We Need to Talk About School Transportation
For schools that are reopening for in-person learning, what happens inside the classroom is just one part of student and teacher safety.
With many school buses at 50% capacity, a safe return to in-person classes is going to mean considering transportation alternatives.
Photographer: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Image
As U.S. schools reopen to debates about outdoor classes and learning pods, one of the most pressing questions on many teachers’ and families’ minds has not gotten its due: How do we get from home to classroom safely?
Earlier this summer, on a Zoom meeting for planning in-person classes at my kids’ Brooklyn elementary school, that other concern hovered in the background. One teacher spoke of the three trains she has to take each day on her hour-long commute. She depended on her septuagenarian parents for child care, and would need to lean on them more once school started. But with a commute like hers, she said, her voice cracking with emotion, she imagined it was only a matter of time before she’d expose them to the virus.