction while also learning to their efficiency and needs.

Many students find it best for them to attend school face to face because they are visual learners. Given the option to participate in a classroom setting, it decreases the chances of being distracted at home.

A benefit of hybrid learning is the capability to receive face to face instruction from the instructor. When a student is home and struggles to understand an assignment being able to consult the teacher allows them to hear the instructions formally in a more traditional setting, where they can ask questions or elaborate.

Students Need Socialization

The lack of engagement between students can negatively impact the social growth of students. During the pandemic, students were mostly home with their families with no other interactions with other students, which affects how they learn to communicate with people outside of their family. The CDC includes “In an in-person school environment, children more easily learn how to develop and maintain friendships, how to behave in groups, and how to interact and form relationships with people outside of their family.”

Being able to interact with other people besides family allows you to build relationships with different people. The school enables a child’s mind to develop interacting skills with peers. Getting exposure to other human beings with similar age outside the home constructs interaction, creating broader kids’ perspectives. In “The Importance of Parent and Child Interaction” it states “Social interactions for young children usually happen within the family, but as children grow and develop, they want to play with other children.”

Schools provide access to clinicians, therapists, and counselors. These services serve as an outlet for students dealing with social and/or emotional challenges that may hinder their ability to learn effectively.

When students face issues within their homes, they seek out their school counselors for emotional guidance to help them get through. Many times it’s hard for students to stay sane and deal with the problems that faze them. They should get things off their chest with someone they feel comfortable outside of their home.

Covid-19 prohibited students from using the resources that were made available through schools. It took away the access for them to get help with social/emotional issues and past trauma. Allowing schools to reopen enables students to be secured with their problems successfully.

Nutrition

In low-income neighborhoods, many families can’t provide sufficient meals needed to take care of the children. Most students depend on receiving their meals from the schools that offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The “Food Research and Action Center” includes “School lunch is critical to student health and well-being, especially for low-income students—and ensures that students have nutrition they need throughout the day to learn. Research shows that receiving free or reduced-price school lunches reduces food insecurity, obesity rates, and poor health. In addition, the new school meal nutrition standards are having a positive impact on student food selection and consumption, especially for fruits and vegetables.”

Some families can’t provide the necessary meals for their children. The reasons might consist of low paying jobs, medical bills are high, and they might not have the time to prepare a meal because of labor hours.

When someone is making minimum wage or just a little over, and they have a family to provide, it makes it much difficult for the parent to meet every need of the child(ren). Sometimes they’re only making enough to pay the bills to keep the lights on or water running.

Also, low-income families are usually vulnerable to medical ailments. They don’t have the medical insurance to cover their bills. The parents may have to pay a significant portion of their medical cost upfront, which puts them at a setback.

The workforce for struggling families is devastating. When you are working a job and making minimum wage or less, you often would have to take on an extra load of working hours. More hours take away the time for parents to prepare a meal for their child because they’re not available to attend to their homes to make sure things are taken care of at home.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/reopening-schools.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/16/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s
https://www.masslive.com/springfield/2020/07/springfield-public-schools-to-start-2020-2021-school-year-two-weeks-late.html
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/should-schools-reopen-kids-role-pandemic-still-mystery

California parents weigh risks, benefits of sending kids back to school

https://trainingindustry.com/glossary/remote-learning/

What Is Hybrid Learning?