Your local school is failing your community by not being remote

It is 10:45 a.m. on Monday, January 24th, and the Abrome Facilitators and Learners just finished our first meeting of the week. Yes, unlike (presumably) all the schools in Central Texas, we are remote and have been since winter break. Well, sort of for all the schools in Central Texas. I’ll get back to that.

Our first day back from the break was scheduled for January 3rd, but recognizing that cases were quickly rising, we postponed our start date by a week to better assess the situation and to avoid bringing Learners back for one day before having to go remote. We told families that the lost week would be made up for by reducing spring break from two weeks to one. As expected, the numbers released by Austin Public Health on January 3rd pushed us into our risk level 5, meaning we would be remote for a while (assuming that institutions would not take necessary steps to help reduce the spread of Covid-19, locally).

Our remote looks quite different from what it looks like for most schools. Our remote is about holding space and maintaining connection with the Learners, knowing we will eventually get to come back together. During remote we host our daily morning meetings and afternoon roundups, and we host weekly Set-the-Week, Check-in, and Change-up meetings. We try to schedule 1:1 meetings with each Learner each week, with additional meetings for those who want it. And we schedule a variety of offerings that might be of interest to Learners, and support Learners who want to host their own offerings. We encourage Learners to attend Abrome meetings and offerings if it works for them, and to not attend if it does not. We have the flexibility to do so because we are a Self-Directed Education community, meaning we do not burden young people with a forced, narrow academic curriculum during pandemic times, just as we did not during pre-pandemic times. Nonetheless, remote is still an exhausting experience for our Facilitators, and a less than remarkable experience for most of the Abrome Learners. The Learners want to be together playing, creating, conversing, and learning together; and they want to be able to do it emergently, instead of according to an online schedule in a virtual space where attendance can be sporadic.

Conventional public and private schools cannot allow Learners to choose a path that works best for them during remote. Those schools rely on compulsory attendance, so the freedom to participate or not is anathema to them. But, because they are in the business of delivering academic curriculum to captive cohorts of students, they can quickly shift their product to remote delivery, as they had done in the spring of 2020. They could even do so relatively competently, assuming the schools are willing to support the teachers with the time and resources to do so. I am not saying going remote would be easy for them. Being remote is an inconvenience to the schools, and they would need to deal with irate parents demanding that their kids be in school, but the essential function of schooling remains the same. For the teachers, remote schooling is still exhausting. And for the students, remote schooling is certainly unremarkable.

But no matter how inconvenient or how poor the quality of remote schooling can be, no schools should be meeting in-person right now during this most infectious wave of the pandemic. Because schools are sites of transmission (including for superspreader events) every school had a social responsibility to their local community to go remote as soon as we entered into a period of uncontrolled community transmission of the disease, meaning every school should have been remote since the winter break. And every school that failed to do so (which I believe is every school, locally) now has a social responsibility to immediately go remote. Unfortunately, there are not many people in Central Texas, and virtually zero institutions, who agree that.

Many argue that because infections due to Omicron are “mild” relative to Delta infections that we should continue sending kids to school. Problem is, “mild” can still cause serious illness and death. In fact, daily deaths are higher now, nationally, than they were during the Delta wave, because of the extremely high number of infections. It also ignores that even “mild” illness can lead to long Covid and potentially very serious long-term medical conditions or disability that will shorten or greatly reduce the quality of life of millions of people.

Others say schools should be open because kids are unlikely to die from Covid-19. They’re also unlikely to die from a drunk driving accident, but few would advocate putting them in the car with a drunk driver. Further, like for adults, the consequences of infection are not a simple binary of live or die. Kids who get infected can still suffer greatly during the initial infection, they can suffer from long Covid, and an unknown number may develop serious health conditions that they will need to live with for years or decades into the future.

But even if they want to roll the dice on their children’s health, or other people’s children’s health, those who demand that schools stay open erase from the conversation all the adults who work in schools. Should teachers and staff sacrifice disability or death just so kids can go to school? The reopen schools crowd eagerly ignores the existence of the adults in schools each time they say “the kids will be fine if they get infected.”

And even if the lives of the school teachers and staff do not matter (to the open schools now crowd), each infection that is facilitated by in-person schooling leaves the facility at the end of the day and goes into the broader community. Each one of those infections can infect household and family members (kids have parents and guardians, too), they can seed superspreader events, and they can be the source of a mutation that creates a new variant.

And because of the aggressive spread of this disease, with record numbers of infections, even though it is “mild” compared to Delta, it is straining the capacity of the medical system, and it is crushing the spirits of medical workers who have been struggling to save lives for the past two years, largely without the support of the rest of society. This means that even if the “only people” who die from Covid-19 are those who “refuse to get vaccinated” or “had underlying conditions,” people are going to indirectly die from medical care they cannot get for other conditions because of the inability of the medical system to deal with the surge. By the way, those who refuse to get vaccinated and those with underlying conditions shouldn’t be dying from a disease that we can prevent from spreading.

