Many Parents Are Demanding That Schools Return To In-Person Learning

Parents are growing restless in some Boston suburbs. Nearly one year into the pandemic, many say they are fed up that schools remain either closed or open only part-time.

"Kids should be back in school," said Chris Brezski, a father of two in Newton. "I'm disappointed we are where we are right now."

President Joe Biden said over the weekend that “it’s time for schools to reopen safely,” repeating the lone word “safely.” But defining that has been one of the most vexing political questions of the coronavirus era. It's been a decision that has also been left largely to local leaders, sleepy school committees and vigilant teachers unions as the scientific knowledge about the virus unfolds.

But in many of the state's most coveted suburban zip codes — places where families move precisely because the schools are so good — parents say remote education is failing their kids, and no one is doing anything about it.

Groups like Bring Kids Back MA, Bring Kids Back US, Somerville Parents for Equitable & Safe Opening, #OpenTheSchoolsPlease in Newton and others have rallied for reopening. Frustrated parents in Bring Kids Back MA have circulated a petition symbolically voting "no confidence" in the state's largest teachers union, the Massachusetts Teachers Association. It now has more than 7,000 signatures.

Members say their communities lack the political will to bring students back despite new evidence from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which suggests that schools are safe with masks, handwashing and distancing.

"My innner mama bear has been unleashed, and I didn't even know I had it," said Beth Humberd, an administrator for the group, which now has about 2,500 followers on Facebook. "I'm just so sick of people saying, 'Put the kids first.' There has to be a way to figure this out that isn't displacing every bit of risk on these children."

That sentiment is raging in some places. Video of a Virginia parent who came unhinged at his local school board meeting went viral in late January. Brandon Michon screamed at the Loudon County school board that the "garbage workers who pick up my [expletive] trash risk their lives every day, more than anyone in this school system. Figure it out!"

It's not quite so explosive in Andover, an affluent town north of Boston, but it hasn't been smooth sailing either. Many teachers refused to enter classrooms last fall, citing safety concerns. The union took a "no confidence" vote in the superintendent, but the schools reopened part time in the fall. The superintendent also stepped down mid-pandemic to move to Oregon at around the same time classes went remote due to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Students recently returned to classrooms, but only part time.

Merrie Najimy, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, declined to comment for this story. Bringing kids back means bringing teachers back too, and Najimy and other union officials have said they want to return when schools are safe and well-ventilated, which the union says varies from district to district. An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation also found that one in four teachers nationally have an underlying condition, like asthma or diabetes, or fall into an age category that puts them at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19.

Needham parent Melissa Bello said she is sympathetic to the enormity of the task schools face in order to reopen and the logistical hurdles of distancing students on buses and during lunch periods. But there has been little effort to find creative solutions, she said. Where are the outdoor classrooms, the summer school planning sessions or the efforts to fix the busing dilemma?

"It feels like we're just stuck here," she said.

Bello's two elementary school children have been attending school two mornings a week since the fall, and she said she sees no sign of that changing. She was alarmed to see that teachers were recently pushed back in the state's timetable for vaccination. But now the CDC says the shots are not required for returning to classroom learning.

"I think they've got to figure it out," she said. "Our kids' academic, social, emotional well-being is on the line. And again, you've seen some districts figure it out. I don't understand why others can't."

Parents and teachers are natural allies, but that relationship has deteriorated in the pandemic, said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. The current rancor between parents and the union, he said, is the most intense of his 40-year career. He suggested the pandemic has given the teachers unions a public relations problem.

"A lot of parents find that they can't go to work, because they're taking care of their kids, [or] there's insufficient child care," he said, "and they want to kick the nearest shin."

Koocher said the pressure on "well meaning, civically engaged" and mostly unpaid school committee members has also been unprecedented. While he hasn't seen a surge of resignations, he's concerned that young people won't want to run to replace them because they'll be under attack "from Day 1."

Political watchers have also raised suspicion that the new parent activists may be funded behind-the-scenes by dark money interests. Last June, Mo Cunningham, a political science professor at UMass Boston, dubbed some activist parents "Right Wing Reopeners" in a blog post. Humberd and other parents deny any right wing agenda.

But interest in running for local office is surging, if parents' posts on Facebook are an indication. Other parents are simply taking their children out of public schools and enrolling them in private or parochial options.

"We bascially just voted with our feet, or our wallet, depending on how you look at it, and walked out of the public school system," said David Goldstone, a Newton lawyer and parent.

Goldstone enrolled one of his daughters in a private school earlier this year due to his concerns that schools would not reopen in person. It wasn't an immediately appealing option, he said, as the son of two public school teachers. But he said he thinks learning has suffered as a result of pandemic politics.

"What's so frustrating about Newton is that we're so far behind all our peers," he said. "So if you look at Brookline, Wellesly, Needham, Sharon, Lexington, they all have been hybrid since October, or September in most cases."

And increasingly, parents are expressing concern about what they view as a new nightmare scenario on the horizon: schools staying closed next fall as new variants of the virus spread in the United States.