After roughly a month of required distance learning, the Governing Board decided unanimously to reopen schools. The only caveat: a strict set of vague, varying, and unfollowable rules.
In order to maintain in-person school, the school board has mandated that masks should be worn at all times by students and teachers alike. This is necessary to ensure the spread of COVID-19 within our district is as low as possible.
This is good, however, unclear rules have been set about the kinds of masks allowed to be worn by students. Nothing is stated in the school handbook, and the back to school guidelines are no help, either. Only word of mouth prevails, leading to a mess of conflicting results.
If there was more clarity and structure to these rules, I would understand them better, however, the school has done a poor job of communicating them to the student body.
Another example of rules that aren’t enforced are cafeteria protocols. Perfect social distancing is practically impossible given the size of the school, but many tables are numbered with the amount of students allowed at them. However, these numbers are being largely ignored by the students and staff.
Before school starts, students are supposed to go directly to class, but that is rarely the case. Whether it’s by the cafeteria or in front of the library, students still congregate to talk until the bell rings. Many students have barely seen their friends since quarantine, and it makes sense for them to want to catch up before school starts. Although many sympathize with that, it is for the safety of the students to follow orders and for teachers to ensure that people stay in line.
If the district has these policies, they should at least enforce them; however, they appear to do little more than to wave their fist at students who ignore them.
Some teachers are making sure students are only wearing solid color masks, even though the rule about that is new and not posted anywhere to be found. Other teachers are breaking the rule themselves because even they do not know that there are rules about it.
Although the rules may be vague and unclear, that might not even matter. As long as they are working to keep us safe, who cares if they’re clear or not?
While any protocols are good protocols, the obscurity of these rules causes much confusion, and confusion only means more work in the end for the staff to deal with later. Clarity is an important part of having rules in the first place, and without it they quickly become futile.