There is simply no ethical medical or social justification for schools to be open right now. Kids are not safer at schools. Kids’ mental health is far more impacted by being surrounded by mass disability and death, and by adults and institutions who refuse to protect them. And as stated before, kids are also not the only people in schools, and schools are not separate from the broader community. Perhaps the most compelling unethical justification that can be made for schools to be open right now is that businesses need schools open so that their workers do not have to stay home with their kids during working hours. If we assume that keeping the wheels of capitalism turning is more important than the health of society, I guess we can accept the contribution schools are making to mass disability and death.

But, other than the ethical piece, there is another big problem with that argument. When infection becomes too widespread, the wheels of capitalism will begin to slow down. When people are seeing large numbers of their friends, family, and acquaintances getting infected, and some suffering greatly from it, many of them are going to modify their behavior. That modification may include staying home whether or not businesses or schools like it. It may lead to them dropping out of the workforce, or unenrolling from covid petri dish schools. It may lead to them withdrawing from engaging in the consumerism that the economy is built upon. And even if enough people are willing to risk infection, to work through infection and the lingering effects of infection, and are willing to head out into public while infected (as is now encouraged by business and the government), wide-scale illness will eventually leave businesses and schools without enough employees and customers to operate.

And we may be on the cusp of that right now. We were greatly saddened that schools did not preemptively go remote at the end of the winter break, when this wave was upon us. We had hoped that the schools would take their responsibility to their local communities seriously. Instead, they brought students, teachers, and staff together and contributed to the spread of the disease. Yes, public schools have the Governor to deal with; and they must deal with business interests, politicians, and parents who demand schools stay open; and with grifters who seek to profit from promoting the most selfish aspects of our nature; and they need to concern themselves with seat time for the sake of revenue. And yes, private schools also have to deal with much of the same else enrollment may plummet when families pull their kids from school because they don’t want to pay full tuition for remote schooling. But none of those pressures justify in-person schooling.

As of today, it looks like some schools in Central Texas are finally going remote or closing, at least for days at a time. But they are not doing it to stop the spread. They are doing it because they don’t have the ability to keep schools open because too many teachers and staff are unable to work because they’ve been infected or exposed (or disabled or killed). The schools should have gone remote during this most infectious wave of the pandemic before exposing the people they are supposed to care about and serve to the disease within the walls of the schoolhouse. The least they can do now is to go remote to help cut off routes of transmission within the schools, and into the community, so that we can expedite the end of this wave.

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Cover photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash

One year into “pandemic schooling”; let’s never return to normal

One year ago today, on March 30, 2020, we ‘returned’ remotely after an extended three-week spring break that allowed us time to better understand the threat of the burgeoning Covid-19 pandemic. Given the rapid spread of the disease; concerns of medical systems being overwhelmed; the ballooning number of heartbreaking stories of harm in places as unfamiliar and familiar as Central China, Northern Italy, Iran, and New York City; and the uncertainty about the longer term effects of the disease on those who survive; we realized that we could not wait around for local, state, or federal agencies to determine our response to the pandemic. 

At Abrome, we have always sought to center the needs of those most impacted when making decisions. While that most obviously meant that we would need to prioritize the wellbeing of the members of our community who were most at risk of serious illness from the disease, because we are all interconnected we would also need to concern ourselves with the impact of our decisions on broader society. In time, and unsurprisingly, it became apparent that in addition to the elderly and those with certain underlying medical conditions, the worst consequences of the disease disproportionately fell on Black, Indigenous, and people of color, as well as those without material resources. It was this expectation that led us to our April 1, 2020, decision to remain remote through the end of the 2019-20 academic year. 

In June we published a living contingency planning document that would uniquely allow us to be together more safely this 2020-21 pandacademic year. We took everything outdoors (in physically distant small groups, for three week cycles at a time). Because we are a Self-Directed Education community that has never been stuck to the practices and structures of schooling, we were able to transition to being fully outdoors rather seamlessly. As a result of our community's dedicated efforts (and some luck), one year in, no one in our extended community (Learners, immediate and extended families, Facilitators, housemates, and dedicated pod members) has contracted Covid-19.  

Now, as vaccinations roll out and as Covid-19 numbers trend down, it seems everyone wants to "return to normal." However, "normal" was never good enough. That "normal" prioritizes academics over relationships, and success over solidarity. It tends to have some combination of age segregation, forced curriculum, personalized learning apps, homework, testing, grades, and forced exhibitions (with some Covid-19 security theater sprinkled in); but what it has never had was a respect for the autonomy of children. "Normal" also ignores the cost of schooling on young people and on communities, especially during this pandemic.  

Our approach to the pandemic has been a continuation of what we have always done at Abrome--prioritize community care. We believe in the power of community, and centering the needs of the people most impacted is one of the hallmarks of a strong community. We are proud of the way we have put community over convenience, and people over profits during this pandemic. Post-pandemic, we will continue to reject the "normal."

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Cover photo by Taylor Wilcox on Unsplash

The Emily Oster problem

Yesterday, unfortunately, Emily Oster’s latest essay “Your Unvaccinated Kid Is Like a Vaccinated Grandma” was published in The Atlantic. The subtitle declared, “Parents should bet on vacations with their kids this summer.“ I’ll explain why this essay being published is so unfortunate after I properly introduce you to the author.

