School v.s. The Pandemic

I’ve been thinking a lot about this school situation we are upon during this pandemic.

People are torn on rather schools should open or close.

My first thought was how can they even consider opening schools when cases keep rising every day.

I thought to myself there is no way I would send my child to school right now. How can parents feel at eases sending their child back no matter how hard they struggled with virtual learning... how can they not see virtual learning is the best option and in my opinion the only option.

I then begin to think of what would have happened if there was a pandemic when I was a child?

My thoughts on the situation changed as I looked at it from a different perspective.

I realized it’s not that some parents are at ease to send their child back to school but it may be the only option they have to keep food on the table.

I grew up with my mom being a single mom. It was always just my mom, my older sister, and me. Just the 3 of us!

Sometimes my mom would work 3 jobs and we would stay home alone.

We were taught from a young age never to open the door for anyone even if it’s someone we knew.

Never to turn the stove or oven on... not even the iron.

My sister liked to sleep in and I was an early bird so my mom taught me I couldn’t wake her up until the big hand got on the 9... I remember staring at the clock waiting for it to hit the 9 to wake my sister up so she could pour me a bowl of cereal to eat.

My mom would leave Lunchables in the fridge for us to eat during lunch and TV dinners for our meals.

She always called us throughout the day to make sure we were ok. Sometimes coming home for a quick nap before she had to go to her next job.

We knew we had to behave and couldn’t let anyone know we were home alone.

Now as a parent I can’t imagine ever having to leave my young kids home in order to work to provide for my family.

But this is the reality of a lot of families. So be careful when your quick to judge why someone might be eager to send their kids back to school on campus...

The wealthy will be able to hire tutors so their kids won’t fall behind.

But let’s face it

Some things everyone just not able to do.

I know some schools are handing out computers for kids to work on but let’s be honest some families struggle to keep the power on ... how will the students connect to WiFi?

I say all of this to say I still think virtual school should be the only option! However, parents shouldn’t have to worry about losing their jobs and worrying about who will watch their kids while they go to work.

We are literally in a pandemic... we're all going through this together! My only hope is we can lead from the heart and realize kids need to be home and in some cases, the parents need to be as well.

Why can't we create a law that people can’t lose there jobs during a pandemic if it’s something they can’t work from home? Send out heart funds every 2 weeks so people can pay their bills and not worry about the essentials.

Its sad to think about but the reality is if something like this doesn’t happen the education gap between the wealthy and poor will increase.

I pray we can all come together during this time. For the sake of the kids, teachers,

parents, essential workers... and humanity!