In the age of pandemics and the impact upon all of us, the issue of children going to school is a polarizing topic. The question came to mind: “Do I have to send my kids (children) to school, by law, if I don’t want to? As you can imagine, this opened up a whole Pandora’s Box of issues and topics. So when did it all start – that we have to send kids to school? 

Like pretty much every law that governs our society, the roots of compulsory education can be traced back to religion. In ancient Judea, Jewish leaders mandated that parents had to give their children, at a bare minimum, an informal education. Now, what this “education” looked like no one knows. But what we DO know is that rabbis founded a number of schools in those days and encouraged parents to start sending their kids when they attained the age of 6. It wasn’t until the Aztecs came along in the 15th and 16th centuries that we actually saw mandatory school for all children. Go figure, the country that the U.S is so adamant about in building a wall to protect us from started compulsory education. 

Not all education is compulsory, however. Exceptions such as homeschooling and private school education exist in all 50 states. But virtually every state in the union sets the age of when children must BEGIN school and how old they must be if they want to DROPOUT. But the state that gets the moniker of “1st” in terms of compulsory education in Massachusetts when it passed the Compulsory Education Law in 1852. Soon thereafter, other states followed for a variety of reasons, including to discourage the exploitation of child labor. 

So what happens if you are a parent and you don’t send your kids to school? The penalties range from being charged with a misdemeanor to 30 days in jail, depending on the state you are in. Of course, there are other diversion programs to gain compliance for the best interests of the child. 

This brings us to our next point of “Parens Patriae.” This concept basically stands for the principle that the state is the true parent of all its citizens (i.e. a child) and that the biological parents of a child are simply custodians of the minor. This concept is what allows a state agency to take custody of a minor if the best interests of the child are not being met or, worse if there is abuse occurring in the home. This concept is what obligates biological parents to follow the law when they have children and compulsory education issues are at hand. 

Education has always been deemed a state issue (more or less). The federal government does not get involved in these issues or weeds. When you couple this with the poor guidance and leadership from the federal administration and ALL of its branches you are back to square one with looking solely to your state and local governments for guidance. This “local rule” is what controls in the majority of states and can be summed up as the state allowing the county to control local matters and the county (in most instances) allowing the school board to control. This concept of “local rule” allows each governing body at the local level to drill down what’s best for that city or county. A quick example of this would be in Florida. When you look at Miami-Dade County (a metropolis of sorts) the needs will probably be remarkably different than say a rural county like Okaloosa.

So what to do? On the one hand, you have the states demanding that children start school again and on the other hand you have safety concerns that your child (and even your entire family) may get sick and die with a pandemic that has run amuck in the entire world…with no end in sight until a vaccine is produced. And even then… 

Teacher’s unions and other “adult” groups are suing the states in order to either prevent or demand that schools be closed or opened. The lawsuits are a culmination of the barrage of information (true AND false) that has been disseminated in such a way so as to politicize the subject. Wearing a mask, or not, has become a symbol of your political party and not rooted in science and data. The lawsuits working their way through and up the court systems have a reference point already with churches that filed suits early regarding the right to worship and the prohibitions issued by the local governments and states preventing gatherings in excess of a certain number of people. A court in the Midwest already determined that the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens supersedes such gatherings and that there is no offense to the concept of separation of church and state. 

But does the above court ruling (or any other court ruling) really give a foothold to groups seeking to maintain remote learning over in-person school attendance? That’s a tough one to address. Why? Because science and data are being released as to the negative impacts on children regarding remote learning. The balance now that is up for consideration by the courts is whether or not the child’s social integration and well being outweigh the health concerns at school or at home regarding infections. Personally, I see it as a no-brainer: remote learning wins. 

HERE’S WHY: 

1. There is an avalanche of data already that suggests that children are very resilient to Covid-19. The mortality rate is minimal. But tell that to the parents of the children that have already died as a result of the virus. I find it incredible to think that ANY parent can live with ANY percentage at all of their child dying from the disease just because they wanted to send their kid back to school to socialize. If there are parents out there that accept the risk…interpret my silence…

2. The virus does not know whether you, as a parent, are a republican or a democrat – they are all getting infected and dying equally. Nor does it care. Sending your kid (or not) to school is not a political statement. It is a life or death decision. Maybe not for the child (if you can live with the percentages that he/she may die) but most definitely for the parent and grandparents of the child; the data on older people dying are not made up and the child, if infected, can kill their parents and grandparents. Again, if there are parents out there that accept this risk…interpret my silence…

3. This is not a cold or the flu. And no, the flu has not killed more than Covid-19. The CDC estimates that 61,000 die from the flu in the US each year. At the time of this blog (August 2020), over 176,000 people have died in the US from Covid-19. Science and facts…not politics. 

So, we have the basics in hand now as to where compulsory education came from; the issues surrounding sending kids to school or not; courts interpretations on other issues bound to be used om whether parents have to send your kids to school or not; AND science and data. What do you do? I will cop out here and tell you what “I” would do having had the privilege of raising two daughters who are now 29 and 28 years of age that are healthy and fit as a fiddle. I’d do remote learning and figure out a way to do EVERYTHING else in my life as a result. That includes seeing to it that my children don’t suffer social or educational setbacks and that I figure out my work situation to keep them sheltered, fed, and safe. It’s the deal that I made with myself, as a father, that I would put their lives before mine in EVERY situation and not be governed in my actions based on a political party or who is sitting in the Whitehouse; my actions are based on science and data for the betterment of my children. ALWAYS! And if you think I’m wrong, that’s okay. I just can’t envision any “remote” possibility (no matter how slight) wherein burying one of my children is an acceptable outcome – school or anything else for that matter.