Even if you haven’t heard who Emily Oster is, you’ve surely heard people parroting her continued dismissals of the risks of Covid-19 in school settings. Emily Oster belongs in a grouping with people such as Scott Atlas and Heather Mac Donald who peddle Covid-19 misinformation with no regard for the harm they cause.

Emily Oster is an economics professor at Brown University who has made a name for herself by wading into parenting and education topics and taking contrarian positions. That in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing given how parenting and education narratives are so often off the mark. However, when it comes to Covid-19, her contrarian positions are wrong, and have slowly become mainstream, and therefore have become a threat to public health.

Early in the pandemic she began to track the rate of COVID-19 spread in a small sample of schools, and has used this data to push for the reopening of schools. There were a whole slew of problems with her survey though, starting with it being self-reported because the schools that were most eager to participate would most likely be the ones to take the pandemic more seriously. How do I know there were problems with the survey? Well, I originally tried to participate in the survey because I wanted Abrome to contribute to anything that could help us better understand the threat of Covid-19 to educational settings and to the general public.

When I signed up to participate in the survey I was disappointed by the very narrow options that were available to describe our approach to bringing Learners (“students”) and Facilitators (“teachers) together outdoors (“at school”) during the pandemic. I emailed them to let them know the limitations of the survey and never received a response. I did, however, receive endless follow up emails asking me to complete the bi-weekly survey.

What I did not know at the time was that the survey was strictly a reopen school propaganda campaign under the guise of "science." She would use the data collected to push her reopen schools argument, as opposed to using the data to help inform her whether or not schools should be reopened.

Boasting a data set that includes more than 3 million students and 422,000 teachers and other school staff, she has repeatedly used the data to show lower rates of positive COVID-19 cases among students and teachers than among the rest of the local population. What she does not explain is that the data is not a fair representation of what is happening in schools nationwide, nor does she give context to the numbers. For example, in even the most nonchalant schools they have implemented at least some Covid-19 protocols, which should decrease the rate of infection relative to say bars, restaurants, and office settings.

But, at least before variants such as B.1.1.7. came on scene, yes, younger people tended to contract the disease at lower rates, suffer less serious consequences from it, and there was for a long time a belief that young people may also spread the disease at lower rates than the general population (this last claim seems to no longer have merit). And when students make up the majority of the schooling population, the risk to teachers in schools with safety protocols should be lower than say the risk to bartenders, waiters, or office personnel. So is that an argument for reopening schools? No. It is an argument that perhaps bars and restaurants should be closed before schools get closed, which she has said, but it is not an argument that schools should reopen.

Wait, how do I know that it was a propaganda campaign? Well, because she essentially admitted it in a recent Freakonomics podcast (h/t @wsbgnl on Twitter). She said that she was tired of having her kids at home when schools shut down and “was eager to dispense with them to an outside location.” And that her role is to advocate for the reopening of schools, as opposed to allowing the data and the developing scientific understanding of the risks of spread in school to shape what she uses her platform for.

Oster was pushing for the reopening of schools right up until and through the latest wave that shot us past 400,000 and then 500,000 deaths, and she continues to push for it. Even though this has been in many ways a “lost school year,” she continues to argue that schools should reopen for the last few months of the year. But with so little time left in the school year, isn’t the window on her reopen school grandstanding coming to a close? Nope. She is just going to shift her focus to what happens over the summer. And the article I started this essay with is a great example of that shift happening, and because she has become so influential, it will be to the detriment of public health.

In the article she argues that although those under the age of 16-years-old cannot yet be vaccinated, that young people should be treated as if they are vaccinated, so go ahead and bring them to BBQs and take them on vacation! She is wrong. Let’s break down some of her claims in the essay.

But the best available research indicates that families with young children don’t, in fact, have to live like it’s 2020 until 2022. Parents can go ahead and plan on barbecues and even vacations. The explanation for why lies in the resilience of kids to COVID-19, and in herd immunity.

Response: The best available research does not support her claims in this essay. But it has become commonplace for people to make broad statements like this without pushback, in large part because so many people are like Oster, tired of having their kids around. Or maybe they are business leaders who want their employees to come back to work.

Children are not at high risk for COVID-19. We’ve known since early in the pandemic that they are much less likely to fall ill, especially seriously ill. Although scientists don’t quite understand why, kids seem to be naturally protected. As a result, you can think of your son or daughter as an already vaccinated grandparent.

Response: What constitutes “high risk”? The same nonsense is pushed by Covid-deniers who claim that Covid-19 has a 98% “survival rate” (down from their prior claims of 99.97%, 99.7%, and 99%). Young people do fall ill, they do fall seriously ill, and some of them do die. The fact that kids have these bad outcomes highlights that kids are not “naturally protected.” And no, you cannot think of your child as an already vaccinated grandparent.

Think about a grandmother who’s received, say, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Trial research indicates that the second shot reduces her risk of serious illness by about 95 percent. …

Being a child aged 5 to 17 is 99.9 percent protective against the risk of death and 98 percent protective against hospitalization. For children 0 to 4, these numbers are 99.9 percent (death) and 96 percent (hospitalization).

