Opening K12 schools is obviously a highly debated and complex political issue. Clearly, the economy is impacted when parents must deal with their children being at home when some parents need to be at a work site and those parents working from home must divide their attention between work, child care, and educational tutoring. The impact of this issue has an equity component as those families with more income can more easily deal with the demands of having their children at home. There is an educational issue with high numbers of students not attending online learning sessions and serious questions about the effectiveness of learning at a distance. There are added issues questioning the health issue with younger children seemingly less likely to be seriously affected by COVID.
This recent NPR article addresses health in ways I had not anticipated. For example, the question of whether children out of school are really less likely to be exposed to the virus. If children are given freedom to leave their homes, the children may be better off in a monitored school setting. The article even noted that there are long-term health problems associated with a poorer quality education assuming I guess that there are permanent consequences to the time in-school learning is not possible.
As I write this post, the Minneapolis/St. Paul suburb of Bloomington had to back away from a recent return of younger students to classroom instruction because the bus drivers responsible for getting these kids to their schools had a spike in COVID.
You have to feel sorry for the administrators and politicians trying to make decisions about in-person education. You have to be sensitive to educators and other school personnel required to return to face to face instruction when an alternative approach to instruction ideal or not is available. As is the case with all adults, any face to face activity raises the probability they will be infected.
Patience. Hopefully, within a month or so vaccines will drastically reduce the dangers of the pandemic.