By Pericles
Most kids have stayed at home in the spring semester and the summer because of the coronavirus. There have been many debates about whether kids should go to school or not. In my opinion, it is beneficial for kids to go to school in the fall. We should consider the risk and benefit for kids, their family and other people to make a decision.
In school kids can learn better than remote learning at home. Some students do not check into remote learning. In the St Louis park school district 4168 students are absent in May. In Los Angeles, 15,000 high school students are completely absent. At home lots of students do not have internet access. Kathryn de Wit, manager of the Pew Charitable Trust’s broadband research initiative said, “Getting online isn’t an option anymore, and if you don’t have that connection, you’re pretty much cut off.” At least one in four rural Americans lack high speed internet service. In school, kids do not need to worry about not having the internet. Teachers have better supervision on all students on site.
School provides lots of services to students in addition to traditional learning. They provide food for 300 million kids. For some children, especially homeless ones, they will lose the safest place they have if school is closed. Some students even get their clothes washed in school. The school also provides special learning services for people who have disabilities like autism and dyslexia. Parents can’t provide these services even if they are home.
School is also important for families. “Even for parents who can work from home, home schooling is often a crushing burden that’s destroying careers, mental health and family relationships,” the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg writes. What’s more, the unemployment benefits are ending. Parents have to go back to work to earn money. In school, kids can have social interactions and a good environment.
Some people say kids should not go back to school because it is not safe. But there is no clear evidence that shutting down schools will stop the spread of the coronavirus. There have been 126,000 deaths in America. But only about a dozen were kids ages 5 to 14. People ages under 20 have a half chance of getting the coronavirus than old people according to a study in Nature. Measures can be taken to make school safer. School can require kids to wear masks, wash hands, and keep social distances.
In conclusion it is beneficial for kids to go to school in the fall. Kids will have better learning, receive more services at school, and it will help families. Safety can be improved by taking necessary measures.