Response: Here Oster focuses on hospitalization and death as a distraction from infections so that she can say that being an unvaccinated child is akin to being a vaccinated grandparent. But why would she do that? Because,

The central goal of vaccination is preventing serious illness and death. From this standpoint, being a child is a really great vaccine. Your unvaccinated first grader appears to have about as much protection from serious illness as a vaccinated grandmother.

Response: WRONG. While vaccines help prevent serious illness and death, the larger goal of vaccination, as the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services highlights, is to “help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and bring this pandemic to an end.” Oster conveniently focuses on the individual benefits of vaccines while ignoring the population benefits. That is why she talks about hospitalization and death rates, but not infection rates. Vaccines help prevent the spread of the disease that ultimately leads to serious illness and death. Just because kids are far less likely to be hospitalized or die than elderly folks does not mean they don't spread the disease.

Oster knows exactly what she is doing with this sleight of hand. Her persona is now wrapped up in dismissing the risks of Covid-19 to children, and to the people children come into contact with (e.g., teachers, parents, grandparents). She did not care if your children spread the disease to their teacher, and she does not care if your children spread the disease to older people while on vacation to Disney World or Costa Rica, or at a family reunion where grandma is going to want to hug little Jane and Johnny.

Later in the essay, after Oster makes her argument that kids should be treated as if they are vaccinated, she acknowledges that unvaccinated kids are “more likely to contract it than a vaccinated grandmother,” even thought it is a certainty at the population level. But she buried it enough in the essay that her talking points will get repeated without the necessary context. She also waives off the buried semi-acknowledgement with a herd immunity defense, for anyone that reads that far.

When you think about socializing or traveling with your children this summer, remember that you’ll likely be traveling around in a low-disease environment with the equivalent of your vaccinated older parent. But with more whining. Maybe.

Response: Your unvaccinated kid is the equivalent of your vaccinated older parent only if we focus on the risk of hospitalization or death to the unvaccinated kid and vaccinated grandparent while ignoring the risk of either contracting and spreading the disease to others. This is reason enough to ignore what Oster has to say about Covid-19 and kids. She does not care about the impact of an infected kid on the rest of society.

Also, we should make it a practice of not listening to people who dislike kids (whether they whine or not).

——

Cover photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

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Update 3/19/21 @ 4:10p: it looks like lots of people are responding with similar outrage to the profoundly horrible essay by Emily Oster. For example:

Day 99 of AY20-21: “That’d make schools like prisons … more.”

Thursday would be day 99 of our pandacademic year. I got some great news early when Facilitator Lauren told us that she was able to schedule her first Covid-19 vaccine shot for Sunday. This means that by next week all three Facilitators will have received their first shot, and that by April 18th all of us will be fully vaccinated. While another wave of infections is likely in progress, it feels so great to know that there is an end in sight for this pandemic. [Side note: please get vaccinated when you get the chance.]

I spent a good amount of the morning writing prompts about the The Teenage Brain by Frances Jensen for a book group conversation I was facilitating that evening for the Education Conversations book group at my local public library. I found the book to be pretty awful and I tried to write prompts that allowed for us to dive into some of the awful advice that was given. It took me longer than expected, but I eventually finished and then worked on a daily blog post of an Abrome day which I ran out of time on. I then headed to Abrome for the day.

While the in-person cell I am not in has had every Learner showing up each day this week, the in-person cell I am in has had one Learner missing each day. Thursday, however, was the first day that every Learner showed up, which increased everyone’s mood for the morning meeting, especially the Facilitators. One of the Learners volunteered to be the game master and he had us stand in a circle, jump in when ready to talk, but asked everyone to wait three seconds after someone finishes before speaking. During announcements I said I would like to chat with some Learners one-to-one and asked if anyone was interested, and two Learners said they would like to talk. Everyone then shared their intentions for the day and “one way we can add positively to your experience this next week.” The responses to the latter were morning hikes, bring sun screen and finding stuff to do, finally going into the water tomorrow, telling jokes to get me to laugh, staying in the shade, more people bringing bikes, bringing mountain bike tomorrow, and water. I took two things from the responses: 1. not everyone picked up that the question was about next week, not tomorrow, and 2. people interpreted the “we” in different ways—most focused on what they could do individually, and a couple focused on what the group could do.

After the morning meeting, half of the group headed down toward the lake, one on a bike with a GoPro strapped to her helmet, while I headed up the hill with two adolescent Learners for my morning hike. We quickly scaled the hill and at the top I prepared for my morning meeting with the remote Learners while they sat down and chatted with each other.

Morning remote meeting

I was pleased to see that all Learners in the remote cell showed up for the meeting. We shared what we were doing and one of the Learners told me that he wrote an email to Greg Abbott the day before saying, “it’s a dumb idea to open up 100% and it’s especially a dumb idea to end the mask mandate.” He got no arguments from the crew. We then shared what we planned to do with the day and then we jumped off the call. It’s clear that the morning meeting is more about holding space than anything else, and I just keep hoping that they’ll all be in-person after spring break.

