They Just Keep Closing Schools and Mandating Masks – Reason.com

Chicago Public Schools late Thursday announced that next Friday would be a previously unplanned (paid) day off, for “Vaccine Awareness Day.” Following the same script was the San Diego Unified School District, which also informed parents yesterday that next Friday would likely be off, to “pause” for mental health. “The last 20 months of the pandemic have challenged all of us in different ways. We have heard from many parents and students that their mental health has suffered,” Interim Superintendent Lamont Jackson wrote in a letter announcing the proposal. “That is why we have decided to take the extraordinary step of providing every family with additional recovery time next week.”

The “recovery time” seems more geared toward teachers than for the public school families who are dealing with a third school year marred by capricious learning interruptions. Virginia Beach, Virginia, decided late last month that at least seven Wednesdays going forward will be cut by two hours. In Maryland, both Howard County and Baltimore City have also recently cut back on in-person schooling for teacher “wellness” and “relief.”

Many school closures this fall have been attributed to staffing shortages, despite the record amounts of federal money sloshing through local districts. A tight labor market, plus vaccine mandates, have contributed to the K-12 squeeze.

via reason.com