WOODSTOCK, Ga. (AP) – John Barrett plans to keep his daughter home from elementary school this year in suburban Atlanta, but he wishes she were going. Molly Ball is sending her teenage sons to school in the same district on Monday, but not without feelings of regret.
As the academic year begins in many places across the country this week, parents are faced with the difficult choice of whether to send their children to school or keep them home for remote learning because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many are unhappy with either option.
“I definitely think it’s healthy for a child to go back to school,” said Ball, who feels her sons, William and Henry, both at River Ridge High School in Georgia’s Cherokee County district, suffered through enough instability in the spring. “At the same time, I wish they weren’t going back to school right now. It’s very scary.”
Offering parents choices eases some of the problems facing schools. If some students stay home, that creates more space in buildings and on buses.
But the number of families with a choice has dwindled as the virus’s spread has prompted school districts to scrap in-person classes – at least to start the academic year – in cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, as well as parts of the South and Midwest where school is starting this week.