After the meeting with the remote Learners was over a Learner who has been with us for a couple of years asked me when we were going to India. Last year, in the earlier stages of the pandemic, I had conversations with Mridul who helped start Abrome as an idea way back in 2014. He is living in Delhi and running a school there, and they wanted to connect and get to know each other through shared online offerings when schools most everywhere were fully remote. The idea was to get them to build connections, and then they’d visit us in Austin, and then we would visit them in Delhi. But we are a Self-Directed Education community, so we were not going to mandate their attendance, but we highly encouraged it. Unfortunately, the Abrome Learners did not show up for the online meet ups, and the hopeful plans fell by the wayside. When I told him this there was a moment of realization of the need to show up for the things that you want. I was surprised to see the lesson learned nine months later.

Morning vibe by the water

The Learners decided they did not want to stay up on the hill too long on this beautiful morning, and we walked back to the lake area and joined up with the others. As we walked down toward the others one of the Learners jumped out at us with a light saber and with that came a lot of energy that was just much more than the other group was feeling at the moment. Apparently two of the Learners were in a deep conversation, while another two were editing videos.

Meanwhile, in the other cell about ten miles away the Learners decided to slow down to honor their tired bodies. They focused on hanging around the creek bed after a stalemate in where they wanted to go for the day. The day consisted of some mini-excursions but other than that it seemed they were focused on having a restful day.

Two of the Learners spent much of the day painting with water colors. One of them put her effort into creating a really great adaptation of the Abrome logo that should be put on a shirt. As the day moved on their interest in painting moved from paper to natural objects such as rocks and branches, and then they pulled out some duct tape to create more complex pieces of art.

Their interests evolved throughout the day, and eventually took them to a screen where they watched a YouTube video on simulating conflict and game theory that an adolescent Learner posted on our Discord channel. They then used a search engine to look up what some of the largest trees on earth are, and then they dove into learning more about banyan trees. One of the Learners then pulled out a book and began reading it with the others. It was a slower day that really met the needs of all the Learners.

Back at the cell that I am in the Learners were quite active, moving around, walking, biking, or tossing the football around to each other. Facilitator Ariel meanwhile set up a linktree that we could post on the Instagram account.

On this day, just like the prior day, the local school district had scheduled a half day and around 2:00 p.m. a bunch of high school students began to stream into the park for a day party. Having discussed the difficulties of being around so many unmasked people the day before, we packed up and decided to move to a more secluded part of the park. We walked toward the waterfalls, although one Learner felt that she needed some time alone and went off in another direction to think before joining back up with us.

At the waterfall that we settled on we settled in and did what we were doing elsewhere—talking, thinking, reading, playing. I pulled out a new book on homeschooling during the pandemic that I’ve found to be far better than anticipated.

Some of the Learners (who were probably “bored” if we look at it from a schooled mindset) started to play with rocks in the water that was flowing over the waterfall. Eventually they started stacking the rocks to dam up the waterfall. Working together they realized that their dam was at a poor spot because it was on a downslope that would easily be overtaken, and they identified some better spots where the dam would redirect the water. They largely cut off the flow of water down the channel that was cut in the rock, and then they broke the dam to the enjoyment of all.

The Learner who needed space later joined back up with us, and the conversations and play continued. One Learner who needed to cool down dunked his head in the stream. I continued to read. Facilitator Ariel took some GoPro footage from within the stream. And then we held our afternoon roundup and called it a day, and walked back to the pick up point where most Learners’ rides were waiting for them.

After all the Learners left, Facilitator Lauren called us and we reflected on our day with an after action review. During this call I reflected on three pretty great quotes that happened during the day:

• Learner speaking to another Learner: I almost didn’t come to Abrome so that I could stay with my friends at public school. Then I came here and found better friends.

• Me: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like being at Abrome?
  Learner: a six.
  Me: What would make it better?
  Learner: on second though, a seven.

• Facilitator Ariel: I used to use my watch to reflect light on the wall behind the teacher.
  Me (in jest): that’s why schools shouldn’t have windows.
  Learner: That’d make schools like prisons … more.

Day 98 of AY20-21: Community over convenience

When I woke up on Wednesday morning I wrote up Reopening Texas is homicidal in response to Governor Greg Abbott lifting the statewide mask mandate and declaring that all businesses would be able to operate at 100% capacity beginning next Wednesday. I created an Instagram post that said, “We wear masks. We are staying outdoors. Community > Convenience. People > Profits.” And later that morning when I was in-person with the Learners I used my daily Instagram video to address the situation. As I said in my blog post, it is foolish, premature, dangerous, and homicidal to loosen up the already laughably low safety practices with another wave of infections on the horizon.

I get that people are tired. I get that this has been a very long year. And I get that many people want things to go back to the way that they were before the pandemic. But acting as though the pandemic is over is not the way. Lives are still on the line, and the best way to “go back to normal” would have been to wear masks, not congregate indoors, and stay home when possible. But I also get that political interests, business interests, and a disregard for the lives of invisible people are powerful drivers for pretending that Covid-19 is in the rearview mirror.

For the record, I don’t want thing to go back to the way that they were before the pandemic. I want a more liberatory world for all people, including children and adolescents. I want a world where those with the most power do not profit off of the exploitation of those with the least power. I want a world where those in power are held to a higher standard than those with the least. And I want a world where one’s “freedom” to irresponsibly put the lives of others at risk is suppressed in favor of modifying our behavior to protect others in a form of solidarity with those who are most at risk. And while I cannot individually do anything to fix the mindset of a damaged and sick society in the moment, we can all continue to take the pandemic seriously over the next several months until we hit herd immunity. At Abrome we have no intention to “go back to normal.”

