Parents and students wait to enter a school on August 16, the day of back to school in California.ROBYN BECK / AFP
The return to the classroom in the United States has started with controversy.
Some 56.4 million students, from kindergarten to high school, have returned in person, or are about to do so, after more than a year of distance learning.
Another 20 million young people will return to universities in the next six weeks.
The political division around the masks between Democrats and Republicans has transferred the tension to the beginning of the course in the country, even despite the expansion of the delta variant.
While a dozen States have made the use of face masks mandatory for students and teachers, nine States have directly prohibited them.
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"You are not on our side!" "We know who you are, you can go freely but we will find you!" "There is a place for you in hell!" These were some of the shouts and threats that a mob of anti-mask parents dedicated to Michael Miller, a health analyst who recommended the use of the garment at a school board meeting at a Tennessee college. "You have been used to dealing with sheep ... Now get ready to deal with lions," a former military man yelled to the members who voted to recommend it for students and teachers. "Take off that damn mask!" A woman yelled angrily at Miller, who fled fearfully from the scene in his car.
Scenes like these, increasingly hostile, have been frequent in recent weeks. In Northern California, a man beat up a teacher on the first day of school when he saw his four-year-old daughter leave school wearing a mask. In Texas, another parent violently ripped a teacher's mask off a teacher at a meeting to meet teachers.
An analysis by the Center for the Reinvention of Public Education, a nonpartisan research body, notes that nine states (Arkansas, Arizona, South Carolina, Florida, Iowa, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah) prohibit the use of the mask in the centers. In Texas, until August 19, school districts weren't required to report positive cases to schools and teachers. Gov. Greg Abbott, one of former President Donald Trump's most fervent supporters, has waged a legal battle to prevent the Pfizer vaccine from being mandatory for public officials. The State is below the average number of immunizations, with only 47% of the population protected.
Florida has chosen a similar path. It prohibits the mandatory mask and avoids requiring the vaccine for teachers. The southern state, however, is currently suffering its worst moments in the fight with the pandemic since the coronavirus arrived in the United States. The entity governed by Republican Ron de Santis has registered an average of 220 deaths a day this week, the highest number in the entire country. Hospitalizations have also increased at a dangerous rate during August with more than 17,000 patients admitted. Many schools have opted for common sense and have imposed measures that contravene the prohibition decreed by de Santis.
A survey by
EducationWeek
, a trade publication, conducted among 1,242 educators at the end of July, indicates that 86% are vaccinated. Only one in ten educators is not interested in receiving the drug, a minority that has been highly visible in several conservative states. The two most powerful teacher unions in the country, the National Association of Educators and the American Federation of Teachers, have spoken out in favor of the vaccine, but local authorities have the final say. In 36 states they have let school districts make the decision, while another 13 have banned the requirement for the vaccine for students and teachers. Only California and Washington, two Democratic West Coast states, have made vaccinations mandatory for teachers.
The Los Angeles school district, one of the largest in the country with 600,000 students, reported on Wednesday the first outbreak in the State of California, which returned to classes in a staggered manner since August 11.
Authorities detected 11 cases, seven of them related to each other, in a Hollywood school, sending an entire classroom home.
Countywide, about 2,300 minors have tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of school.
The figure rises to 6,500 minors (one in every 70 students) who have missed at least one day of school since August 16, after being quarantined or having been in contact with an infected person.
Only one school out of a thousand has been forced to close its doors in an emergency, but the center quickly reopened them.
Control measures
New York and Los Angeles, the nation's two largest school districts, are doing their best to keep the pandemic under control. In the Californian city, students must undergo an antigen test once a week. Teachers should have both doses of the vaccine by October 15 (there is more flexibility in other parts of California). The use of the mask is mandatory. The Los Angeles government also designed an
app
that allows entry to classrooms every day after students respond if they do not have any symptoms of the disease. The tool, called Daily pass (daily pass) created large bottlenecks with waits of up to 40 minutes in the first days. The authorities have affirmed that they will be perfecting it.
New York, which will see a million students return to classes on September 13, has also opted for tests as one of the pillars of the new cycle. The city government will randomly test 10% of the unvaccinated adult population in schools every 15 days. Later in the season, and with parental consent, students will join the show. When a positive case is found in a classroom, only unvaccinated close contacts should undergo a mandatory 10-day quarantine. That same closure period will be used for schools that register an outbreak. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday that the city's 148,000 teachers should be immunized by September 27. Chicago, which returns to school Aug. 30, will also require mandatory vaccination.
The president, Joe Biden, has gone on the offensive because of the attitude of the Republicans, whom he described as "blind to their blindness." The president ordered his Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, to take legal action to prevent states from banning vaccines and masks for minors. The Administration also seeks to increase the number of vaccinated among the population between 12 and 17 years of age, which barely exceeds 30% immunization despite having the drug available since mid-May. 61% of Americans age 18 and older have received at least one dose and 52% already have both. The most difficult to convince is the population aged 16 and 17, who have only been vaccinated 3.3 million. There are no approved vaccines for children under 12 yet.
The law has shown signs of being on the same page as the Biden administration. The Supreme Court denied a few weeks ago a motion promoted by eight Indiana University students, who asked to cancel the center's request so that those who wanted to attend face-to-face classes this fall would be vaccinated. Otherwise, students would have to take classes online or withdraw from the semester. The failure can later become a weapon in a fierce battle.