OK, let’s pretend that Covid-19 is especially lethal to kids and that extraordinary steps need to be taken to open and operate our public schools safely.
Let’s pretend that the state of Pennsylvania’s guidelines for reopening schools are not totally insane, laughable and unrealistic.
Let’s pretend that the nannies and medical experts who came up with the multitude of new rules about social distancing in classrooms, wearing masks on the bench during baseball games and testing every kid every day for sniffles knew what they were doing.
Here’s a link to all of the guidelines. Try not to laugh or want to leap from your roof.

It’s pretty obvious that by the time teachers do all their required paperwork and monitoring each day, they will have about 10 minutes to teach something.

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Anyone who thinks the state’s bus guidelines should get a big fat F raise your hand.

Here are the state guidelines for school buses:

BUSING

  • Require students and parents to perform a symptom screening prior to arriving at school or the bus stop each day.

  • Bus drivers and passengers must wear face coverings while on the bus.

  • Promote social distancing at bus stops.

  • Load the bus by filling seats from back to front to limit students walking past students to find a seat. Do not seat students in the front row of the bus.

  • Assign seats by cohort (same students sit together each day) or encourage students from the same family to sit together, or both.

  • Use tape marks to show students where to sit.

  • Open windows, if weather allows, to improve ventilation.

  • Disinfect buses after each run. Thoroughly clean and disinfect buses daily.

  • Have all students wash their hands or use hand sanitizer before or immediately upon entering the school.

Here is a comment by a school bus driver who actually works in the real world, not the fantasy world that the guideline writers live in:
I drive a township bus and find the bus rules laughable.
1. Assign seats by cohort (same students sit together each day) or encourage students from the same family to sit together, or both.
– Not happening, when I have 6 stops with 60 students and 10 minutes to get them to school.
2. Use tape marks to show students where to sit.
– It’s a bus. The answer is obvious. WTF?
3. Disinfect buses after each run.
– I make back-to-back runs from HS to MS to Elem, some public, some private, with about 5 minutes in between. I barely have time to stay on schedule by driving the speed limit. I have NO time to clean between runs.
4. Bus drivers and passengers must wear face coverings while on the bus.
– 70 screaming kids and you want me to police them or watch the road? Can’t do both.
5. Promote social distancing at bus stops.
– The kids stand in mobs at the bus stop, then bum-rush the door when I arrive. WHO is going to patrol these stops to ensure social distancing? Not me.
There is a nation-wide shortage of bus drivers. If they press ahead with these outrageous demands, then I’m hanging it up. It just doesn’t pay enough to deal with these headaches.
Here’s a link to the National Homeschool Association. A lot of you young parents are going to need it.
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