One of the adolescent Learners volunteered to be the game master for the morning meeting and he had us stand or sit, in a circle, and participate via pop corn (meaning that one says “kernel” when they’re ready to speak, they say their piece, then they say “pop,” and then they remain quiet until everyone has spoken). Pop corn has been helpful when people are so eager to talk that people get spoken over and conversations go on tangents. Then each of us shared one way that we help make people feel welcome, and one thing we can do to prepare for the Flying Squad day scheduled for next week.

After the meeting I began my short daily hike up a hill for a bit of exercise and to jump on the morning check-in zoom call with the Learners in the remote cell. I treat this daily hike kind of like how I treated the 7-minute workout when we were remote—a morning routine that prevents me from having a fully sedentary day. Two of the in-person Learners decided to join me on this day, and they led the way up the hill. One Learner who was running late also decided to join us at the top when she arrived, but not before being fitted with Facilitator Ariel’s GoPro to document the hike.

At the top I recorded my aforementioned daily update video explaining why we will continue to remain outdoors and mask up, and then I jumped on the call with the remote Learners. One of the Learners said that he wanted to speak to me about college admissions during the call, but I told him that I had not planned for that and wanted to get off my phone after the meeting. We agreed to speak at 2:00 p.m., instead. The in-person Learners with me on the hill did their own thing, being in conversation and exploring together. With the day as warm and sunny as it was one of the Learners spotted a snake. They attempted to keep an eye on it as it moved but the thing was nearly invisible at times. It was not venomous, although the Learners never got close enough for it to matter anyway.

Around lunch time the Learners decided they were ready to head back down the hill and toward the lake. I asked if we could stop to refill our water bottles along the way, and we did. Then, we proceeded down a path toward the lake that on Monday had at least a million ants on it by my estimation. One of the Learners suggested 500,000. Either way, it was an impressively large number of ants. They were carrying leaves from harvest points and taking them back to what was probably their nests. We saw them again on Tuesday. On this day we saw them again, but this time, sadly, most looked dead with a fair number of them looking like they were dying. We debated what possibly could have caused this mass casualty event, and we concluded that it was most likely due to the very cold weather the night before.

At the other cell Facilitator Lauren started the day with breaths for a centering exercise. While the Learners did not take to the exercise, they honored Facilitator Lauren’s practice. She then told them that her intention for the day was to be available to support them and would follow their lead.

One of the Learners and his mom brought marshmallows to share. For the third day in a row the Learners collected small pieces of wood to help fuel the solo stove, fashioned sticks, and then roasted the marshmallows on them. It was a big hit and a great way to start the day.

They decided that they would go to several of their favorite spots on this day, to include to the “hideout” where they played fun bears, and to the “bowl” where they enjoyed the smell of a freshly split juniper tree. There they played a game of would you rather, and they also looked at pictures that they took on the day with Facilitator Lauren’s iPad. It was a fun, peaceful day in the younger Learners’ cell.

By the time I got to the dock after spending the morning at the top of the hill I saw Facilitator Ariel barefoot in the field doing a conditioning workout, with the other Learners on or around the dock. After all the Learners said hi to each other and caught up with each other, one of the Learner’s asked them who would be willing to join her in a 45-minute workout, and three decided to join in.

At 2:00 p.m. I jumped on a half hour call with the 14-year-old remote Learner who wanted to talk about college admissions. The first question he had for me was how to get into MIT, so I talked to him about the college admissions process for highly selective universities, but then I asked him what exactly he was hoping to get out of college. This led us down the path of talking about state colleges and community colleges, as well, to include considerations on price and the opportunities that different colleges confer. The call turned into less providing him with a roadmap to get into MIT than it did the questions he would need to ask himself to determine the degree to which he might need to play the college admissions game to achieve his goals. Currently it looks like he won’t need to play the game based on his stated goals.

While I was on the call I noticed a lot of young people gathering in the park, all of them unmasked. Naturally this led our group to move away from the young people who we found out were students at the local high school. I learned this from the dad of two small children I got into a conversation with after my call, who told me that the entire school district had a half day of school (that day and the next), and that all the students flocking to the park were hoping to take advantage of a moment of freedom from school. The dad asked me about Abrome, my volunteer work at the local public library, and the outcome of my many run-ins with corrupt cops in Austin. It was a nice conversation and I hope that he gets a chance to look up Abrome at home.

We relocated to the middle of a large field where we enjoyed the sun (some of us enjoyed it a bit too much and got burnt). Facilitator Ariel and two Learners tested themselves with round offs and other acrobatic attempts off the grass and off of a bent volleyball post. I checked in with some of the Learners who were just sitting there, some annoyed by being pushed out of the spot they were sitting in before the party rolled in. Then at 3:30 p.m. we circled up for our afternoon roundup. We each shared our feelings about being overrun by school kids, and the feelings ranged from indifference, a desire to be welcoming and kind, frustration in how the kids were acting, to insecure feelings about what the kids may have thought about them. Acknowledging that we cannot be co-located with folks who do not take the pandemic seriously and who could put some of the members of our community at risk, I asked what we could do when they showed up again tomorrow, and the agreement was that we would move away again. But next time we would take a hike to one of the waterfalls.

