From the Fringe … It's up to us to make sure kids get the chance to return to school

Allow me to sound like broken record for a few minutes. But, I promise, it’s for a good cause.

Last week, I wrote a column imploring residents of Havre and Hill County, and really, residents of humanity, to continue following the basic guidelines that help stop the spread of COVID-19, so that we can protect our health care workers.

The timing of that column came as Montana Gov. Steve Bullock announced his plan for beginning to re-open our great state of Montana.

Now I’m asking for the same thing, but with an added mission.

Earlier this week, Havre Public Schools announced what most people probably already assumed — that they will not be going back to face-to-face instruction this school year. In that way, HPS is no different than hundreds of other school districts around the USA in that, it just isn’t the right time to start to school back up again.

Montana schools have been out since March 13, and now, that seems like an eternity ago. But in that stretch, we’ve learned so much about the coronavirus, and here in Montana, we’ve had a combination of doing a great job of flattening the curve, while also being very lucky that, our curve wasn’t as bad as most, including all of our bordering states. 

And still, as much progress as we’ve made, and, as we slowly start to open things up, I think HPS, and so many other districts made the right call on not returning to the classroom for the final month of the year. It was the right call for our students, our teachers, staff and our community.

Yet, we now must look to the fall, and in my humble opinion, it’s going to be what we do next that decides whether our kids will be returning to school in some sense of normalcy come late August. It’s really going to depend on what we do now.

What do I mean by that? The same thing I said last week about what do we do now that we’re opening up. And it’s really quite simple. 

If we do the things that have gotten us to this point, like social distancing, sanitation, and a basic respect for each other’s health, then I believe we’ll continue to tamp down the virus, keep it bay, and as a result, school can come back for the 2020-2021 school year. 

And make no mistake, these kids want school back. 

It might be easy to think, they’ve loved being out, and they’ve thought of the last three months as an extended summer vacation. But that’s not what I’ve observed. I’ve observed our students in Havre as disappointed and frustrated. I’ve observed them missing school, worrying about their academic progress, missing their teachers, and most importantly, missing the structure that comes with any young individual who is going through the K-12 portion of their lives. 

To keep it short and sweet, what coronavirus has taught us is, a vast majority of our kids love school, and they miss it very much.

And we, as a community, can help them get back there. But, if we don’t do the right things, if we don’t continue to push back against the spread of this pandemic, then, these kids that are now looking towards their next year of school, could be robbed of even more time away from what they know and love. If we screw up the next couple of months, and allow things to regress, these kids will be robbed of even more of the important education that is so vital to their lives, now, and in the future.

Why do I say that with such conviction? Because the bottom line is, no matter how much time we’ve already missed, and even though Bullock said it was OK to go back May 7, if it isn’t safe in August, the governor, and districts around the state will pull back. If the numbers don’t suggest it’s safe for our kids to be in school, they won’t be there. 

Again, to be blunt, nobody is going to put our young people in this community, as well as the teachers and staff that instruct them, in harms way. It will not happen.

That’s why I’m being such a pain in the butt about all this. I want to see our kids in this community back in school. I want to see them be able to continue their educational pursuits, and yes, I want them to be able to do extra curricular activities again, like sports, music, drama and more. In other words, these kids have sacrificed enough. They need their world back.

But it’s up to us now to give it to them. It’s on all of us to do the right thing, and that one thing is, whatever it takes to not let coronavirus get back out of hand again. Do the things that have gotten us here.

And remember, no matter how you or I feel about it, it’s not just about you or I, it’s about them. It’s about the future of our children. They want to be in school, and just by doing what we’ve already been doing since the beginning of March, we can give that to them this fall.