The 2020-2021 school year is one that all educators will never forget. Going back into the classroom in the fall brought a wide range of feelings for teachers, staff, administrators, students, parents, and guardians. Like most restaurants, stores, public transportation areas, and gyms, schools across the country practiced greater cleaning protocols, social distancing of students, and abided by state mask mandates to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Although these practices required more time, resources, and regulation, they allowed for greater things to happen that we didn't think of prior to the pandemic.
With safety protocols in place to limit the spread of coronavirus, flu season was nearly nonexistent this year. According to the CDC, the hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season was just 7 per 1,000,000 people, which is the lowest seen since they started tracking flu season data in 2005. In addition to flu cases being minimal, many students and teachers noticed they did not catch their "back-to-school" cold that many seem to have in the weeks returning to school in the fall. By this, illness was a rarity in schools this year, and that's because of the advanced health and safety procedures that teachers and staff took to ensure a functional school year.
Knowing this information allows educators to question whether certain pre-pandemic normalities are to be returned to once schools are free to fully open. In my opinion, all public settings should keep up with advanced cleaning protocols, as they should have done before March 2020, and schools are definitely one of them. In-depth cleaning of classrooms, restrooms, and common areas were just one factor that led to less germs being spread. For the future, I hope that wearing a mask when sick becomes normalized in schools. As we have learned, wearing a mask when you are sick protects others from contracting your illness, and it is my hope that when teachers or students are sick that they wear a mask when coming to school (or log onto class from home, as discussed in my first post). Lastly, the pandemic has taught us the importance of proper air ventilation with regards to spread of disease, so it's my hope that schools are aware of this and prioritize modern HVAC systems for health purposes.
Although both individual and herd immunity to illness is important for building a good immune system, we as educators must not turn a blind eye to the protocols that helped make the 2020-21 school year happen. Going forward from a year where educators had to continue their classes against a highly contagious illness, it's vital that educators continue the same cleaning protocols, have hand sanitizer readily available, and wear a mask when ill to set an example for the future. This to me is one of the biggest lessons we can learn from last school year.
Source: https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2021/03/30/flu-season
Image source: https://clipart.me/icons/face-mask-on-isolated-white-background-49714
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