Reopening Texas is homicidal

Yesterday I was talking to some Abrome Learners when one of them mentioned that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was about to make an announcement of some sort. I immediately thought to myself, “bad news.” Not because I knew the content of what he was going to say, but because he has consistently used high profile, public announcements to score political points in ways that usually harm those with the least political and economic power. I then jumped on a call with some remote Learners, and by the time I got off I had gotten the notification that Abbott was lifting the statewide mask mandate, and later learned that all businesses would be able to operate at 100% capacity beginning next Wednesday. This was not bad news, this was terrible news.

Ever since the beginning of this pandacademic we have watched in abject disappointment at the absence of leadership and the abuse and misuse of power by so-called leaders in this nation from the local to the federal; public, private, and non-profit. Time and again the people who have had the most influence and power have opted for the easier wrong instead of the harder right. This is not a slam on Republicans only, because Democrats are guilty as well. In the United States, the opportunity to rally the base to come out to vote is more important than making decisions that make everyone better off. In the United States, the financial health of corporations is more important than human lives. In the United States, being ‘reasonable ‘means kowtowing to irate and irrational demands that put everyone at risk, while standing firm in defense of those who are most vulnerable is deemed ‘radical.’

At Abrome, we chose to put the welfare of the community first. Not just the Abrome community (although, sadly, that alone would make us an outlier among educational institutions) but also the broader Central Texas community because we understand that all of our lives are interconnected. In a pandemic, each additional infection has the potential to lead to a superspreader event or a mutation that can impact thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of lives down the line—particularly in highly overdispersed diseases such as Covid-19. Last March we extended spring break so that we could further evaluate the situation, and then chose to stay remote post-spring break. On April 1st, with no hope that the pandemic would come under control by the end of the academic year, we closed indefinitely.

Over the coming months we pored over as much research and guidance as we could to figure out if it was possible to bring Learners and Facilitators together in September 2020 while preventing the spread of the disease and being in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable to the pandemic. By June it was largely understood that this was a disease that spread through droplets (and most likely aerosols), and that the best way to minimize the risk of spread (other than staying at home) was to go outdoors, wear a mask when near others, and never congregate in large numbers. That informed our pandemic reopening plan that had us meeting wholly outdoors, only in physically distant small groups, and always masked up when near each other. The only exception to this was at the highest levels of community spread, when we would stay remote.

Our approach should have been copied by every school in the country, yet it was copied by virtually none. Instead, schools (that were being bullied by politicians, parents, and businesses) mostly chose to focus on coming back together again inside classrooms. They could not decouple the notion of schooling from the schoolhouse, so they engaged in pandemic theater: doing temperature checks at the front door, putting electrical tape on the floor to guide traffic, repeatedly disinfecting surfaces, and setting up plexiglass barriers. Schools with stronger teachers unions were able to stay remote despite the bullying that was coming at them. But as the pandemic wore on, the will to hold firm began to gave way. After New Year’s, during the worst stage of the pandemic, almost every school in Central Texas was operating in-person or in a hybrid fashion, against the explicit recommendations of public health officials. In fact, other than Abrome, the only school that I know of that continues to refuse to reopen their facility is the other Self-Directed Education community in Austin, Clearview Sudbury School. Maybe there is something about Self-Directed Education that centers … community.

Despite the insufficient efforts of schools to support students, teachers, and staff, and prevent the unnecessary spread of the disease, and in spite of the many attempts to waive off the risk of the pandemic by politicians, at least Texas did the bare minimum with a mask mandate and capacity constraints. Yes, I know that some states did even less, so technically not the bare minimum. Let’s say it is the bare minimum if one acknowledges that Covid-19 is more dangerous than the seasonal flu. And even though the mask mandate was effectively optional in much of the state, and that the capacity constraints had ridiculously high triggers, at least it gave those ‘leaders’ who were too afraid to insist on the most basic safety practices on their own an excuse to do so with the backing of the state. Sadly, the governor also prohibited local jurisdictions from demanding higher levels of safety practices, so even the bare minimum was not necessarily a net positive as it prevented many higher density local governments from doing more than the bare minimum. But at least there was a floor. Until yesterday afternoon.

By any rational standard, “opening the state 100%” is foolish, premature, dangerous, and homicidal. Just because infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are all decreasing does not mean that the pandemic is over. In fact, cases have plateaued. Just because vaccination rates continue to rise does not mean that the pandemic is over. We are nowhere near herd immunity. And new variants of the virus such as B.1.1.7. are much more infectious and seemingly more deadly. Schools across the state were already needlessly bringing millions of students and hundreds of thousands of teachers and staff together indoors for hours a day. Now we get to add restaurants and bars to the mix. Unmasked.

