6. Federal and state governments have not indicated that they are going to relax any educational guidelines for ensuring equity of access, time, or support systems. Nor have they issued any clear guidelines for how to maintain those things doing this crisis. If a child normally works with a speech therapist, that therapy must be provided by law. In order to provide services they typically cannot, nor can students, wear masks. In order to provide services online there are requirements for securing VPNs and other technical resources that many districts do not currently provide (too expensive). If the speech teacher provides the services anyway, they are liable to lose their professional license. If they don't fulfill the required minutes of their students' IEPs they are also subject to heavy penalties.
7. Current recommendations call for daily health screenings of all who come on campus. Aside from the logistics, this is problematic because most screenings don't tell you what you need to know. Fever is a common symptom of Covid19, but 30% of known cases did not exhibit temperatures more than a few tenths of a degree above normal. The presence of a fever could be flu or other illness. Latest info shows the common symptoms of Covid19 include fever, chills, body aches, sore throat, coughing, loss of sense of taste/smell, stomach cramps, diarrhea , and... If you've ever been to an elementary school health office, you'll know that those are present every single day. And, of course, there are a number of people who are completely asymptomatic, meaning they carry the virus, but have no symptoms -But they can infect others. There is also the issue that people who are infected, and will go on to get sick themselves, have a 10-12 day window where they can spread the virus to others, thinking they are not ill themselves.
8. Even removing all extraneous furniture (book cases, computers, reading tables, teacher desk, etc.) from a typical classroom doesn't create enough space for 6-foot social distancing of 30 students. It is not physically possible. Without social distancing, the efficacy of wearing masks is negatively impacted.
I could go on, but the point should be clear: Schools are not prepared to open safely in the fall. There is insufficient space, personnel, and money. While the majority of children's lives may not be at risk, some children, and a lot of staff members will get Covid19 -and many will die or suffer lifelong disabilities. The lack of federal leadership, guidelines, and most important, FUNDING makes the next school year a deadly crap shoot. Many teachers are now asking for schools to remain closed until their counties report a 14-day period of ZERO new Covid19 cases. That is possible if we follow guidelines for PPE and social distancing.