The Snoop

I hope I’m wrong.

I hope Ava and other local schools reopen safely, and face to face instruction can go on.

I hope band students get to play. I hope the athletes get to compete.

But somehow the return to school this year feels like watching an accident in slow motion. 

High schools and colleges in other areas have already gone back to class.

And reports of COVID-19 related issues are popping up in the news.

An elementary school in Brantley County, Georgia had to close due to staff members testing positive for COVID-19.

Mattoon, Illinois closed a preschool for 14 days due to a positive COVID-19 case. 

Cherokee County Schools in Georgia have had to close three of six high schools. One school alone had 1156 students and 37 staff in quarantine. 

The University of North Carolina just canceled in-person classes.

Just a week after school started. 

349 in quarantine already.

Up in Kansas, an Olathe teacher started keeping track of all the closures nationwide in a shared online spreadsheet.

After more than 700 entries in more than 40 states she’s already having to rebuild the spreadsheet into a more robust tracking system.

Her spreadsheet currently shows 13 school districts in Missouri with positive cases of COVID-19. Her notes indicate entire volleyball teams on quarantine for one school and all athletic team practices suspended at another school.

Just from one case each.

Our kids are grown up and off on their own.

But if we had kids in the local schools?

We’d be opting for the virtual learning route.

For better or worse, I think that’s where it’s going to end up anyway.