Daydream believing is not a plan

Personally, I find this less than shocking:

One of the first school districts in the country to reopen its doors during the coronavirus pandemic did not even make it a day before being forced to grapple with the issue facing every system actively trying to get students into classrooms: What happens when someone comes to school infected?

Just hours into the first day of classes on Thursday, a call from the county health department notified Greenfield Central Junior High School in Indiana that a student who had walked the halls and sat in various classrooms had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Administrators began an emergency protocol, isolating the student and ordering everyone who had come into close contact with the person, including other students, to quarantine for 14 days. It is unclear whether the student infected anyone else.

“We knew it was a when, not if,” said Harold E. Olin, superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation, but were “very shocked it was on Day 1.”

In any jurisdiction where the virus hasn’t been crushed — and in the U.S., that’s almost everywhere — it is very, very obvious that just going remote and letting people plan for that is the best option. Openings that end up collapsing after the schools become hot spots are bad, and if Little Trumps compel schools to remain open even after they become hotspots that’s the worst of all. And this of course applies to higher ed too.