But what would we expect from a state that left their residents to freeze to death during the worst winter storm in a generation? What would we expect from a governor that threatens to defund any city that dares to “defund the police” (i.e., reallocate resources from policing to services that actually help people)? To be disappointed with Governor Greg Abbott’s announcement to lift the statewide mask mandate and to permit businesses to operate at 100% capacity would have required us to have at least a sliver of faith that he would not eagerly endanger the lives of Texans for political gain.

Our nation refuses to own up to the most harmful aspects of its history, and it eagerly pushes forward without any unifying ethical belief system. We cannot depend on the institutions of society to take care of the people of society, or to shape a healthier society. We must continue to choose the harder right instead the easier wrong. If we do not, who will? We need to prioritize community over convenience, and people over profits. At Abrome, we will continue to wear masks. We will continue to stay outdoors. We encourage every school and business to do the same.

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cover image: World Travel & Tourism Council, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas (26279225765), CC BY 2.0

Central Texas waives the white flag of surrender as schools reopen this week

This week too many students, teachers, and staff will be returning to schools. They’ll be returning to schools even though we are in the middle of a pandemic, in the worst stage of the pandemic, only ten days removed from mass infection events called Christmas gatherings, and less than four days removed from mass infection events called New Year’s Eve gatherings.

All indicators point toward closing schools

Austin Public Health (APH) moved to risk stage level five on December 23rd, the worst stage possible, meaning there is “widespread uncontrolled transmission threatening our healthcare infrastructure.” It’s only gotten worse since then. The positivity rate in Travis County is over 12%, the 7 day moving average of new cases is 505, and the 7 day moving average of new hospital admissions is 74. In spite of the widespread uncontrolled transmission of the disease, and despite the APH recommending that schools consider going virtual for at least two weeks after the holiday break, all of the major school districts in Central Texas are reopening this week. Most of the private schools, as well.

Central Texas schools have waived the white flag of surrender. But why?

The pressure to reopen schools is overwhelming. Public schools fear losing state funding, and private schools fear losing tuition dollars. The Texas Education Agency requires that public schools must provide on-campus instruction options for students, and the Governor of Texas has mandated that there be no occupancy limits placed on public or private schools. Without limitations imposed by the state, schools have largely been unwilling to go up against politicians, business interests, and parents who are increasingly demanding that schools remain open.

But shouldn’t schools simply choose people over profits? Well why should they? They do not benefit institutionally from unilaterally closing. The benefits to broader society would be at their expense (financially or as a going concern). They would help slow the transmission of Covid-19, but without a societal effort to rein in the spread, their closures would be insufficient to stop the spread. Without a unified effort among public schools, the schools would not be able to force the state to give them the funds needed to pay their expenses. And without a unified effort among private schools, the schools that close would lose enrollment to schools that remain open.

So surrendering to Covid-19 is better than financial insolvency, right?

No. It is not. Schools should choose to prioritize public health over the demands of parents, business interests, and the state. Schools should choose people over profits.

Schools like to take credit for training students to be critical thinkers, and training students to become moral citizens. Schools like to promote the racist and classist claim that they are often "the only safe place” for many children. This summer many schools proudly proclaimed that they believe that Black Lives Matter. How can they reconcile such claims with the decision to reopen schools?

Critical thinkers would be able to work out that schools are not magical environments where the disease chooses not to spread. Critical thinkers understand that if bringing groups of people together indoors for extended periods of time is unsafe during a pandemic, then that includes the schoolhouse. Critical thinkers understand that Covid-19 does not have a 99.97% survival rate, that children are able to contract the disease and spread it even if they do so at lower rates, that adults also work in school environments, and that most people in the school environment have family members or housemates that they go home to.

Moral citizens would temporarily put aside profit seeking to stop a pandemic that has already killed 350,000 Americans, and will most certainly have killed over 400,000 by the end of January. Moral citizens would embrace the idea of minor personal sacrifice such as masking and staying home as much as possible over the next several months in order to save perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives, so that we could allow the vaccine rollout to move us toward herd immunity before reopening everything. Moral citizens would acknowledge the reasonable needs of others and accommodate them, instead of demanding that they have a right to do as they please, no matter the costs.

Schools are where people gather with those outside of their household

A safe place for children during a pandemic means a place where they do not need to fear contracting Covid-19. And even if they do not fear it, it means a place where a child does not need to run an elevated risk of catching the disease. A safe place for children is a place that does not allow them to take the disease home to family members who will contract the disease. A safe place for children is a place where the adults they care about are not put in a position where they have to choose between life or employment.

And if Black Lives Matter then schools would not be ignoring the demands of the majority of Black families who do not believe schools should be open. If Black Lives Matter then schools would recognize the disproportionate toll the pandemic has had on Black people because of the racial injustices that are baked into the economy, the health sector, and government services.

Now is not the time to waive the white flag of surrender. Now is the time for the schools of Central Texas, public and private, to fight back. Now is the time to fight for the health and welfare of students, teachers, and staff. It’s time to fight for the health and welfare of the families and household members of students, teachers, and staff, even if they don’t appreciate it. Now is the time to fight for public health so that we can bring the pandemic under control to prevent needless suffering and death. If all the schools opt out of in-person schooling during this period of widespread, uncontrolled community spread then we can win this fight. But that will take a lot of courage from school leaders.

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Cover photo by Jackson Simmer on Unsplash