Schools across the nation’s capital and its suburbs are expected to welcome more than 200,000 students back to classes Monday, marking a full-scale return to in-person learning for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began.
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Children in face masks will stream into school buildings in D.C. and Montgomery County in numbers unseen for nearly 18 months, as first-day traditions are remade by the persisting health crisis. Monday is also the first day in Virginia’s Arlington County.
Classes are largely back to their old schedules, with five days a week of instruction across grade levels and school buses doing pickups throughout the suburbs. School employees are required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo weekly testing.
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But while many older students have been vaccinated, those under age 12 are not yet eligible for the shots, leaving many of their parents worried about infection as the delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread.
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Among families with young children, “there isn’t a parent I know who isn’t watching the numbers and what’s going on with pediatric cases and the variant and asking, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’” said Cynthia Simonson, president of Montgomery County’s countywide council of PTAs.
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In the District, nearly every traditional public and charter school student will be returning to the classroom Monday — with just more than 100 of the school system’s 52,000 students receiving health exemptions to stay home and remain virtual.
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But as cases continue to climb, a growing number of parents and city officials are calling on Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and Schools Chancellor Lewis D. Ferebee to allow more families to switch to virtual learning.
They say more stringent health protocols are needed in schools, pointing out that safeguards such as social distancing are more relaxed than last year to accommodate the return of all students.
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Ferebee was unswayed at a back-to-school event Saturday where city officials unveiled the new $135 million Benjamin Banneker Academic High School building in the Shaw neighborhood.
“We are going to have school Monday,” he said, drawing out his words for emphasis. “It’s a long time coming.”
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In Montgomery County, the largest school system in Maryland, officials expect an enrollment of nearly 160,000 this year, with almost 3,000 students who met application requirements enrolled in a new Virtual Academy. As the opening of school has neared, more parents have inquired about virtual learning, officials said.
Jennifer Martin, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, the local teachers union, said educators have been busy preparing for the new year. “They are so relieved that we are going to be teaching in person,” she said. “They just want to be with kids again.”
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As was true last school year, parents and teachers had different takes on the risks of returning to classrooms.
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Some wanted a more robust program of coronavirus testing of students.
Some want a stronger emphasis on time outdoors, especially for lunch or other occasions when students take their masks off.
And some had lingering questions about classroom ventilation.
Sarah Taylor, a physician and mother of three in Potomac, said she was happy her children would be starting the year inside classrooms. She noted the county’s strong vaccination rate and that students will be masked at school.
“We have to learn to live with this,” she said of the virus. “It’s not going anywhere.”
On Sunday, the family was getting haircuts and filling backpacks. Each of Taylor’s children — in second, sixth and eighth grades — had a new mask to wear Monday and planned to ride the school bus. She was seeking as much normalcy as possible, she said.
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“I can’t wait for them to go back,” she said. “Any risks posed by covid are outweighed by the mental health risks to my children of staying isolated at home on computers.”
She and others pointed out that while cases have risen in Montgomery County, the number of county hospitalizations and deaths do not appear to be climbing in the same way.
In the District, parents, even apprehensive ones, said they would be showing up for the first day. Many attended community events where they could pick up supplies for their kids. Serve Your City, a community group in Ward 6, gave away nearly 1,000 backpacks and 500 tablets and laptops to children Saturday at a plaza outside the Eastern Market Metro station.
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Phillip Bealle picked up backpacks and computers for his three children, who are slated to start school Monday in-person at Wheatley Education Campus.
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“When the virus was first coming out, I was like, ‘I’m never sending my kids to school again,’ ” he said. “Now everyone is starting to accept the fact that we have to live with this.”
Shanan Brown, who has four children in traditional public and charter schools in the District, said she would keep them home if she could. Absent a virtual option, she said her four children will be in their classrooms Monday.
“My kids are excited,” Brown said. “I’m semi-excited, but due to covid, I don’t think they are going to be in school too long.”
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Pandemic risks continue to loom large for others, too.
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Brenda Green, a middle school teacher in Montgomery County, wishes there were more safety measures in place, especially a robust coronavirus testing program. Green lost both of her parents to covid-19 in March — excruciating losses that she doesn’t want others to experience, she said.
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Though fully vaccinated, she is making her own routine of weekly testing, she said, and will wear a high-quality KN95 mask.
“It’s hard to know whether you have it,” she said. “I feel a tremendous responsibility to know I am not passing it on to my colleagues, the students or my family.”
More schools in the Washington region will mandate masks in the fall
Earlier in the summer, school systems around the region adopted mask mandates.
Last week, Maryland officials took steps to require masks in schools statewide regardless of vaccination status.
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With infection numbers rising in the region, school officials expect some students and staff will test positive or be quarantined. That has already happened in Virginia school systems that opened earlier in August.
Last week, students returned to public schools in other portions of the D.C. area, including in Fairfax and Loudoun counties and the city of Arlington in Virginia. The first day of school in Prince George’s County is Sept. 8.